A/N: You guys are such a great mood-boost! Haha I'm happy you liked the Mando stuff so well. Sorry this one is a lil' shorty short chapter, but the next one will be bigger, I promise. Look for it near the end of the week!

chapter eighteen: in a perfect world / colgando en tus manos

It takes them two weeks to move to Seattle.

Two weeks which are really nothing at all when it comes to moving a family of three 1,300 miles away.

But they are the longest two weeks of Rey's life.

Also some of the happiest. There's a new current of energy running in the background of all their dynamics now. The day to day behaviors don't change much. It's not like their little confessional on the mountaintop has got Mando acting all fatherly and sweet now, or made Rey a loving, doting daughter. Their conversations are still sparse and utilitarian, but they've lost the stilted, bladed edge to their tone and the silences that lapse between them are no longer filled with complicated, unsaid things. There is warmth in their home for the first time ever.

This gesture to keep them together even as she seeks out a life of meaning has done a great deal to soothe her fractured heart. They want her. Enough to follow her to a whole new life.

Her friends are ecstatic she is returning. Jannah says Poe and Zorri would love it if she came to live with the four of them again, and Jannah herself would love to have her roomie back. Rey tells them she isn't going to move in right away, she'll stay with her family — family! — for now. Rose says Plutt will take her back in a heartbeat because he's become convinced she was the best mechanic they ever had, on account of the one time she brought in a Maserati.

They all text her almost daily.

The only one who still hasn't responded at all is Ben. Even after he ignored her first message, she rallied enough courage to send him another, informing him that she'd be coming back, for good this time. His read receipts inform her that he saw both messages, but he never did reply.

Still angry, then.

She tries to pretend this doesn't hurt, even though it does. In every other way she is happy. She feels at peace about her decision, even if Griff is decidedly not, especially when Mando gives notice himself a few days later.

But the closer they get to actually leaving, and indeed when they finally do pick up and haul out, the more Rey's mind keeps turning back to Ben. During the long stretches of quiet as Mando drives the RV through wide, empty country, towing their two cars behind, she feels it.

The flutter. The breathlessness. The twist in her gut.

She remembers Ben's huge hands on her waist, pushing her up onto the desk. His face close to hers. His touch. His shudder when she brushed her hand to the side of his cheek.

The prospect of being in the same city as him again has stirred up the feelings she's been trying to shut away ever since she left him on that sidewalk. Feelings that run deep, so deep. They thrum softly in the space between her heartbeats.

Maybe Ben can never forgive her. It is possible she has lost him forever. The thought knifes through her, raw and unbearable, but she swallows it back. If Ben is not part of her future, or any of the Skywalkers, she will stay in Seattle with her friends for a few years until eventually her life takes a new turn, and she'll follow her restlessness elsewhere.

These are the kinds of things she tries to tell herself as they make the long, slow trek across the western states.

"I heard you went to visit that weird little psychic granny," Mando remarks to her as the sun begins to set over the highway.

Rey glances at him. "Where did you hear that from?"

"People." He shrugs.

She had gone to see Mama Maz, it was true. This move to Seattle had her all excited, but these incessant thoughts of Ben drove her to do the irrational — seek advice from a self-proclaimed clairvoyant. Rey knew better than to believe, but somehow, everything Mama Maz had said to her during their first meeting had proved accurate and useful. She wanted the reassurance that everything would work out this time, that she could fix what she broke.

But the old woman hadn't been particularly helpful. She just smiled enigmatically and told Rey that all the pieces would align, though perhaps not the way she expected.

"Yeah," Rey finally says. "She's still as weird as you remember."

"What did you go to her about?"

"Just...everything."

He looked over at her with a raised brow. "Well what advice did she give you about everything?"

"She said the healing that I've given and been given in return will magnify tenfold."

"What the devil does that mean?"

"I have no idea." Rey laughs. "Like I said, still weird."

