#trebu-shot

It was a belief that had been fostered by the survivors of the Empire, and carried on by their children. And it was to those children that Leia had promised to lead to the best of her ability—for all that she had apparently failed her own son in that respect. Though it was a relief and a guilt alike to know that there were few in the Resistance­ and none among the pilots who had become her own­ that blamed her for Be...for Kylo Ren’s actions.

That blame had been her own burden, her’s and Han’s. And for all they had grown distant, that was one aspect of themselves that they had always carried together. Leia had known early on that Han had chosen the wrong Skywalker, but a selfish part of her who had lost everything wanted to keep him for herself. Her scruffy nerf herder, whom she loved but just not the right way. When Luke had gone missing Han had been silently despondent and left soon after—and Leia had been left with the sorrow of having facilitated missed chances.

But guilt did not bring back the dead and did little to comfort the living. And so Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan and general of the Resistance did as she had always done, and carried on. The destruction of Star Killer base had been a mighty blow, but it was only the first. The road to freedom was not going to be an easy one, and it was a campaign that would require as much finesse as it would need force.

But Leia Organa was the child of ambassador and Jedi master alike, and had lived the life of both in her turn—she had all she needed of both.

Like so many moments in his...less than illustrious career, Han Solo’s death was highly exaggerated.

Well, maybe not highly. When he had crashed into a support catwalk in the center of Star Killer base Han had been sure in that moment that his life was over. And when the pain had hit a few seconds later he had hoped that it was. His son -­ the man who had Leia’s eyes and his height and somehow Luke’s cheekbones -­ had gone totally to the dark side and tried to murder him in the coldest of blood.

He’d always known that there was too much Vader in him.

But that knowledge had not changed the fact that there was still an assault on the base happening and the goal was still destruction. And if that Dameron brat was still in the air - Gods he had admired Shara Bey but why has she made her son so stubborn?­ - it was going to happen. Which meant that he’d needed a way out, and fast.

And that way out had come from a hard and yet eerily cold hand under his arm, hauling him up and forward at what had felt like far too fast a pace for his liking.

“Let’s go, Solo. We don’t have a lot of time, and this level of Force Manifestation is harder than it looks.”

The voice had been as much in his head as in his ear, and yet somehow through the pain and confusion­ - and having never heard the unaltered version himself­ - Han Solo knew its identity immediately.

“Last time I went anywhere with you, bastard, I ended up frozen in carbonite.” The words took energy, but they were ones that were thirty years coming. “Fuck you for that, by the way.”

“I was too lost then to see most truths, but even then I knew you were bad for my family.” The tone had almost seemed to sniff slightly, in some form of disgust. “Their mother had no better taste. But that is long passed now. What matters is that your son and my grandson walk that same path now, and that is not acceptable.”

It took long moments to parse through that, and by the time he had even started to make sense of it Han had found himself led to a small, almost hidden panel in the arcing wall of the great ship. It hissed open to reveal a small spherical room...and the smuggler-­turned-­general was dumped into what he had suddenly realized was the pilots bench of an escape pod.

“Eject now, Solo—there is much work to do in regaining the balance of the Force, and the Skywalkers have always needed all the help they could get.”

That at least was true, and so Han forced himself to program in the coordinates for the probably no longer secret D’Qar base and strap in before pain and the darkness of hyperspace took over.

Luke Skywalker had been young, once.

There had been a time before the Force, so long before that the memories of it were hazy and bleached by time. But there was a time when he was young, a sand farmer on an insignificant planet with a firm but loving uncle and an aunt who coddled him in her own way. They had been poor but happy, and even though he had longed for a different life he had never really imagined leaving.

And then death and betrayal had changed all of that, and him, forever. It had set him on a path that became more than himself, brought him close to the people he would always be close to. It also gave him just a taste of what he had always wanted, which seemed to be his inheritance. A few moments with his father, a few years with his students...a few chances at the man he loved.

But the Jedi path was never easy. Even when his students were gone and he had fallen into grief and self­-imposed exile it had seemed as though that were the path the Force had meted out to him. Trial and tribulation, to bring about good. He had not been able to stop Ben, had not been able to see Snoke coming. Had not been able to prevent so many things, but over time and meditation and Obi­-Wan’s guidance – and that of Obi­-Wan’s own master Qui-Gon, who was a law onto himself­ – Luke had been able to reconcile much of what had happened.

