-Sadie-

"Have you ever done this?" I asked.

"Taught someone? No."

We played a few rounds of dyeball with Darin's new squad, then Darin left them to clean up and brought me to the abandoned facility that I had lost my helmet at. It was midday and the sun was beating down on the tarmac.

He grabbed a bucket and tossed it to me. I caught it easily and held it up with a questioning look.

"Put it on."

"My head?"

"No your leg." He started rummaging through some things in a pile of junk, occasionally throwing some of it into another pile.

I looked in the bucket. It wasn't dirty, but I really didn't want to put it on my head. "Why am I doing this?"

"Do you want to learn or not?" he said without looking up.

Grudgingly, I put the bucket over my head. "What's the point of this?" Every word was magnified by the rusted metal covering my head.

"You'll see."

"Actually I won't."

"That's the point."

I opened my mouth to respond when I was hit in the chest by something metal. I had my armor on, but it still hurt.

"Ow! What the kriff?!" I exclaimed as I tried to take the bucket off my head, only to find that it wouldn't budge.

"Let me go!"

Another piece of metal hit me in the arm.

"Stop it! That hurts!"

"Get out of the way then." Another piece of metal hit me in the leg.

"I can't! You won't let me take this ridiculous thing off!"

I heard some chatter, then a piece of metal hit me in the back. I turned in that direction, and heard some laughter coming from my right.

A piece of metal hit the helmet, stunning me and knocking me to the ground. I heard someone yell "Deadeye!" and a bunch of loud celebrating. This was embarrassing.

I heard someone walking by me and the bucket was lifted off my head. I was sure my face was as red as a beet. I looked up and saw Darin looking at me with amusement. Behind him were a couple troopers with random metal parts in their hands.

"I hate you."

He shook his head. "Would you like to throw these at me?"

I smiled with glee and handed him the bucket. "Absolutely."

I rushed over to where the troopers were and grabbed a small piece of a broken X-Wing wing. They looked at me with confusion until I said "It's his turn now."

I aimed at the bucket-wearing target in front of me, and threw it as hard as I could. He stepped to the left and it sailed harmlessly past him. I grabbed another random metal bit from the pile and threw it at him. He dodged it as easily as the last one. The other guys started throwing at him as well, with all pieces sailing harmlessly by. I got more and more frustrated as everything I threw missed. When I threw the last piece at him, he caught it easily instead of dodging and took the bucket off.

He looked around at the mess. "I think you missed."

I stared at him with loathing. He tossed the bucket my way, then used the Force to quickly pick up the mess and create the pile again.

"I can't do it."

He raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Because I can't see it."

"You think I can see it?"

"No but you have the Force."

"There's the problem. You don't believe that you can do the same. Do you know why I made you wear a bucket?"

I shrugged. "To be frustrating?"

"To force you to the Force. It's usually instinctual, but not for you. We need to go deeper. The first time you use it is the hardest because you need to find it. Put it on. Go again."

He walked away, leaving me with little choice but to put it on. I waited for something to happen, for it to suddenly appear, when I got hit by a piece of junk again.

"Stop it!" I yelled in anger.

"Calm down. Don't focus on the anger."

"It would be easier if you didn't throw things at me!"

"Ignore your senses. Think of nothing. Empty yourself, and it will appear."

Oh yea sure. That makes sense. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a shot. I sat down on the hot ground, closed my eyes, and tried to think of nothing, almost like when I try to fall asleep. After a few minutes, I was about to give up when I noticed something. There, deep in the emptiness, was a thing. I couldn't make out what it was. Curious, I focused my attention on it. As I concentrated, it seemed to grow in my mind's eye. As it grew closer and closer, I felt more and more connected to it. I realized that I was in the emptiness now. I could see myself and touch myself, but when I looked around all I saw was an inky void of nothing. I stepped cautiously to the thing. It appeared to be a mass of some kind of vapor or smoke or something. Whatever it was, it seemed to be alive. I could tell it was watching me, and when I stepped towards it it scurried away to keep me at a safe distance, like a frightened creature. Unsure of what to do, I got on one knee and slowly reached my hand out to it with the palm up. The form recoiled slightly, but didn't move away from me.

"It's okay," I said gently. "I won't hurt you."

The form seemed to quiver there and analyze me. As I kept gently coaxing it to me, it slowly started to approach me. Soon, the form was right next to my hand. I could reach out and touch it, but something told me to let the form initiate contact. It reached out a tendril of vapor from itself to carefully touch my hand. Instead of going through me, like I imagined it would, the tendril solidified and felt my hand. It felt warm and alive.

I smiled. "You're safe now."

Suddenly, the form leaped at me and I watched in horror as it tore through my chest.

I gasped, opened my eyes, threw the bucket to the side and scrambled away from it as fast as I could. Breathing hard, I frantically took in my surroundings. I was back on the tarmac. The sun was low, meaning that quite some time had passed. Darin was the only person still here. He was sitting on the ground and smiling curiously at me.

"You're back."

"Where was I? What was that? What did it do to me?"

"Calm down. Slowly, tell me what happened."

"I was in another place and this smoke thing was running away like it was afraid of me and I stuck my hand out and it came to it and touched me and then went through my chest."

He nodded thoughtfully. "That's the Force. Or at least, your interpretation of it. You found it."

"My… my interpretation?"

He nodded. "I was curious as to why you haven't had any indication of Force sensitivity. My thought is that for you, after what happened to your parents, you hated anything to do with the Force. Your grandpa was probably also fueling the flame a bit. But you can't destroy it. So instead you tried to suppress it, and that's why it was so hidden and why it avoided you. It stayed with you, locked away, until you sought it out."

"So… now what?"

"You learn to channel it."

"How?"

"It'll happen instinctively at first. Then when you do it a few times, you'll get the hang of it. It's like being potty trained."

"You're going to… potty train me?"

He grabbed the bucket and tossed it at me. "Call it what you want. Let's go."

I put the bucket back on and stood, waiting for him to throw. I had the Force. I could do what he did.

I felt a tug, an overwhelming urge to duck. A fraction of a second later, a piece of metal hit the bucket.

"I felt something!"

"That was an old cylinder from a Corellian freighter."

"No, I mean with the Force!"

"Huh. Could have fooled me."

Okay fine. I'll show you. I stood at the ready, waiting for another instinctual urge. This time, it told me to go to my left. I moved, and a second later I sensed the gear fly past me.

"Heyyyyyy, nice work!"

"Thanks! Am I done yet?"

The metal bar that hit me across the back told me that I wasn't.