Mando drives long into the night, and when he gets too tired, he pulls over so they can get some sleep. They arrive in Seattle the next day in the afternoon. Their preparations ahead of time lead them to a modest RV park a few miles outside the city itself, with a handful of permanent residents. The park is lush and green, filled with mossy maples, golden aspens, and fat happy evergreens. It also sports a big glimmering pond. The whole thing is so different from their spot in the fields outside Denver, it feels like they've entered another world. A dreamlike world. Dyn is ecstatic. Not even the light misty autumn drizzle can keep him from bursting out of the camper the moment they slide into their assigned spot, his tiny legs pumping fast, carrying him off and into the trees.

Rey laughs.

Mando shakes his head. "Poor tyke. He hasn't gotten to see the rest of the country like you have."

Poor indeed. She rolls her eyes. "As if a handful of western states constitutes the rest of the country."

"That's a handful more than he's experienced."

It's a fair enough point. The two of them go to the rear of the camper and dismount the two cars from the towing racks. Mando begins hooking up to the park utilities while Rey checks in with Rose and Jannah.

"So what's the plan?" he asks her.

"I'm going to go see my friends and get my job back. Today."

He nods in approval. "And when do I get to meet these new friends of yours?"

A spark of surprise catches in her, and she gives him a curious look. "You want to?"

"You've never had friends before, for one. I'm interested to see what sort of people you've found. And second of all, didn't we all move here for this? If you're building a life and we're part of it, shouldn't we be part of it all?"

Rey can't help it. She grins. "Yeah? Okay. Can we all go out to dinner tonight, then, so I can introduce you?"

"Just text me when and where."

"I will!" The excitement in her is palpable, and strange. She never could have imagined before a scenario in which she got to introduce her friends to her...well, her family.

Dyn comes stomping back over, his cheeks flushed, his face brimming with glee. "Guess what? This place is awesome!"

Rey laughs, scooping him up and hugging him tight as he throws his head back and howls in protest. "I'm happy you like it. Do you want to meet my friends tonight?"

"Uh, okay," he says when she sets him back down. He looks at Mando. "Papa, do we get to stay here now? For always?"

"Who knows how long," Mando replies coolly. "We want to be with Rey, and she wants to be here, so yeah, we'll stay here now."

"Yes!" He bounces on his toes. "I love it here!"

"Hey, I'm gonna go for a little while," Rey tells him. "I'm gonna find a job, and you and Mando are going to find you a new school."

"Okay," the kid chirps. "But you're coming back today, right? Are you going to sleep at home?"

"Yes, I promise."

"Good."

Satisfied, he runs off again. Rey feels a lot like him at the moment. She wants to take off into the trees and maybe climb to the highest branches of one. But she doesn't. She glances back at Mando, who watches her with a funny expression.

Her phone buzzes, and she snatches it out of her pocket with the fleeting, silly hope that it might be from Ben.

Instead, she frowns, surprised. "Whoa. Rose just said she quit Niima yesterday."

"She's just telling you this?"

"I asked her what her shift was so I knew when to go in. She said she's at a different shop." Rey is puzzled.

"Didn't you say the boss was an asshole? Sounds like it could be a good thing."

"Yeah...maybe..." she taps in the new address Rose sends her into the GPS. It's a few blocks away from Niima, nearer to the ferries and still by the water. Not a huge difference in commute time, then. It doesn't matter, she decides. She's confident that she could carve out a job for herself just about anywhere, and right now she wants that job to be with Rose.

"What about you?" she asks, her gaze flicking back up to Mando.

"No need to worry about me." He's pulling a couple of camping chairs out from one of the RV's exterior storage compartments and setting them up. "I'll do what I always do when I get to a new place. Probably have a gig by the end of the day. You go get your stuff done, and let me know about tonight."

"Okay." She darts inside to grab her keys and then she's gone, navigating her little Rocky out of the RV park and on to the route into Seattle.

When she starts recognizing the neighborhoods and city streets of the metro area, Rey's mood begins to bubble up in fizzy wonder. She was just here barely a month ago, but the circumstances are so different now that everything feels new again. This is her home. And it feels right. It's a funny, paradoxical feeling, because half of the people she wants to see here do not want to see her, and she has no business calling up any of the Skywalkers right now to ask if she can see them, to apologize, to clear her conscience in regards to them. But this doesn't trouble her at the moment. Not as much as it should, anyway. Because right now she only has room for eagerness. Right now, she's glad to be laying in the coordinates for a new future.

