garbageship | That's no moon... Wait, no, it's a moon.

"Nothing for it but practice."

Han settles back on his rock, letting his gaze roam. He still can't quite trust this place; being off the ship makes him uneasy, knowing how many people must be on their tail. But they've got bigger plans than this, he'd better get used to letting his charges out of sight now and then.

When she mentions that last bit he looks sharply back at her, though he doesn't look angry. Just intent, the way he habitually has been.

"He should be practicing himself," he murmurs.

"He was. I mean, he was cheating with the force, but he was shooting. Then I showed him how to shoot without it." There was also helping her and then a mind meld and then hugging, but practicing was happening too.

She fires off a few more rounds and then even attempts it with her left hand very carefully. You never know what will happen in battle, but she also didn't want to maim anyone in practice.

"That's what he needs, to learn without."

Looking back, he should have taught him years ago, when he was young, before it would have been so ingrained. It's hard to know how to manage things with child as sensitive as Ben was; he'd needed training with that first of all, some sort of self-discipline. Even if that had gone as planned, it would have meant he did everything with an awareness of the Force. Which isn't a bad thing; it's what allows him to wield his lightsaber effectively, after all, what lets him stop and block blasts.

In this situation, though, where he's trying to hide what he is, that effortlessness is a liability.

"Rey, too." At least Kitty's abilities don't give her too obvious of an edge.

"He started rough, but he picks things up quickly." Which is good since he has basically no patience.

"Rey is using the force to do it? I didn't realize she could control it for that." Or is that the point? She's doing it on instinct.

If Ben had any concept of patience, they'd be living in a different galaxy, probably. The New Republic would be proud and strong, Han Solo would be happily married, and the Jedi would be thriving. So it goes.

"I don't think she understands that she is."

With no affinity for the Force himself, Han is really not cut out to be training her in that vein. He's pretty sure he needs to start doing it, though. Maybe he can secretly ask Ben for pointers.

Kitty looks thoughtful for a moment. "It's hard to think you're one thing and then find out you're something else. Shifts your whole sense of identity." This is personal experience talking and she's sure it isn't exactly the same for Rey. Mutants were already well known and feared and hated when Kitty realized she was one of them. A freak. A monster. Different. Alone.

The titles changed over time and she has embraced being a mutant despite what Apocalypse tried to do to the name, but she remembers being that scared 13 year old girl who was just as likely to fall through a door as open it. She couldn't control it when she was so afraid of it and trying to deny it.

He looks a bit grim, watching her in the distance.

"She needs a teacher."

She needs Luke, because none of them are gonna cut it, for one reason or another. Even if Han trusted Ben for it-- and, oddly, he thinks he would, thinks it'd be good for both of them-- Rey wouldn't stand for it. He knows better than to bring up the idea. Kitty might be able to help with some things, but she doesn't know the Force, really, and she's far too close to Ben... And doing little to keep him from erring on the side of jealousy and possession, for that matter.

This is some kind of cosmic punishment for how badly he got along with Ben Kenobi.

They all need Luke.

"You've shot down my ideas for trying to find Luke, so if you figure out a plan I'm here." Not that she's really stop trying to think of solutions just because he didn't think they needed to have R2D2 on board for her to interrogate or for her to try and predict the systems around the parts of the map they do have.

"If Rey is a force user couldn't there be others out there?" She walks back to switch weapons.

There's not much you can do to interrogate an R2 unit. Plus there's no guarantee that the glorified doorstop has anything of use, that's just BB8's guess. Until then, they've got the Resistance's best astromech droids and navigators doing exactly that. It'd be dangerous for them to have a copy of the map on board, considering their pursuers.

"More kids, maybe. Trained Jedi? Probably not."

"Well, that's alarming in it's own way." She grabs the biggest one in the bunch.

"Maybe Ben could teach me and I could teach Rey. Which sounds problematic and terrible. So, really just depends on whether you think it's more problematic and terrible than no teacher."

"The more time you spend with him, the less she's going to trust you."

That's not the kindest thing he's ever said, but he's not trying to be nasty. There's a careful flatness to his tone, making it just a statement of fact, holding back his own (considerable and complicated) feelings on the matter. She might recognize the tactic, Ben uses it often enough.

"I'll figure something out."

