A/N: Breaking Bad is the most brilliant and wonderful thing ever, but it is also extremely grim, heart-breaking, and violent. This fic is… not. It shares a premise and some thematic elements, so is still basically a story about criminals and drug dealers — but it's a very sanitised and fluffy one. This and the original BrBa are both crime stories in the way that The Wire and Brooklyn 99 are both cop shows :)

I'm having a blast writing it. I hope anyone who reads it does so too!

'Cancer,' the doctor says.

He says other things too, involving long, complicated words that Ben should be able to understand because he's supposed to be smart, goddammit, but he doesn't hear them because he hasn't really heard anything at all after the word cancer.

And then they're back outside in the baking Jakku heat, although Ben's not sure how that happened, and his mother's patting his arm.

'It's going to be all right,' she says soothingly, as if she's the one who's supposed to comforting him, and Ben's not sure how that happened either. Except he is, because comfort, optimism, hope — that's her thing. That's what Leia Organa does.

'There are treatments,' she says. 'You heard him, Ben. There are things we can do. It's going to be fine.'

He moves his head, but all his muscles and nerve-endings feel numb and he's not sure if it comes out as a shake or a nod.

Treatments. Yes. But treatments cost money. A fuckton of money. And that's something they don't have.

Leia runs a food bank. Amilyn is a painter. His father barely scrapes a living from small-time DUI's and drug busts — hardly enough to pay for those horrible, cheesy, Better Call Solo adverts — and Ben is a high school chemistry teacher. Those are not fuckton of money occupations.

'It's going to be fine,' Leia says, more forcefully this time.

Ben lays a hand atop hers, where it rests on his arm. 'Of course it is,' he says.

She frowns a little, but he lets her search his eyes for a long time. Eventually she nods, seemingly content that he believes it.

Which is good, because he does. Not because the universe is a kind and just place, or because hope and optimism ever did a single goddamn thing for anyone, but because, whatever it takes, he's going to make it fine.

Whatever it takes.

Operation Fuckton of Money doesn't get off to an auspicious start.

Ben checks the job adverts, but while evening/weekend jobs are reasonably plentiful, ones he can actually do are less so, and ones he can do that also pay seven-figure salaries are, unsurprisingly, non-existent. There's one at a local car wash that he considers for a while — mixing practical thoughts of the something's better than nothing variety with fantasies of becoming an international car thief — to the extent of going down there and checking the place out, but then he sees one of his more obnoxious seniors take in a Maserati, and imagines being on the receiving end of the look of casual contempt aimed at the poor guy wiping down the tyres, and that's the end of that idea.

He starts up his Aztek — a far more sensible choice than a Maserati; so much better mileage — and goes back home. Unfortunately, Han is there, and his parents are apparently set on proving the truth of the old adage about thoughts of death making people want to celebrate being alive by having sex. Extremely loud, vigorous sex.

Ben hightails it out of there even faster than he did at the car wash and heads for the one place he can just about guarantee nobody will be having sex: Uncle Luke's.

Luke Skywalker, legendary DEA agent, is not only married to his job but totally and utterly faithful to it. There is, according to Luke, no sexual encounter in the world that can match the sublime ecstasy of taking down the bad guys and making the streets safe for the good, law-abiding people of Jakku. Teenage Ben thought this meant Luke simply had to be doing sex wrong, but Nearly-Thirty Ben, from the vantage point of his admittedly not-tremendously-enormous experience, is starting to wonder. Sublime ecstasy hasn't been a major component of any of his encounters to date.

'It's not too late,' Luke says when he sees Ben. As he always does; that comfort, optimism, hope thing is genetic, apparently. (Ben's personality aberrations are all blamed on his father.) 'You can still join the DEA. We always need good agents.'

Ben rolls his eyes and heroically doesn't point out that yes, it is too late. He's too old to start all over again, and he'd likely be a terrible agent. From what he can tell an awful lot of it involves patience — stake-outs, surveillance, building evidence — and that's never been Ben's strong suit. And it's not as if Luke earns seven figures either.