But the deaths of billions at the hand of the First Order had shaken him, badly. Even in the far distant wastes of Wild Space he had felt the ripples of horror, and no wisdom or comfort from Jedi past could ease it. It was an almost unimaginable loss, and the fact that by not seeing Ben for what he was he had allowed it was...sickening.

But it was far more sickening when, three days later, the death of Han Solo had shaken him far more. For all that it was one life in the face of billions, for all that a Jedi was not truly permitted to love, it was a blow that he was not sure he could recover from.

It was only the fact that the young woman­ – a new Jedi, a new Awakening­ – had come to him and had the ripples around her, had an echo of a similar grief for the same man that he could turn to her and agree to return to the Resistance and what it stood for.

He could not let it stand.

Watching one of his childhood heroes get smacked across the face by his other childhood hero – and godmother, not that many knew it­ – was sort of a high moment for Poe Dameron.

Granted he hadn’t had the best view of it, but BB­-8 had and was willing to replay it on demand. Poe himself had been head and shoulders into Jessika’s X­-Wing, helping his fellow pilot work out a coupling issue in the foils. And checking out Finn’s ass through the open side panels where the former stormtrooper was leading a group of ground troops in a class about First Order armor and its flaws. But mostly helping out Jess.

Regardless of his actions at the time he saw the Millenium Falcon land, and could recognize even at a distance the slender figure of Rey, Chewbacca’s tall form...and another shorter figure, dressed in long hooded brown robes.

And if there was ever any doubt as to the man’s identity it was dispersed when General Organa ran to embrace the figure, and then immediately stepped back to slap him. All activity around them halted in shock­ – the General of the Resistance had just struck the Last Hope!­ – but Luke had only broken out into slightly wet giggles and admitted to deserving it. That had gotten things going again, though after that the small party had retreated back into base.

But Finn had gone with them, and Poe had been able to trade for information about the meeting later. Particularly the apparently tear jerking reunion between Han Solo and a delighted Chewbacca. And the more one sided but certainly exciting reunion between the pilot and an ecstatic Rey. And it was interesting, particularly the news that the Resistance would be taking the fight to the scattered remains of the First Order—that was pilot’s business and exciting to know.

But the fact that Luke Skywalker would be personally leading the hunt for Ben ‘Kylo Ren’ Solo was not.

As a child, Poe Dameron had sat beneath a Force sensitive tree on Yavin 4, and listened to the stories his parents told about a free universe. How the Jedi were going to keep it safe, because they were the only ones who did not pick sides. How his mother had helped get the tree back, which reached all the way back to the first tree in Coruscant.

But in those stories – and in everything he had ever heard or read –, Poe Dameron had never heard of the Jedi being judge, jury and executioner. If they fought it was for their own safety or the safety of others, and then they tried not to kill. They acted not in anger but in wisdom, not in retribution but in understanding that there was balance in all things.

And they did not go hunting their own nephews with lethal intent and a hardened gaze. That reminded him all too much of Darth Vader and his campaign against his own children—against the man that stood in the hanger beneath the X­-Wing Poe had up on the stands.

And the pilot had felt that it was his space to intervene, if only against the growing unease building in his chest. And he might have, if in the moment he was about to climb down Han Kriffing Solo had not grabbed the Jedi and applied a far more personal method of shutting his mouth.

And Poe Dameron would spend the rest his life­ usually over howling guffaws and fake sympathy – insisting that there had been a cool, only semi­corporal hand pushing him off the maintenance supports struts, and not him falling off in shock. Either way he had crashed to the ground with a decidedly inelegant yelp, and ended up breaking what might have become a rather steamy moment between the Last Hope and The Smuggler General.

And the combined glares might have sent him whimpering to the nearest door –­ not that the impact with the duracreet had done much to help against the whimpering­ – had his words not come bubbling out first.

“General...I mean, Master Skywalker, sir, I....you can’t go after Kylo Ren, sir, that’s exactly what he wants. It’s all he wants.”

Han Solo’s glare had yet to subside, but Luke’s expression softened into something...almost wary. “And how do you know this, Commander Dameron?”

“Because he’s been in my mind, sir, but I was in his a little too. And trust me, he...well, he hates himself mostly. But he hates you too, and I think...”

That he wants to finish Darth Vader’s mission was a little harsh to say to the son of said man, but it was the only thing that Poe could think of to say. Thankfully the Jedi seemed to understand, though he was more concerned with the first part of Poe’s statement than the rest of it.

“He’s been in your mind? With the Force?”