She decides to visit Rose first, partly so she can secure a job first thing, and partly because she wants to linger at the apartment with her friends for an indefinite amount of time. The GPS leads her to a place called HUNTER RESTORATION. The sign looks shiny and new. Rey tingles with anticipation.

A restoration shop is way better than Plutt's tire and repair gig. Rose couldn't have landed in a better location. She pulls in and unbuckles, practically leaping out of the car.

There are no vehicles waiting in the lot, though she can glimpse a couple occupying the two bays, and vague figures moving around them. Otherwise, it seems completely empty. Rey heads into the office first, a little glass door with the business name written across it in blocky vinyl letters and a little bell a lot like Griff's tinkling overhead both greet her.

Rose is there, sitting at the front desk, focused on the computer. She looks up when Rey walks in, and her whole face illuminates in unabashed glee. She jumps up and scrambles around the desk, attacking Rey in a ferocious hug.

"You're back!" she cries delightedly. "And you found it! I'm so happy to see you! Everything was so weird after you left. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? It sounds crazy to me. Like, you were only here for a little while — days, really! — but somehow everything felt all wrong when you went away again. And then Plutt got all psycho. And Paige kept asking me what was wrong and I didn't know. Yikes, it was all so weird."

She's jabbering a mile a minute, and Rey loves it. She squeezes her friend a little tighter.

"I'm happy to see you too," she says warmly when Rose finally pauses and lets her go. "And I'm surprised to find you here! Tell me about Plutt."

"Yeah, that was a sudden change, I know. It just went down yesterday."

"Did something happen?"

"I got poached. With another offer."

"From this place?" Rey looks around. The office is small and shabby, definitely in need of some repairs, but the chairs look new and the computer is definitely new. SI branded. "How did they know about you?"

"Friend of a friend," Rose says, her grin growing wider. "It's a funny story, actually. But basically this is my first day, and it's kind of a trial day. One of the owners wants me for the job, but he's waiting to see if the other will approve me before we can make it official."

Rey lifts a brow skeptically. "Seems a little cruel to offer you the job if it isn't guaranteed you can have it."

Also, though she does not add this, it makes her own life a tad more complicated. She can't very well bluster herself into a position here if the hiring decisions are split between two people.

Rose just laughs. "I'm not too worried."

"So will you get better pay here?"

"Yeah, better pay and a way better work environment. No more Plutt and his customers that always smell like swamp-ass."

That draws a laugh out of Rey too. She leans against the desk, looking around again. "Do you think they'd hire me too? I'm not going back to that place if you aren't there."

"Oh, don't even worry about that," Rose assures her. "I already talked to them about you. You love restoration work, right?"

"You could say that, yeah. It's my favorite thing."

Rose smirks. Her eyes glitter with something unspoken. Rey still has a thousand questions, but that look makes her forget them.

"Come here, then," says Rose. "I think you're gonna be pretty jazzed about the two projects we just got in today. One is a total overhaul, the other is almost done."

Her tone is conspiratorial. She hooks her arm through Rey's, steering her around. They move behind the desk and out through the side door which takes them directly into the mechanical bays.

And there, Rey stops dead in her tracks.

Sitting in the bays, occupying each one with their squat, squared cylinder bodies, are two VW buses, both with a Westfalia trim, both from the sixties with those highly valuable split windows, mirrored like wonderful little twins of each other. One, however, is markedly less shabby, with absolutely no rust, a shiny new sunset orange paint job, restored trim and a glimmering new nose badge.

That one isn't just any Westie. It's Han Solo's Westie.

"Rose," Rey says helplessly, a strange little plaintive noise stuck in her throat.

And then, impossibly, Han is there. And Chuy too. They look up from where they were standing behind the unfamiliar van, that one a faded, rusty green. When they see her, they immediately exchange a grin and head towards her.

Han looks exactly the same as he did a month ago when he left him at the station. The same cheeky, crooked grin. The same mischievous flash in his hazel eyes. He's even wearing the same stupid jacket he had on when she walked away.

Rey can't help herself. Everything she felt recently crescendos and she rushes to close the distance between them, embracing Han in a ferocious hug as a hysterical little laugh chokes into a sob.