'Come on a ride-along,' Luke says, clapping him on the shoulder. 'Get a feel for what it's like.'

This is also something Luke says every time, and normally Ben blows him off. But he can't go home, and he's got nothing else to do right now, so… what the hell. He goes.

'I'm just sitting in the back of the car,' he protests, when he's handed a bulletproof vest.

But Luke is insistent, and it's not as if Ben hasn't given enough lectures of his own about the value of proper safety equipment and protocols. He puts it on.

The house they're watching looks perfectly normal, as far as Ben can tell; nothing to distinguish it from any of its neighbours. 'What makes you think this is a meth lab?' he asks.

'Confidential informant,' Luke says, at the same time as his partner says, 'Snitch.'

Luke shoots Poe a look of long-suffering disapproval, and Ben hides a smile. Proper protocols indeed. He wonders if Luke grades his agents' field reports like homework. Probably.

'Our confidential informant says an individual using the name Cap'n Cook operates from there,' Luke says.

'And lives up to the name,' Poe adds. 'But—' he grins as the rest of the DEA squad, all kitted out with guns and respirators, converges on the house. 'Not for much longer.' He rubs his hands together. 'So. What's your bet, boss? We swinging for the record?'

Luke shakes his head immediately. 'No. Not even close. This feels small-time. Singles.'

Poe sinks back in his seat. 'No TV out of this one, then.' He swivels around and looks at Ben. 'Your uncle's got the nose for this stuff. Never been wrong yet.' He sighs. 'Singles it is then.'

'Singles?'

'Single figures. Means we're going to seize under ten thousand dollars, in other words. Not TV-worthy.'

Ben watches the agents take out the front door and storm inside. Ten thousand dollars sounds fairly worthy to him. 'What would be?'

Poe shrugs. 'Last time we were on Channel 3 it was, what? Seven hundred?'

'About that,' Luke says, sounding uninterested.

For a moment Ben doesn't get it — if ten thousand dollars isn't enough to get on TV, how can seven hundred be? But then his brain catches up to what Poe said: if under ten is single figures, then the thousand part of the number is being taken for granted. They don't mean seven hundred dollars. They mean seven hundred thousand.

Ben swallows. 'Is that… normal? That kind of amount?'

Luke gives a casual shrug. 'It's not the most we've taken.'

'Right. Uh huh. So this meth business… it makes a fuckton of money, does it?'

Poe guffaws. 'Oh hell yes. It's easy money, kid.' He thumps Ben's arm. 'Until we catch you.'

'Could we take a look inside?' Ben says. 'See the actual lab?'

Now it's Luke's turn to swivel around, and Ben's to try the casual shrug. 'I just thought it might be interesting,' he offers. 'Seeing as I'm here.'

Luke hesitates for a second longer, then nods. 'Okay, yeah. Just let us go and check it out first. Make sure it's safe. Wait here,' he says, and then he and Poe are out of the car and heading for the house.

Ben leans back against the leather seat, his heart hammering. Seven hundred thousand. Not straight away, obviously, nobody comes in straight at the top level of any business. But you can work up to it. Up to seven hundred thousand.

Movement catches his eye, and he looks up to see a window opening at the condo opposite, and a small figure tumbling out of it onto the porch roof. A small, lithe, semi-naked figure.

Ben sits up straighter as the girl, looking panicked, pulls what looks like a man's shirt over her head. The moment overbalances her and she goes straight off the roof, landing in a heap on the lawn. He winces, but she immediately jumps up and pulls the shirt down. Luckily, the original owner is clearly tall enough that it fits her like a dress.

Said owner is presumably the bare-chested man in the window, frantically gesturing for her to get away from the house. She blows him a kiss then flattens herself against the wall, intent on the action going down in the meth lab on the corner. The panicked expression is back on her face.