“Yeah, when I was...nevermind, not important. What is important is that this is his and Snoke’s game plan–­­”

“Poe.”

The word stopped the commander in his tracks, and he subsided as Luke put a hand on his shoulder. “The two of you were practically inseparable when Han and Leia would go to Yavin 4, and you were even closer after Shara passed, before...before he left. That much emotion­ – good and bad­ – in the Force when it is used like that can leave....scars. It can do a lot of damage, and sometimes it can leave impressions that don’t exist. You need to have someone look at you. I can try to use the Force to­­–”

“Stay out of my head.”

It was snapped out, but as it seemed to surprise Luke into silence and Han into glaring less Poe took his chance and ran with it.

“Look, I know him. I know him and I know what he wants and I think he wants to kill you because the more people he kills who care about Ben the less of Ben exists. And I don't think that he can be only one.”

“Are you saying that...” It took Han a minute to swallow something down and choose different words. “Are you saying that Kylo Ren is still Ben Solo until everyone who cared about Ben Solo is dead?”

Luke made no noise, so Poe nervously continued. “I mean....I think so? It was sort of hazy and I was a little busy screaming and trying not to think about Jakku, but yeah. That’s what I got.”

And the next words came from the part of him that had always gotten him in the most trouble­­ – the part of him that believed, wholeheartedly, that good would always win and that the good guys always got the hot ex-­stormtroopers.

“I think, maybe, I can catch him.”

Rey thought it was the best idea she’d ever heard, which was probably why Luke hated it.

The Jedi had councilled the Scavenger against impulsive actions or being overly emotional, but before everything else Rey was a fighter. She’d grown up fighting for whatever she could put in her belly and whatever she could trade for, and whatever little things in the world she could call her own. The running and hiding and subtle tactics that had kept the resistance alive for so long did not appeal to her, but Poe’s plan did.

She was, after all, a desert creature. And anyone who waited for the desert to give them what they needed would starve first.

The only problem, of course, was that she wanted to take the Millenium Falcon and Chewbacca. And Han Solo was having none of it.

“I don’t care how badly you want to after him, you are not taking my baby and my co­pilot away. Not on this...this...fool errand!”

Chewbacca added his guttural roar of agreement, and Rey crossed her arms. “I need a ship, and you are in no condition to fly. Besides, if I hadn’t brought it to you you would never have found it.”

“You take that back this minute, Chewie and I were this close to–­­”

“You were never going to find it on Jakku.” Finn’s voice was factual from where he knelt by BB-­8, slowly trying to learn the intrinsic nature of Binary. “It was in the middle of nowhere under a tarp.”

And time had not weakened Han Solo’s glare. “Oh yes, a tarp. How would I ever get past a–­­”

“Point is,” Rey said, breaking into the argument before it could start and get away from her talking point. “You aren’t using it and we need it. So we are taking the ship, so we can stop the First Order and bring Kyl...Ben Solo back. If we can.”

The last words were added reluctantly. She wasn’t entirely against the idea of capturing Kylo Ren, but the ‘forgive and let live’ had yet to entirely sync with her more bloody minded ideas of vengeance. Still it was important to the people who were important to her, and she could settle for that.

And in the end she ended up exactly where she knew she would be, in the pilot seat of the Falcon as her Wookiee co-­pilot started up the engines and R2­-D2 and BB-­8 chirped and whirred at each other. Finn was in the gunner’s chair, content with his datapad and years of non-­First Order approved literature to keep him happy while Poe and Black One stayed clear of the afterburn and on point.

And after years of simulations in her walker-­turned-­home, waiting out sand storms as she piloted every ship under the sun, it was where she was meant to be. The rattle and buck of the ship as it powered through hyperspace was a thrum in her very bones, her first language that needed only to be spoken and never learned. Rey was one with the craft, at peace in a way that had never been hers before.

But more than that, she was totally aware of the Force. She moved through it like a snake through the shifting sand, each current and ripple of it known to her as she moved. Where there had once been doubt that some overriding essence connected all life there was only certainty. Certainty that it was there and, in a smaller and more solemn way, certainty that she could bend it and all life to her will if she but tried hard enough.

It was a terrifying feeling, and explained how the Jedi had once been so powerful and respected. But she had felt the licking, scuttling sense of the Dark Side beyond it, and also knew how they had fallen. It was the basic tenants of the Jedi Order that had been their overall downfall. To repress all emotion could only lead to a suppression of empathy and – from there – humanity itself.

