Thread : Han Solo rolling with the plot, chapter one : Han Solo and the Force
The first thought Han had when he found the old guy and the wet-behind his hair moisture farmer playing don't get hit by the remote was "the suns hit them too hard on their skull". A bit dubious, considering they were both Tatooinians and those knew how not to get head-struck, but their activity did not make much sense and it would explain why they promised so much for a trip to Alderaan. Maybe they were trying to scam him with the little fortune they promised after, but hells Han had Chewie, two blasters and even if their friends on Alderaan had bigger guns it wasn't like it would be such a loss to cut back the price. Those things could always be renegotiated as long as one could still talk and had all his body parts.
Then there was the lasersword swinging around and Han decided it was not his problem as long as he got paid and could reimburse Jabba. It explained why they were playing premium for the trip. Han did not care much about Jedi, either way. They were sort of smoky legends having hockey powers that were gone a bad end and nothing good ever came from being associated to those sort of types. Shame for the kid who got hooked by the old one because he clearly had no idea what gundark nest he was jumping headfirst in. Then again, Han was never very good at staying on the safe side of an issue.
Han had grown up into the clones war, a time when the Jedi figured heavily on the holonews. By the time he was five he could name as many High Generals of the Republic and some others besides. Then there was the Empire, the Jedi were traitors and having Anakin Skywalker or Obi-Wan Kenobi as a hero wasn't that cool. In fact, it became evident in the following years it was a very bad idea, so Han kept his mouth shut and just forgot about them. And at that time Han had really better to do since he got orphaned. Twenty years later, Jedi were a vague memory not that relevant and he got paid to not ask questions. The Empire would pay a lot for those two, but Han had his own problems with the Empire since he deserted, Chewie liked Jedi and Han mainly wanted to drop them quickly and get on with his life, preferably without being labelled Jedi sympathizer and maybe with the kid. And with his money.
Suffice to say, that venture did not end at all the way Han thought it would, but it was neither the first nor the last time life switched sideway, so he rolled with it. The princess was fun to rill up, the kid was still bumbling around, Old crazy Ben was dead and Han stupidly stayed with the Rebellion too. It was a bad idea. Han knew it and it did not fail to hurt in the end but he got out alive. But hells if it did not feel right to have a purpose. It was not the first time Han got entangled with imperials and rebels, but the last times he hightailed when all was said and done. This time, he stayed. Because Chewie wanted to fight. Because the kid needed someone holding his hand a bit longer now his family and his mentor were dead sort of because of him. Because a tiny bit of Han felt like being a hero. And her Worshipness was tolerable in little doses. Regular doses. Not so little doses. Not the subject.
Han learnt a few things about the Force during that time. It was not hard, considering the kid stumbled on them and needed help experimenting. He knew like nothing about the alpha and omega of being a Jedi. It took him some time doing the difference with Jedi, but Luke clearly wasn't his Hero with no fear of a father which was explained because he had one day of teaching. Exactly one day. And all Han had to help him was that guys dead for twenty years totally could make those moves, get on kid. Most of the time it gave Han a good laugh and sometimes ideas when Luke managed something. So Han learnt you could open locked doors with the Force. Like prison cells. Or convince someone to do what you want just by imbuing your voice. Like spaceport control. Han definitely wanted the skills so he crossed his legs and followed the kid instruction for two months without progress before giving it up as a bad job. In the end it helped Luke formalizing what he was doing and the kid understood it, so Han got his ear talked off for two years straight about the Force. Most of the time he tuned him out just enough he could tell something back when the kid closed his mouth and wanted feedback.
Han was quite happy to not be Force-sensitive, because Vader was hunting the kid from one end of the galaxy to the other. Han definitely did not want that kind of attention. Or fainting spells at random times because people had died horrible deaths here or were dying in mass elsewhere. Nope. He was good with his blaster and did not need a fancy lasersword.
Maybe a lasersword would have been handy against Vader, but Luke did not fare better, so probably not. It wasn't like Han could have kept his grip on his blaster: Vader nearly dislocated his wrist wrenching it from his hand. Maybe he would have hated the Force if Vader was the first Force-sensitive he crossed path with. As things were, Old Ben was the fellow who sacrificed his life to gain them the time to run and Luke was a nice kid. Besides, Han knew plenty of Force-less people who were sadistic jerks. Even discovering Luke – and Leia ! – were Vader's kids did not change his opinion of them. People did not choose their parents. Han knew.