She looks thoughtful as she inspects the new weapon but it isn't just the weapon she's taking in. "Then she's probably going to trust me less." Said as she takes a few steps away to fire. Maybe another confession that "careful" isn't going to include absent.

The resulting blast is very off center. Her second attempt is better.

Yeah. He knows. She's taking things way, way too fast, and apparently all that happens when he asks her not to is that she goes on and takes things faster. So maybe all he can do is look the other way and wait for the inevitable and hope some of them survive it.

The point he wants to make is that emotion isn't a bad thing, but being ruled by it is. That sometimes caring means inaction. His mind is megaparsecs and decades away, standing on a sinking platform above Bespin, telling Chewie not to fight even though every inch of him screamed to resist.

Maybe he understands the Jedi better than he claims.

If it makes him feel any better (it won't) it isn't necessarily going faster. Just not slower. The truth is she always makes better decisions in a crisis than during peaceful times. Maybe because she has more experience with the former.

She fires a few more times and pauses to stretch her arms. They're getting fatigued from all the kickback.

It probably wouldn't help matters, no.

"Don't wear yourself out," he says quietly, still a bit mired in memories.

"Worried about trouble?" She doesn't necessarily mind wearing herself out for a workout especially when they don't have this opportunity regularly. But it would be bad if they were attacked in that state.

"You never know."

Maybe he ought to encourage her to wear herself out, would it keep her out of trouble? (Probably not.)

"This place is pretty out of the way, but that means there's nowhere to hide."

"I can take a break." See, she listens to some of what you say! She returns the blaster and continues to stretch. "It's nice just being on the ground for awhile. Probably not as much your thing though?"

"I don't mind staying in one place."

For a while he'd had a home to go back to, which means he's able to miss it, now. The Falcon is just the best substitute there is. (Funny that he'd never expected having the ship would have anything to do with having his son. It was easier to think of Ben as gone forever, so he could move on. Move backward instead of forward.)

"There's just not much work that way."

For a scoundrel like Han Solo, anyway. General Solo had done all right for a while.

"No, I guess not." Not smuggling work anyway. She imagines there are other kinds of work, but it's what he knows outside of being a General. And in their current situation staying on the run is probably wise. Even if they found somewhere relatively safe to settle down it would be too easy to relax there. They could be attacked while separated and unprepared. No, she understands why they're doing what they're doing now.

"You know, it would take a lot of training on this before it's the thing he reaches for in a fight."

Smuggling is better money than freight, though he's not picky. Lately he only makes an effort not to hassle the Republic more than he needs to. It's not like the old attempt to stay under the Imperial radar; it's that for all his failings Han isn't a traitor, just a criminal.

"That's not the point." If you've got choices in a fight you're doing pretty well for yourself. Ben needs to be ready for situations where he doesn't have another option, needs to wear a blaster like it's his oldest friend, because if he doesn't, someone's going to question it. It's for show, but it can't just be for show.

"We're gonna make a lot of friends fast if he goes into some town with a lightsaber on his belt."

There's a sigh. "I really did land myself in the sci-fi version of the wild west." Sorry, Han. Sometimes she just needs to say these things even if the won't make sense to anyone but her.

"I do get that. I just meant if someone does attack us I would think he'd still reach for the force first. I know I'd have a hard time not phasing." Which is going to draw attention too even if it's not as direct to this group necessarily.

Even when you're speaking Basic, Kitty, sometimes the things you say are incomprehensible. (Well, the Western Reaches are a pretty wild place, right?)

"I know. The trick is faking it well enough that no one does."

No walking through walls, no Force-choking, just get in and out. Make whatever purchases they need, find someone who has cargo to move.

Things never go that well.

"Right, well, hopefully no fighting at all." Because that could be a mess really fast. She just knows she's seen people attack each other over basically nothing at the various outposts she found herself on before she threw in with Han and Chewie.

"That's the idea."

A lot of that nothing was probably something, in fairness. A lot of it was also nothing. People in places like that get drunk, get bored; get ideas about other people based entirely on whims. The trick is to have a reputation, or to build one. That doesn't stop people from coming after you, but it narrows down the field of who's willing.

Ben can manage looking intimidating, he's got to learn to tone down the imperiousness of it or he'll look like a First Order deserter stuffed in smuggler's clothes. Hiding in plain sight.

(They're probably in trouble, yeah.)

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