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

"Fact of life in this galaxy."

Really. He has a reputation. Just ignore the other reputation, the one with all the heroics.

"That Han Solo is a bad influence? I can only imagine how sweet and innocent Chewie must have been."

Now that, that just gets a laugh.

It's good to see Han laugh. It makes her feel more hopeful about everything somehow. The deck is stacked against them, but that doesn't mean they can't win one, right?

"Where did you get all these blasters anyway?"

"You pick 'em up over the years. Most of these came from Leia, I lost what we had on the other ship." Annoying, that. He doesn't miss the big freighter-- it was far too big, but sometimes that's what the job takes-- but they'd finally almost had an arsenal worth having. "About everything on the Falcon was gone. I guess we're lucky they didn't strip the cannons and sell those."

"Yeah, shame about the stuff on that ship at least. It also had a lot less sand." She gives him a little smile. But she isn't missing the big ship anymore. It's never really been about location for her. It's the people she gets attached too, so maybe the bigger problem was coming back to find strangers. They aren't strange to her anymore though.

"We'll clean out the sand."

Eventually maybe they'll even manage to get most of it. Ten years in a junkyard and it seems it's carrying half of Jakku with it. If that's the price he pays for something approaching home and family (which for Han has always been a concept that had little to do with blood relation), he'll take it.

"If you think about it, we're better off. Without the rathtars."

You can never clean out the sand. There will always be more sand! It's coarse, it's rough, it gets everywhere.

"I think they were starting to like me. I mean, they still definitely wanted to eat me, but I think at least one of them would have felt bad about it afterward." She's teasing. "Speaking of, we owe some people some money, don't we?"

Maybe he shouldn't be surprised at the way she's hanging around Ben, after the shine she took to the rathtars. Some people like danger too much. (Says the owner of the Kessel record.)

"Hard to say," he hedges, shrugging a shoulder. "After that exit? If I were them I'd write it off." And be glad, probably, that the damages didn't total a lot more. There's no guarantee it won't come back to haunt them, but they've got bigger worries.

She and danger may be on overly intimate terms, yes. Action junkie. She gets something of a high from battle. At least she did. Things have been different—more serious and severe—since the death of her students and then her own near death and all that time to think and reflect in the prison. She still craves action and, yes, a bit of danger, but she doesn't enjoy the melee like she used to. Maybe there were just too few other joys she had to find it in what she was doing.

"That sounds optimistic. But I approve of some optimism, so here's hoping. At this rate it might be more dangerous to find them and pay them even if we had the money." Since they might get more from the First Order for turning them in.

It's an impulse he understands; Han could probably have found some legitimate career but he chose the wrong side of the law, running spice for Jabba, constantly tailed by Imperials, skirting death every day. It wasn't only about the money. The war was terrible, but it was a good fit for him; that doesn't mean he enjoyed it, only that it was satisfying to strive to end it. Peace had been more difficult, and when that fell apart he threw himself into the same old game, bar fights and blasters under the table

"I'd rather take my chances with the rathtars."

"That'd be a hell of a salvage mission on the old ship. Unless the criminals managed to get the upper-hand over the rathtars by the end." Not that she knows every detail of what happened. She wasn't there and Han hasn't been much of a storyteller at least outside of the poker game.

"Bad time for me to not be with the ship."

"It worked out fine. You would've just reminded me that you said I shouldn't have borrowed that money to begin with."

Which he really shouldn't have. But that was never in question. If she expected a boss that didn't make terrible decisions, she should've taken a different job.

"Trust me. People like that don't give you a second chance to pay them back, and if they offer one, you don't want it."

"I do have good ideas sometimes." And then sometimes she kisses Ben. Really only listen if it's work or strategy related and not skewed too much by her being from a completely different galaxy.

"I will keep that in mind. Did I ever tell you this is the first time in my life money has really been a thing?" It's a little surreal watching it be important.

Terrible ideas and occasional non-terrible ideas. He can't complain, because that's how he operates it.

"You don't have money where you're from?"

"We did, but it stopped meaning anything after civilization collapsed." You know, as it will do. "And when I was a little kid my parents paid for everything. Then we didn't have it at all in the prison. And now I'm here and people kill over it." It's weird.

Well, that sort of makes sense.

"People will kill for a lot of things."

"Yeah, that list isn't exactly short. Be nice if people assigned a little more value to people than slips of paper or credits or coins or whatever gets used."

"At least credits are easy to understand."

Obviously sarcastic, but there's a truth to it. Both sides of a war fight for their principles. Love, hate, freedom, order, those aren't so easy to quantify.

"Are you calling us people complicated?" She smiles. Yeah, she's a little complicated and so are most people she's known.

"I'm just saying, sometimes mercenaries have it easier." If credits are all that matter to you, there are a lot less difficult questions. It's all risk and reward. You can fight for principles and still value life; it's always a question of which is a bigger loss, then. You get used to making the choice, enough that sometimes it's too easy.

He tries to shake off that line of thought.

"Not that I'm on their side. I've had enough bounty hunters for one life."

"That's good. I thought maybe you were trying to get me to change careers." Didn't they have a discussion like that once before? "And I don't think it would really suit you." Because she sees him caring about things even when he won't admit it.

"Trust me, I've had more than enough experience with them."

One bout of hibernation sickness is plenty.

"Let me guess, a story you don't want to tell me?"

"I thought I already did."

Bits and pieces, at any rate. He forgets, sometimes, when she doesn't have all the context to put those together.

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