Published August 21, 2019

Sorry for the delay in updates. I had a very busy summer. I ended up rearranging some material in order to flesh out a complete chapter to post this month. I hope it is satisfactory. Reviews/comments motivate me to work quickly!

This chapter contains major spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story.

"Hope and Fear"

Whoever is your admirer,
son, he has won my heart;
the love that I lavish on you
he shall have, parcel and part:
seeing he loves whom I love
from the depths of my heart.

~ St. John of the Cross, "Of a Communication," translated by John Frederick Nims

Rey had never been so happy, so anxious, so hopeful, or so afraid. She had never felt such strong emotions, nor so many simultaneously. When she thought about the future, she felt torn between hope for what she could gain and fear of what she could lose.

She tried to sleep the day away, but she had too much to think about. Her mind kept going back to Ben. Truth be told, her thoughts had been gravitating toward him ever since they met.

At first, Rey had not known how to feel about Ben. As a porg, she had seen him as a menace. Even as a human, she sensed much darkness in him. But when they talked, she came to realize he was still like a boy, not quite a man yet. In some strange way, he was as lost as she was.

BB-8 said it had heard Ben say, "This is going to take some getting used to," the first time he saw her transform at daybreak. That sounded as though he planned to come regularly, over an extended period of time. Rey had been afraid to hope that he would do so.

When he had returned the very next day, it had brought more relief and validation than it probably merited, and made her trust him more. After agreeing to learn from him, she was surprised by how disappointed she was when he said he would have to skip one night. She told herself that since she had waited for her parents for years, she could wait for him for a few days.

Training with Ben gave her something to look forward to, and a goal to work toward, in the short term. On Jakku, she had simply been biding her time until her family returned. On Takodana, she had been in a state of uncertainty, afraid to leave the planet yet afraid to be away from Jakku for too long. The lack of water and abundance of hungry scavengers made Jakku a far more dangerous place to transform into a porg. On Takodana she could take shelter in the forest or the lake, and as a human she enjoyed being among the greenery and working for Maz. With no idea how to break the curse, she had lived as though waiting for something—anything—to break through the monotony and help her. She did not know whether learning about the Force would help her solve her problem, but it would at least enable her to defend herself and her new friends.

Connecting with the Force—controlling it, or letting herself be controlled by it—did not seem so daunting when they worked together. Ben was far more learned than Rey, but he never spoke condescendingly to her. He seemed to match her sense of competition, which had helped her survive on Jakku, but with him it was less adversarial, more like a kind of respect.

And then there was last night.

When Rey was a child, the only reason anyone tried to touch her was to make her move or to take something from her. She remembered Unkar Plutt's meaty grip on her arm, shoves and blows from other scavengers and traders who wanted her out of the way or tried to steal her goods. The sorcerer had held her tiny porg body in his cruel hands just to gloat and terrify her.

Ben did not strike her as someone inclined toward physical contact. He moved swiftly and powerfully when hunting or dueling, but he was tense and standoffish when not in the heat of a challenge. Somehow, though, they both relaxed around each other relatively quickly. It was as though they recognized something in each other, both familiar and foreign, similar yet different, that made them trust each other.

Rey had been so completely at ease around him that she allowed the warmth of their campfire and the sound of his voice reading poetry to lull her to sleep. At first she had fought the urge to sleep. On Jakku she never would have allowed herself to be in such a vulnerable position. Even on Takodana, she was wary of the sorcerer and strangers. But she had been with Ben. It was ironic, considering he had tried to kill her when they first met, but now, Rey found that she felt most safe when she was with him. It was not only that she no longer perceived him as a threat. She felt sure that if danger came upon them, he would protect her.

When she had fallen asleep, it had been the first time she slept as a human in months. She sometimes dreamed as a porg, but she dreamed much more vividly as a human. The difference was terrifying.

Rey had experienced nightmares all her life, but after meeting BB-8 and Maz and Ben, her nightmares had adopted a new tone. Before, she had mainly dreamed about being in danger herself, because there had been no one else for her to worry about. Now, she also dreamed about danger threatening the people she cared about, who offered her kindness and company.

Even when awake, in the sober light of day, Rey worried about the risk her friends took by associating with her. She still did not know who had told the sorcerer about her discovery of the Skywalker lightsaber. For all she knew, it could have been any of the patrons who frequented Maz's castle.

Rey might have expected a teacher to tell a student to toughen up, to act like an adult and not cry over a nightmare. Ben had done the opposite. When Rey saw there was no judgment in him, only concern for her, she acted impulsively and hugged him.

She had not even known how badly she wanted to be held, to be touched by someone who cared about her and wanted nothing from her. Even now, as a porg, the memory of Ben stroking her hair, rubbing her back, kissing her head, and holding her hand filled her with warmth and a sense of security in the midst of uncertainty.