"Han," she gasps, "Han, I'm sorry."

Though it occurs to her that she might not be as sorry as she once thought. Her actions have led to the astounding consequence of being here, in this city, with Mando and Dyn. If she'd simply ignored her contract, that wouldn't have happened, and someone else would be after Han instead. Still, she's sorry for her role in his arrest.

He pats her a little awkwardly, but his chuckle is warm. "I know you are, kiddo. We're all good. It's okay. You did the right thing. Water under the bridge, I promise."

"What about me?" Chuy complains. "I don't get a hug for all the trouble you put me through, kidnapping him like that?"

"As if we weren't prepared for it," Han grumbles, shooting his partner a sharp look.

Rey laughs and puts herself into the enormous man's embrace next, his long meaty arms and massive body encircling her as if she were the smallest of children. "I'm sorry, Chuy."

"Don't worry, mija, everything is fine now."

When she finally steps away from both men, she turns to find Rose grinning like a damn fool. "Did you know about this?" she demands.

Rose laughs. "Of course I did, dummy."

Rey looks around the bays, addressing Han. "So what are you doing here? Is this shop yours too?"

"Now it is. It's a new business venture." He stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets and shrugs. "Whaddya think? Can I pull off a respectable restoration business? Leia made me promise to clean up my act a bit, ease off some of my other...activities."

"It's the least you could do for her, honestly." Rey flashes him a grin. "But I don't know. I think you can only do it if you bring me on board too."

"Well, I was kind of hoping you'd be up for that. Because I have a proposition for you." He looks at Chuy, who just smirks. Turning back to Rey, he gives a little chin thrust. "Chuy here is gonna keep managing the chop shop and our other investments. My time might be kinda divided. So I need a partner. Someone to oversee this place. Someone I trust, who always keeps her word. That's the only kind of person I think can handle something like this. So, kiddo, whaddya say?"

Rey gapes at him, any hope of reply completely stunned out of her.

"I thought she would say yes right away," Chuy says, cocking his head to consider her.

"Give her a minute," dismisses Han.

Rose giggles. She nudges a still speechless Rey. "Are you saying yes? Cuz I'm going to need your decision, boss. Can I have the job?"

"Me?" Rey finds the words suddenly, incredulous and breathless. "I'm the other partner?"

"Only if you want it," Han adds.

"Of course I want it!" Tears are springing to Rey's eyes again. "Are you kidding?"

"Good," Han says without fanfare. "I have a bunch of things for you to sign. And then I have a hiring bonus for you. Sort of an incentive, I guess."

"I don't need an incentive," she trills helplessly. "This is more perfect than I ever imagined. Definitely more than I deserve."

"Well, you get one regardless. You might not be that grateful, though. She's gonna take a lot of work. Even more than mine. You'll probably be here day and night to get her working." He jerks a thumb at the rusty, faded lime Westie behind him.

And Rey breaks.

She laughs.

It's loud, and a little mocking, because there's no way. There's no way that he's serious, or that any of this is real.

"Well, she's cracked," Chuy decides.

But Han is chuckling too, and Rey realizes he is serious, and she can't handle this much generosity. Suddenly her laughter is choking, her breath hitching while tears swamp her vision. Rose pushes her towards the van, and she goes to it, running her fingers reverently along the split window, down the sharp V of the nose. She can barely see it for how she's crying, but then she's laughing again too, and it's all too much to take in. She opens the door to look at the cracked material of the seats, the dusty interior, the perfection. It's exactly the sort of thing she would have picked for herself. It's exploding with potential.

"It's too much," she says accusingly to Han when she finishes her inspection, wiping her eyes dry.

"Honestly, I wish I could take credit," he says. "The job, yeah, my idea. But this? It wasn't all me."

"So," Rose asks teasingly, "Do you think we can get her operational, squeezing in the time between the real customers we get? We've already had some calls. We're probably gonna be real busy real soon."

Rey grabs her hand and gives it an incredulous squeeze. "Rose! Rose. We'll do it together. Did Han poach you? Is that how you're here right now? My head is spinning. I'm trying to understand..."