Ben stares at her, frowning. Does he… know this girl? Is that… No, surely not… But then something makes her look over at the car, and their gazes lock. And he sees her lips form the word fuck just as he feels his own form the name Rey.

She presses a finger to her lips, her eyes wide and pleading, before darting to a red low-slung Chevrolet parked down the road. The car has a vanity plate: THE CAPN.

Ben watches her speed away, his mouth hanging open.

Rey Niima?

His old student, Rey Niima?

His old student, Rey Niima, is cooking meth?

Not particularly successfully, if Luke's single figures prediction pans out, but then she was never a particularly good student. Never applied herself.

And that doesn't seem to have changed much, if the lab Ben is finally allowed to peek into is anything to go by: it's a mess. This girl doesn't follow any kind of protocol, proper or otherwise.

'No work ethic,' he mutters, drawing a frown from Uncle Luke.

'Or else they'd get an actual job,' he adds quickly. 'These people. Whoever they are.'

'One of 'em's Teedo Plutt,' Poe says. 'Cousin of Unkar, if I know my scumbag families correctly. We've got him squared away, although for how long is anyone's guess, once the lawyers get involved.' He spits on the floor. 'No offence.'

'None taken,' Ben and Luke both say together.

Ben doesn't have many things to thank his dad for, but having an occupation that's even more spit-worthy than ineffectual high school chemistry teacher does happen to be one of them.

'Oh, and you were right, Skywalker: it was singles. No camera crew for us tonight.' Poe waves a roll of notes, then drops it into an evidence bag. Ben can't stop his gaze following it.

'There'll be some paperwork,' Luke says, 'but if you want to wait, Ben, I'll give you a ride home.'

'That's okay,' Ben says, already backing out the door. 'I'm not going straight back anyway. There's someone I need to go and see.'

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

Rey tugs the tarp over her car, then drops onto the garage floor and tucks her knees up under her chin. She'd thought luck was well on her side tonight, to have the DEA roll up while she was out boffing whatever his name is, the guy down the street with the fairly nice ass and the much nicer Camaro convertible. It'd looked like she was going to get away clean and all would be right with the world — it was a bummer for Teedo, sure, but it was kind of an occupational hazard, and better him than Rey herself, obviously — but then she'd looked up and there was Mr Solo staring right at her.

Mr Solo. From school. Who knows who she is. And for some reason, was sitting in the back of a DEA car.

Fuck.

And now he's tracked her down and he's here, in her house, because of course he is. Because luck is never on her side, and she can't believe she ever managed to forget that.

Except…

'I'm not here to turn you in,' he says, hands held up in a non-threatening gesture.

Which is a bit of a shock, honestly, because Mr Solo never struck her as the sort to cut anybody any slack. God knows he never did her any favours when it came to her grades.

So what's he here for, then? To try and save her soul? Rey narrows her eyes and waits for the think about your life choices-type speech she assumes is coming, but he surprises her again. There's no speech, no lecture, no judgement. Instead, what she gets is an offer.

Partners.

'You know the business,' he says, for all the world like this is a perfectly normal conversation. 'I know the chemistry. It'll work.'

Rey just carries right on staring.

Is he high?

Or… is she? Did she hit her head worse than she thought, falling off that porch roof? Did the DEA spray the place with some kind of psychic tear gas? Is she hallucinating right now?

'You want to be partners,' she says. 'With me. Cooking meth.'

'I do,' he says.

She reaches out and pokes him in the chest, because this shit just cannot be real, and okay, said chest is unexpectedly firm under the tragic old man green polyester shirt he's wearing, and he makes this surprised little ow noise, and that's what makes up her mind. Hallucinations don't go ow.

And now that Teedo got pinched she does, to be fair, need a new partner.

She sighs. 'I'm probably going to regret this—' She's already got a seriously bad feeling about it — 'But okay. I'm in.'