After last night, her thoughts regarding Ben were tied to her thoughts about the sorcerer, someone she preferred not to think about. She had a dreadful hunch that thinking about him gave him a foothold in her mind. Though, as far as she knew, he had not been on Takodana since the day he cursed her, she could sometimes sense him—his mood, the general bend of his thoughts—and almost see him, as though in her mind's eye.

Suddenly, as she dwelt on the thought of him, she heard him. It was almost the opposite of the last time he had been in her mind: not only did he know what—or rather, of whom—she was thinking, he made his own thoughts known to her.

"You think he is yours."

Terror seized Rey, as though a cold hand had pierced her skin and squeezed her heart. The other porgs noticed her change of mood but did not do more than peer at her for a moment. Rey tried to summon every ounce of self-control that she still possessed while in animal form.

"You know the truth. He is mine."

Rey considered this, but then felt a strong sense of resolve. No. Not yet. Not ever, if I can help it.

"You think you can keep him from his destiny?"

Who says what his destiny is?

His tone changed, becoming gentler, coaxing. "You can be with him, if you so choose."

Then an image entered her mind, unbidden. In it, she stood as a human in the daytime, though she stood in shadow. Ben was at her side, his hand on her shoulder. Behind them, the sorcerer stood with his hand on Ben's shoulder. Each of them held a lightsaber with a crackling red blade.

Rey squawked, upsetting the other porgs. It was enough of a distraction to banish the image from her mind. No. Not that way.

"I could teach you both. You sense his power, just as I do. Together we would be invincible."

Never.

Rey flew back to the tree where she kept her lightsaber and her blanket. Maz's counterspell had made the weapon her most powerful protection against the sorcerer. But now Rey also associated it with Ben, with their training. Touching it felt almost like being close to him.

She waited alertly, but the sorcerer's voice did not enter her mind again.

Part of her wished Ben would return soon. But another part of her suspected it might be better for Ben if he never came back to her.

Usually Ben only meditated when told to do so. It was a regular part of the padawans' schedule, and Luke sometimes made it a consequence for minor transgressions, particularly those prompted by emotions he deemed too strong. Ben had come to dislike it, but now it seemed necessary.

The fact that he and Rey had somehow shared a dream was puzzling. He was actually quite fascinated by it. But the fact that he recognized the being who cursed her was deeply troubling.

Ben sat on the floor of his room with his eyes closed, his legs crossed, and his hands resting on his knees. He forced himself to breathe in a slow, even rhythm. He relaxed his body, focused his mind, and reached out with his feelings.

Naturally, the first beings he sensed were the ones physically closest to him—his mother and her staff a few rooms away, neighbors in nearby apartments, passersby outside.

Ben tried to reach further, beyond the city, beyond the planet, and finally, with a great effort, beyond the system. He searched for the presence he had felt in the dream, and throughout his life. He knew he would recognize it.

Extending his focus so far was draining, and he felt dizzy as he realized how relatively little space he was covering. Perhaps a search over physical distance was not the most effective approach.

He tried to recall the images and feelings from the dream, and from his own childhood, his own nightmares. Chief among them had always been fear, but there had been other dark emotions at times—fury, resentment, loneliness, melancholy, misery. He tried to envision the creature's gaunt, scarred face, his decrepit stature, details he had only seen clearly in Rey's memory.

It happened slowly, and then suddenly: what he remembered and imagined, he suddenly sensed in the present. Yet he could not see the sorcerer clearly—he was shrouded in darkness, like a veil through which only an outline of a shape could be seen.

"I know you're there," Ben growled. "Why don't you show yourself?"

He was not sure whether the sorcerer would answer. He tried to remain calm when he heard the drawling reply, the same voice he had heard subconsciously in his childhood and audibly in the dream. "I've been waiting for you to call. I was starting to wonder if you ever would."

This was what Ben wanted: an opportunity to demand answers. But apparently an audience with him was what the sorcerer wanted too. Ben would have to deal with him carefully.

Suddenly, a sharp rapping sound startled Ben back into his physical surroundings. His concentration broke, and whatever presence he had sensed disappeared.

"Ben?" It was his mother at the door.

Growling in frustration, Ben got his feet and slammed on the panel to open the door. "What?" he all but spat.

Leia blinked at this unexpected reaction, but she did not back down. "I just wanted to talk to you."

"I'm busy! And aren't you, too?"

"I just finished my meeting, and your father is here. The three of us need to talk."

"You have no idea how important this is!" Ben railed.

Leia folded her arms. "Maybe we would if you let on what you're doing. And don't say we don't have time to listen; you keep passing up chances to talk to us while we're all here."

Ben glowered, hating her logic, doubting she could even wrap her mind around the things he was dealing with. Before he could think of a retort, Leia turned and walked away. Ben decided the best thing to do would be to comply and get it over with.