"Yeah," her friend says comfortingly. "It's okay. I know this is a lot. It was Chuy, actually. He came to Niima. I was totally freaked out at first. I thought I was in trouble with the mob or something. He is super scary at first. That was a good thing, though, because Plutt was way too intimidated to argue with him when he started offering me this job. He said the plan was for you to come manage this place. And how could I say no after he told me that?"

"But how?" She looked between Han and Chuy. "How did you guys know I was coming back? I only told Rose and Jannah, and you didn't know either of them."

Rose and Jannah and...

Han opens his mouth to answer, but Rey doesn't know if he says anything because like someone else has hijacked her body, she's suddenly sprinting away from them, weaving around her Westie and dashing out of the open bay door, skidding to a stop in the parking lot. Her heart practically explodes into a frantic, desperate cadence because she heard it the moment it approached — that deep, throaty rumble of a very expensive, very familiar engine.

The Maserati glides to a stop in the empty lot, threatening and predatory next to her quirky little Rocky.

Rey's whole world slows to an impossible halt.

Han comes up next to her, Rose and Chuy drifting up on her other side. He slings an arm over her shoulder. "Damn. The kid's got a knack for timing, huh?"

The car door opens and Ben gets out.

For weeks now, the image of him struck hopeless and speechless on the sidewalk has haunted her, plagued her waking and sleeping hours. But other images too, softer ones, hotter ones, flickers of their encounters before have also surfaced. None of them do him justice now, real and in the flesh. Gone is the man from that terrible final scene outside the apartment. Here instead is the man who smirked at her in the alleyway, so cocky, who confidently introduced her to his favorite little restaurant, who coolly explained his honey preferences, of all things. The man who swept her off on his bike to another world across the water.

His dark blue sweater hugs his broad chest, his three-quarter sleeves revealing thick, toned forearms. And his hair. Oh god, his hair. By far his best feature, in Rey's opinion. It is long and lush and perfectly quaffed in nonchalant tousled waves. The misty weather doesn't seem to bother him, or frizz a single black strand out of place.

He leans against the roof of his car and their eyes meet.

"To answer your question about how I knew," Han says, low and amused at her side. "Ben told me."

Rey tears her attention away from the son to glance at the father. There is distinct mischief in his face again, and he gives her a wink. Her cheeks warm at the memory of some of the things he said in the car. He nudges her. "Go on. You guys need to talk. He won't bite."

"I don't believe you," she says softly.

He laughs.

Rose nudges her from the other side too, pushing her in Ben's direction. Her eyebrows waggle and a grin dimples her cheeks. "We'll see you later, okay? Take as much time as you need."

Then the three of them melt away, going back into the garage, leaving Rey alone to turn and face the figure who has haunted her at the edges of her thoughts, constant and merciless, since she left him.

She sucks in a deep breath and slowly makes her way over to him.

He watches her for a moment, his gaze weighty and unreadable, but when she's close enough to greet, he silently moves around to the other side of the car and opens the door.

"Get in," he says.

His voice, dark and velvety and laced with a firm command, sends chills up her arms. But it surprises her too, and she stops. "Where are we going?"

His gaze flicks to her, and something works at the corner of his mouth. "Somewhere else."

She can't help herself. Bizarrely, and contradictory to his silence in response to her texts, Ben doesn't seem angry at all. Emboldened by this, she hazards a touch of playfulness and rolls her eyes. "Wow, that's very specific and definitely helps me be less suspicious of you."

"We can do this dance again, if you want," he says, "but we both know I'll just win in the end."

"Wow." She stifles a laugh a cocks an eyebrow. "You're a little arrogant."

"Not a little. Extremely."

His smirk makes her heart trip all over itself and coaxes a full fledged smile of her own in response.

Shouldn't they be hemming and hawing in awkward half-started sentences of apology or reproach or...something? This isn't exactly what she imagined when she pictured reconciling with him. He isn't acting like someone she betrayed and hurt. Then again, nothing about this day has been what she imagined.

He's watching her still with those perceptive onyx eyes, and she is blindsided by realizing now how much she'd missed them.

His brows lift expectantly. "So? Are you going to get in or just stand there being difficult?"

"Fine," she says at last, skirting past him to climb into the car. "Even though I shouldn't. I like being difficult."

"I know," he replies.