Back in Rebellion days, Han worried about the kid sometimes, so he dug out some information out of the older guard of the Rebellion and discovered cortosis. The time they came across a convoy of the stuff he promptly attributed himself a good chunk of the metal. Six months later – on the top of a carbonite freezing and beheading of the Imperial structure – he tested it during an encounter with a wannabe Dark Sider who wanted to kill/capture Luke – the guy did not look like he knew himself whether he wanted a captive or a corpse. Cortosis hijacked lightsaber. Did nothing to the hockey power, but it was a lot easier to shoot at them if they weren't shield-moving their lightsaber. And for Luke to sneak behind them and kill them. After that Han had an arm-guard made of the cortosis which he kept on him until the day of his second death. Not as a protection per se, but more like a good luck charm. He felt like he needed a good luck charm. Dark Siders did not disappear with the Emperor and Vader. There was still a few running around, coming after Luke and Leia once they learnt of the later parentage. And Han, because he hanged near Luke and was in a maybe relation with Leia.
The Emperor and Vader were gone but not the Empire, so Han spent a few more years in the Rebellion, convinced Leia not to wed either imperial guy one for the sake of peace – it was a trap –, neither rich guy two for the sake of the Alderaani – he found love midway through the negotiation. Han mays not have a credit to his name, but he was a decorated barely general and mainly smuggler who was ready to get tortured for his friends. It counted for something, so they wed and Leia proceeded to take the Senate like a storm. Han felt a bit left out and drifted to some old Temples indicated by old texts with Luke. The kid wanted to be a real Jedi and Han a bit of excitation. His lucky charm saved his arm in one of those Temple, when another – there had been five, but Han only assisted to three ambushes: two with Luke, one with Leia – Dark Sider tried to hack the kid in piece. Han reflexively raised his arm to block the lightsaber, which fizzled out, and Luke profited of his surprise. It changed from the kid gushing on his latest discovery that Han barely understood.
Then Leia political carrier knew an abrupt end when someone leaked she was Vader daughter. She used it to bridge the two sides then, her political capital burned, retired. She finally accepted her brother offer to train her and Han became very attentive because Leia had said that if she had to go through it to not end up starkly mad, then Han was going to suffer with her. He blamed hormones, because Ben came eight months after. So Han crossed his legs and did his best to not let his thoughts drift, because Leia would know. He was still persuaded Force was hockey power and not an all-binding sentient entity. It was quiet years, if one discounted Ben tantrums, Leia calling other politicians blind idiots and Luke pulling disappearing acts now and then. Sitting on a cushion and excluding all of that was actually peaceful and wholly accepted in the Solo household.
So Han sat on his cushion the times he knew Ben was going to put a fuss and he was just unable to deal with it and Leia kindly picked up the slack. Han being the nominative stay-at-home parent while Leia busied herself in caritative endeavors and Alderaani diplomacy, he believed he earned a moment of quiet sometimes. Ben legendary fussiness was the reason Leia and him decided to stop at one kid until he was roughly five, at which age Leia returned in politics by the window, as the door was closed – Han was not surprised : Ben ability to mind trick clearly came from his mother. The question did not ask itself again after that. Luke dropped by, sometimes, to continue Leia instruction and start Ben's, but when he was absent Han turned up to be the calm parent hence shared session of cushion-sitting, oftentimes devolving in shared naps.
Leia job was to sail through the galaxy and mediate. As the Falcon had by then be lost, they bought a brand-new diplomatic ship in the colors of the Republic, and Han piloted it for Leia. At docks, he and Ben would sightsee, sometimes enrolling Ben at the local school, but most of the times Han was teaching with an holo-course. It could have gone well, except things soured. Han was perfectly okay with most of Ben education being on ship repair, legal smuggling and what he learnt through school or what his parents could teach him. After all, it was Han education and he turned fine. Leia education, on the other hand, had been top-notch, from early morning to late evening with many tutors, and Ben was an Alderaani prince. So they clashed. A lot. And Ben didn't react very well to angry feelings, so the time he nearly melted vital ship equipment in the middle of an hyperlane, they settled on a compromise.