It was something that had puzzled her during her brief tenure with Luke, and something that for all her meditation no answer had come forth. If hate and anger where the tenants of the Dark side, shouldn’t love have been it’s antithesis and – by that logic – the true power of the Light?

And from what she saw of it – of Finn’s smile and Poe’s fierce joy, of the two of them together and of the looks that Luke and Han shared when no one else was looking – Rey thought it might be.

And in the end, it was almost terribly easy.

Well, not terribly easy. But no one died, and despite the terror that gripped both Rey and Finn as they watched Poe dogfight twelve TIE fighters it was an incredibly successful mission. After a brief scuffle on the unnamed planet that Kylo Ren’s fighter had bailed onto they had the Sith apprentice bound hand and foot and back on the Falcon. Supreme Leader Snoke would have been more of an issue, but Rey and Chewie between them had more devious ideas than any two beings needed, and even a Sith Lord cannot survive his transport careening into the nearest star.

Kylo Ren was considered enough of a threat­ – and Finn just the right combination of furious and wary to need support­ – that Poe’s X­-Wing was stored in the almost too­-small hanger, and the commander keeping his blaster at the ready. Rey had battered his mental shields to a startling degree, though, and on the Force front he seemed to hardly be a threat.

On the physical side, though, he was nothing to slouch at. And he was patient enough to wait until the Falcon was jouncing enough to keep everyone just a little unstable to shoot up and lunge at Poe with death in his eyes.

“We will see who is intimidated when–­­”

But the words cut off sharply in a shrill screech of pain as Poe Shasek Dameron put all of his nightmares and insomnia and sobbing, soul crushing terror behind one fist, and drove it into Ben Organa-Solo’s nose.

That was far from the end of the war, of course­­ – that day would be years later, over a far different universe. But the capture of Kylo Ren and, after weeks of Force therapy and more than a little tough love, the return of Ben Solo marked the true turning point in the battle against the First Order. Without Snoke and the force driven reprogramming of young cadets there was no longer the capability to mass produce stormtroopers, and those who remained were not totally unaffected by FN-­2187’s escape and freedom. In time the Resistance had it’s own bevy of former First Order soldiers, and Finn commander stripes to match his husband’s.

Also, to no one’s surprise and Rey’s great relief, Finn and Poe were married not long after finally admitting to each other that yes, they did both feel that way and no, they weren’t taking advantage of each other. Out of respect for Leia Han and Luke did not follow suit, though she stated repeatedly that she didn’t mind. Neither she nor anyone with any sense were anything but tickled by the two decidedly middle aged men acting like teenagers, and no one else mattered.

Ben Solo had a longer road to redemption than he would have liked, and the trip was made both harder and easier by Anakin Skywalker. The hard truth of Vader’s true nature was a blow to the foundation of his world, but when he rebuilt he came back stronger. Luke placed firm restrictions on his mind and soul, but they were not unkind. Instead they placed him again at the level of Padawan learner, to begin his walk anew.

But this time he was not so isolated. Rey was his counterfoil at every turn, and they bounced and clashed and drove each other to newer heights. Rey’s belief’s bled through their bond, a second sort of Awakening, and with the scope of the Jedi path changed. Instead of hatred there was understanding, instead of fear there was trust. Neither passion nor emotion was stifled, but instead tolerance and control were made more paramount. They were two sides of the same coin, Rey and Ben, and through that they found their path.

Finn, in a move that proved what had set him apart from other stormtroopers in his unit, had little trouble separating Kylo Ren and Ben Solo. His forgiveness came with such little retrenchment that it actually troubled Ben, but in time they found a rhthym. While not Force sensitive himself Finn was naturally graceful and in tune with his surroundings, and his control of a lightsaber easily rivaling that of a force wielding opponent. In time they became frequent sparring partners, and from there friends.

Poe Dameron did not forgive so easily. There were no fences to mend between he and Ben Solo­ – they had burned to ash in the face of Force mind invasion. Instead they built a new, unsteady knowledge of each other and went from there. It cracked several times but never crumbled, and over long months the best pilot of the resistance and the terror of the first order found a new sort of...comradeship.

Anakin Skywalker never forgave Han Solo for leading both of his children astray, and made his opinion known often and loudly. Luke and Han learned to ignore it. Eventually.

But together they meshed well, for all their pasts and presents and futures. It was their own sort of beginning, for Snoke had not been wrong in his predictions.