Han was already seated at the dining table. Leia and Ben sat in their usual spots, but instead of a family dinner, it seemed to Ben like a negotiating table. That, he supposed, was one thing common to the careers of a smuggler and a politician.

Leia got down to business. "We need to talk about what I suggested at the start of vacation."

"About the party?" Ben clarified.

"Yes. Korr—my intern—has everything planned out. She only needs my say-so to make the arrangements. I don't want you saying I acted behind your back on this."

"How honorable of you," Ben said sardonically. As if he really had a choice about whether this event would take place.

Han spoke up. "My offer still stands, Ben."

That was something. Ben weighed the discomfort of enduring a party for one evening, and the unlimited time he could be pilot of the Millennium Falcon. It might actually be worth it.

If Leia was willing to let him dictate some terms, he supposed he could—perhaps should—take advantage of that.

"Alright," Ben said. "I've decided."

His parents looked at him expectantly, neither of them sure what he would say.

"I'll go to this party. You can say it's for my birthday. But I don't want you inviting a bunch of girls to introduce to me."

"Why not?" Leia asked in exasperation.

"Because …" Ben braced himself and tried to think of Rey rather than the people to whom he spoke. "I met a girl."

To his astonishment, Han smiled and said, "I know."

Leia was equally perplexed by both men's statements. "What? When? And how did you know?"

Han answered, "Most guys wouldn't travel between systems on a daily basis to give free lessons to someone they just met, unless they have another motive."

Ben said nothing, and his silence seemed a confirmation. Leia turned to him and demanded, "Well, who is she?"

Resolving to stick to the basic facts, Ben answered, "Her name is Rey. She's a mechanic for Maz Kanata. She might join the Jedi school when our vacation is over."

"Why haven't you mentioned—"

"Because I knew how you'd react!" Ben exclaimed. "First, you'd think it was more serious than it was. Then, if it did get serious, you wouldn't realize how much."

Leia raised her eyebrows. "Is it serious?"

"It—" Ben faltered, lowering his eyes. "I don't know. I don't even know if she likes me that way."

"Well, then you ought to ask her."

He ran his fingers through his hair in agitation. "You don't know what you're saying. She has enough to think about already. She's … dealing with some weird Force stuff."

Leia considered this, then brightened as an idea came to her. "You should invite her to the party!"

Ben was not shocked by the suggestion—he had thought of it himself, somewhere in the back of his mind—but it still aroused mixed feelings. "I don't know if she'd like that. I—I mean, I'm sure she'd like to meet you, but I don't know if she likes parties."

"Maz does," Han said. "She could come too."

Ben tried to picture the two women—a pirate, and a Force-sensitive scavenger-turned-mechanic—among the politicians and aristocrats his mother rubbed elbows with. It was hard to imagine how that kind of scene could be comfortable. On the other hand, they would probably get along with Han and his friends, like his old smuggler colleagues and the young pilots he mentored.

"I'll think about it," he said. Then he remembered something. "If you want her to come, it would have to be after nightfall. She's—busy during the day."

Leia nodded. "Alright. We can arrange that. I won't make you spend time with anyone else. But I still have to invite the women on my staff."

Ben nodded in acceptance.

Han smiled and pushed his chair back from the table. "Well, I'm glad we were able to work this out."

Leia and Ben also stood. While Leia left to call her intern, Ben hung back. "You know this means you have to give me the Falcon," Ben reminded Han smugly. Then something occurred to him that made him frown. "But—I'll need a copilot."

"Yeah, you will."

Ben looked at his father and slowly understood. "You knew that when you offered."

Han seemed genuinely surprised and amused that that had finally dawned on Ben. "You should have thought of that when you accepted."

Feeling like a fool, Ben went back to his room and laid down on his bed. Meditating seemed impossible now that he had these new things to think about.

He had to figure out how to invite Rey, and how to make the affair bearable for both of them. He realized with no small amount of apprehension that he would have to tell her about his family, the legendary Skywalker-Organa-Solo family.

Should he invite her as a date, or simply as a friend? Would she be open to having a romantic relationship? What if she was offended, or frightened, or disgusted, and decided she did not want any kind of relationship with him? What if he kept his true feelings to himself and never found out if she felt similarly?

And then there was the matter of his inherited ship and his need for a copilot. His parents were out of the question. Even if they had been available and willing, the point of having a ship of his own was to be able to travel away from the family unit, not drag it along with him. Maybe a droid could do the job, but Ben had never liked droids.

There was only one person he could think of who he would want to be his copilot. But would Rey agree to have that role? If Ben continued to train her, it might be a fair exchange, a way for her to pay him back, if she wanted to frame it in those terms. But somehow Ben preferred imagining it as a mutual partnership—as if they had equal ownership of the Falcon, an equal say in where they went.