Ben would go with Luke, who had recently founded a Jedi academy. Ben was Force-sensitive, Leia had a few years earlier dispatched topnotch Alderaani tutors for the Jedi academy and Ben clearly wasn't happy here. Things were a bit hollow after Ben depart, so they decided together to take a break from the other. Leia continued her diplomatic missions, Han developed his trade good business and rekindled with Chewie. He met Leia a few times a year and they were both much happier to see each other then than when they were huddled constantly on the same ship. Similarly, he dropped by to say hi to Ben and Luke. Ben wasn't too happy at the Jedi academy, but then he was never too happy to go to a planet-school, so Han did not think much of it. After his knighting, Ben could chose to stay at the academy, or join Leia in diplomatic work, or Han to travel through the galaxy, or make something other if he wished. But Ben at the time was fifteen and needed an education and Leia and him settled on this one.
Han did not think much of Ben admiring his grandfather, because admiring a Sith was probably the height of teenage rebellion for a boy raised in a Jedi family. Han had been more speeder-bike stealing and illegal racing, but if Ben wanted to dig through family history… At least Han thought so until Leia frantically called him about the Jedi academy being burnt down and Ben missing, and Luke too. Search parties came empty, forensic spoke of inner complicity and it took seven months grieving – during which his business collapsed because Han had better to do than managing goods, damnit – before they received proof. Footage more exactly. Ben was alive. And he was killing off completely innocent people with a red lightsaber for the sake of sending a video calling Luke to duel him. It was, somehow, worse than believing Ben dead, because that was not Ben and at the same time was Ben, but how could it be Ben?
The last nail of his and Leia relationship was an heated argument about the Force and her family. Ugly things were said that he deeply regretted, but Leia hadn't pulled her punches either. Afterward, Han drifted. He wanted nothing to do with Leia recontacting others old Rebellion members or seeking Luke out. Ben was a nice kid when they left him at the Jedi academy. Prickly and lonely, but nice all the same. That place changed him, like a similar place once changed Vader – apparently a nice kid too – into a monster. Or maybe it was not the place, it was the Force. Hockey power making you drunk and high like a death stick junky. Han did not want anything to do with it.
Then Leia talked him into bringing Ben back and Han said yes, because Ben was his son, damn it, and if someone could bring Ben back it would be him. He held him every nightmare of his childhood and they never had a falling out. They repaired hyperdrive together and made fun of the politicians Leia had to put up with. Han was the cool parent. Turn out, Ben did not want to come back and the Force did not like being called hockey power. Time-travelling was certainly more than hockey power, so Han vowed to never call it hockey power again. Corellian oath.
If he was not the chibi-version of Old Ben, Han would not have brought the kid on board with his crazy scheme. Because he did not knew that much about the Force and did not like it that much either. But Old Ben had been a good guy, and Han wasn't about going pissing on his grave by leaving his younger self adrift in the galaxy. So Han took the kid and bought a new cushion, because he wasn't sharing his. He talked the kid about the sand-in-the-desert (Luke method), then the rolling-of-the-waves-in-an-ocean (Leia method), then the wind-current-around-a-planet (Ben method when he was a kid) meditation. The kid liked the last the best, and another Han did not knew. Han liked the wind best too. After all, he created this comparison before Luke fledged it.
Han bothered him every morning – teenagers like sleeping in, and it would not do to have differing shifts so Han blithely ignored his grumblings – to do cushion-sitting together. The kid was awed the first time Han handed him Leia's lightsaber, before yelping once Han activated the remote. To his defense, Han did not know it was aimed at Luke level. It was good training for the next time blasters got drawn, however.
Han would have done without the slavers after Force-sensitive who trailed them after that, or the guy who was clearly not a dark sider wannabe – at least, not of the caliber of those Han met, because Han fizzled his lightsaber with his arm-band, socked him between the eyes then spaced him without any help. The kid was awed, Han told him he better learnt to do the same quick. Still, they came after them because they believed Obi-Wan to be an easy prey, without a Jedi master. A second lightsaber would make them a perfectly normal Master-padawan duo.
Han was a smuggler. He knew how to pass planet control, and landed without a problem on Ilum. Luke had said it was a good place for lightsaber crystals. It mays have given the wrong idea about him to the kid, but honestly who cared it was the first time Han stepped on the planet? Han tended circling planets where Jedi may be visiting since he took the kid, because he had no illusion about taking him very far in his training. Therefore it was quite ironic Obi-Wan pilfered himself a Jedi on a planet they had gone because the kid felt it would be a good place to meditate.
