#don't join

           He finished lighting the stick.  Taking a deep breath, he savored the smoke in his lungs before slowly blowing it out.

           “What would you g-g-give me in exchange?”

           She gave him a cautious look. She highly doubted he’d be so crude as to ask her for something physical.  He didn’t strike her as the type and he hadn’t shown any prior interested. No, he wanted information, what kind though was up in the air.

           “What do you want?” she asked.

           “I want to know about you Jedi lady.”

           It was her turn to be taken by surprise and he didn’t have the common decency to keep his smile to himself.

           He pulled out one of the death sticks, holding it out like a prize.

           “One stick.  One question. F-fair trade?”

           She glanced at the stick, then at him, and gave a wry smile.

           “Does that include the light?”

           “Two questions,” he corrected, grinning in approval at how well she knew the game.

           She gave a small nod in agreement and he handed her the stick.  

           She put it in her mouth as she waited patiently for him to pull out the lighter. To her surprise, he didn’t hand it to her.  He struck the light, leaned down and lit it himself.  She kept her eyes on him as he did so, not really paying attention to the end of the stick until smoke began to rise from it. He made eye contact with her as he pulled away, as if double checking to make sure she wasn’t going back on the deal.

           He stood straight leaning against the cabinet watching her closely.

           Lana took a deep breath of smoke, enjoying the familiar smoothness as it filled her lungs.

           It had been a long time since she smoked.  It was a bad habit had she picked up while doing undercover work for the Resistance.  She had been trying to get information out of a group of smugglers under the alias Terra Reed.  It was surprisingly easy to do so.  Nobody really knew what she looked like since she was taken to train with Luke at such a young age, and with all the stories her father and Uncle Lando had told her over the years she fit right in.  

          She had liked being Terra.  Terra was smart, cool headed, practical, and more often than not called an uptight bitch. Terra also took smoking breaks with some of the other officers and crew members of various ships.  All of which got surprisingly talkative whenever Terra asked if their captains were treating them well.

           She had kicked the habit as soon as Terra became no longer necessary.  It wasn’t good for her, not to mention the fact that her mother got on her case whenever she pulled them out. Still, every now and then she craved one, even years later.  Sometimes it was brought on by stress, or the smell of a certain cantina, neither of which was the case at the moment.  Mostly, it was just something to do.

           She looked back up at the slicer, realizing he was waiting on her.

           “So,” she said, blowing out some of the smoke.  “What do you want to know about me?”

           “What exactly is y-y-your plan?”

           “You know what the plan is.”

           He gave a shake of the head, and a patronizing smile.

           “No, that’s t-t-their plan.  What’s yours?”

           She stared at him a moment, her face unreadable.  She took a breath of the death stick, as if the smoke were the question and she was testing how it tasted before letting it out.

           “I’m going to kill my brother,” she said.

           She hadn’t meant to say it like that.  She had wanted to say she was going to kill Kylo Ren.  She was going to avenge her father’s death.  She was off to kill a monster or any other variation of that same sentiment, but it wasn’t the truth.  She knew what she had been telling herself from the moment that lightsaber tore through her father’s chest was a lie.  Kylo Ren wasn’t a separate person.  Kylo Ren was Ben Solo.  The same Ben Solo who had been her closest friend, who at times knew her better than she knew herself, who she had played with, grown up with and loved.  That was the Ben Solo who killed their father.

           She looked up at the slicer gauging his reaction.  His face was professionally neutral, but there was something else behind the eyes, a small flicker of what might have been fear.  She could only guess and she was satisfied.  She needed him to be afraid of her.  She needed him to think she was dangerous, and more than a little unhinged. If anything, just to have somebody else think it besides herself.  

           “He killed my father you see,” she continued. “Stabbed him right through the chest. Didn’t even blink.”

           She trailed off a moment, taking another drag and blinking back the pressure behind her eyes. She looked down at the bed as her mind projected that moment onto the sheets in front of her.  

           “So, I’m going to kill him, his master, and anyone else on that ship I can get my hands on and if we’re all very, very lucky some Stormtrooper will put a blaster bolt through my skull before I can get to a ship.”

           She looked up giving the slicer a half smile which almost managed to meet her eyes.

           “How’s that for a plan?” she asked.  

           She couldn’t say why she had told him the truth.  She was an exceptional liar when it was called upon her to do so, but now that all the things she had been thinking in her mind were out there for someone else to hear, it felt more real.  She wasn’t just thinking about doing it, she was going to do it.  

          She had needed to tell somebody.  She couldn’t tell Poe, or Finn, or Rose, or Rey, and especially not her mother.  Her mother would had told her to forgive him, that killing Ben wouldn’t bring her peace. She imagined Poe and Finn, hell, even Rose, being just fine with the idea of killing him, but not her way. They would had wanted to plan, to make it a military operation, something less personal.  She didn’t just want to kill Ben Solo.  She wanted to tear his heart out with her lightsaber. She wanted to see the light leave his eyes and know finally that it was done.  As for Rey, Rey would had stopped her, not for Ben’s sake, but for Lana’s. She saw her as most people did, the daughter of Leia Organa and Han Solo, niece of Luke Skywalker and continuer of the Skywalker legacy.  She was supposed to be somebody, a hero, an idol, a symbol, not a person who felt and loved and hated.

          So, what option did she have left but to tell a slicer with no name who didn’t know a thing about her and who couldn’t care less.

          She breathed in another drag waiting for him to ask his second question.

          “S-s-so what happens, if a S-s-stormtrooper doesn’t get you?” he asked.

          “Guess I’ll find myself a little corner of the galaxy and, wait to die.”

          “Why?”

          “You’re out of questions.”

          “Y-you give y-your family t-t-too much credit.  The g-g-galaxy was tearing itself apart b-b-before any Skywalkers came along.”