By all worldly standards, Rey was his inferior in most ways—age, rank, wealth, education. But in ways most of the galaxy could not see—skill, intuition, intelligence, empathy, strength in the Force—she was his equal. He wanted to help her be better, and she made him want to be better. She was so much like him, and yet so different—like a version of himself he wanted to become.

He was imagining what it would be like to fly the Millennium Falcon to Takodana and whisk Rey away, when there was a knock at his door. A moment later Han stepped inside. "Hey, kid."

"Are you ever going to stop calling me that?" Ben asked. "I'm not a kid."

"No, but you are my kid." Han cracked a smile, but when Ben did not return it, he said seriously, "I call all my younger pilots 'kid.' Heck, that's what I called your uncle when we first met, and he's only ten years younger than me. I think I'm old enough to call anyone your age that."

Ben sat up on his bed. "Can I help you with something?" he asked tersely.

Han looked at him for a moment, then sat down at the other end of the bed. "Listen, Ben, I know we've never talked much about girls, but if you're serious about this one—"

Ben groaned, covering his face with one hand. "Dad, we had this talk ten years ago—"

"Let me finish; this isn't going to go the way you think." Han wiped his hands on his knees, looking less sure of himself than usual. "See, before I met your mother … I was in love with a girl from Corellia."

"… Okay." Ben had never heard either of his parents mention any romantic partners besides each other, though he had once or twice wondered if they were ever tempted by others during their time apart. Considering that Han was a decade older than Leia, it was not surprising that he had once been interested in someone else.

"I'm not talking about a crush or a little fling," Han insisted. "We grew up together. Her name was Qi'ra. We tried to scrounge enough credits and contraband to run away together. But when we made a break for it … I got out, but she didn't. I could have gone back after her, but she told me to run and leave her behind."

Now Ben was intrigued. "Did you?"

"I did. I don't think I've ever felt so guilty about anything else. I decided to become a pilot so I could fly back there and save her. That was why I joined the Imperial Academy."

Ben was incredulous. "You joined the Empire … for a girl?"

Han looked at him, an emotion crossing his face that Ben could not identify. Then he shook his head casually and shrugged. "You know my heart wasn't in it. That's why they kicked me out. Anyway, I got involved with my first smuggling job so I could get enough money to buy a ship. Actually, that was how I met Chewie—well, that's a long story. But when we met up with this crime boss who was going to hire us, I found Qi'ra working for him."

"Wow. Small galaxy," Ben commented drily.

Han smiled and nodded. "When I asked her how she got out, she said she hadn't. She'd become a lieutenant for Dryden Vos, a member of the Crimson Dawn cartel. I didn't have time to ask her for details, but she said she'd gone through stuff and done stuff that she didn't want me to know about. When I talked about us going off together after the job was done, she said it was too late, that it could never happen."

"So what did you do?"

"We went on a whole slew of adventures—we met Lando and hired the Falcon, liberated slaves and droids, did the Kessel run—"

"That was when you did the Kessel run?"

"And when I met Enfys Nest. There was some double-dealing, some back-stabbing—sometimes literally. When the chips were down, Dryden Vos was going to kill me, but Qi'ra fought him and killed him. She saved my life, and gave me the chance to save Chewie and help Enfys."

Ben huffed, impressed. "She sounds …" He trailed off, unable to find the right words.

Han smiled, nostalgic and almost proud. "I know, right?"

"But then … why didn't you two …"

"That's the part that I still don't understand. Qi'ra saved me and freed herself from Dryden … but she decided to stay in the game. She told me she'd meet us, but she left instead. Later on I heard that she took Dryden's place in Crimson Dawn's chain of command. I never saw her again."

"Why did she do that?"

Han shrugged. "I wish I knew. Or maybe I don't. I'd like to think she loved me, but maybe she wasn't the same person I knew as a kid."

"Does Mom know about this?" Ben asked curiously.

"She knows about Qi'ra. After the battle of Endor, we came clean about our pasts, warts and all. But she doesn't know how … how deep it was. She doesn't need to know."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I guess the point I want to make is … even if you and Rey sincerely care about each other, things might not work out the way you expect. There might be circumstances that you don't know about, that make things more complicated than you think. A lot will depend on her decisions, and you'll have to respect them even if they're not what you want. And if things don't work out for whatever reason, you need to be able to move on."

He made it sound so easy. Ben looked at his father and asked bluntly, "Did you?"

"Wha—of course I did. I lost Qi'ra, but at the end of the day I had Chewie and the Falcon." Han shrugged and smiled. "I guess what I learned was that everyone needs someone. But it's not always who you think you need."

Ben did not respond. Han leaned over and patted his knee. "In all seriousness, Ben, I'm glad you found someone you care about."

"Thanks." Ben actually smiled. "I am, too."