moonshadows

Han knew he was in trouble when Maz looked at him with pity in her eyes.

Well.

That’s when he knew, 100%, without a doubt, that he was in trouble. That he had, once again, gotten caught up in the current of Great Events and missed his chance to stay uninvolved. He’d felt it before, more than thirty years earlier, when he’d turned the Falcon around and followed the ripcurrent of destiny to the Death Star, shooting the little fighters off of Luke’s tail so he could make his famous shot in the nick of time.

That time, destiny had sung sweetly to him, promising him years of companionship and belonging. Promising that he would have a people, that he wouldn’t be alone. This time, it was different, and the ripcurrent pulled him inexorably towards heartbreak and a dreadful finality. But he’d already known that when Maz had looked at him and saw that he knew how doomed he was.

Han had suspected he was in trouble when he’d opened the floor panel of the Falcon and found a girl, barely an adult, who looked at him with uncertainty and apprehension but only the fear of a young thing expecting to be hurt yet again. He’d felt her tugging at him, her vibrant spirit, her promise of a fresh wind breaking up the miasma of despair his life had turned into.

The same fresh wind Luke had carried with him when he was her age.

It was like fate was begging, pleading with him to let himself be caught up by this girl’s promise. She’d brought him the Falcon as a bribe and, like a fool, he’d taken it. It had seemed logical at the time - take the ship, escape the rathtars and the wrath of his clients - but he’d lost the chance to stay uninvolved the instant he’d heard Luke’s name. The promise of finding his old friend, of finding out what had happened and maybe saying a few choice words, was a greater pull than he could resist and now he was securely caught up in things, riding the unseen currents as they hurtled towards that dreadful finality he refused to examine.

It wasn’t a surprise when the Resistance ship landed and Leia was there. She’d felt the currents, too. She knew he would be there, and their reunion was less a confrontation and more a silent commiseration that this really was happening again, that her estranged dumbass of a husband had gone and let his heart get him into trouble once more.

She forgave him, wordlessly, for having run away. After all this time, they both knew that he was more reliable than he seemed. That, when he was really needed, he would be there. That didn’t make their farewells any easier, though. They both felt it, both knew what he was diving headlong into.

They both knew they were saying goodbye.

“If you see our son,” she said, as the dark current swirled around her words, “bring him home.”

That’s when it crystalized, that blank finality. That’s when he knew he would see their son, and it would mean his end. She knew it, too, and he held her in one of her rare moments of vulnerability, offering comfort to the strongest woman he’d ever known as she let herself be - not a princess, not a general - but just a mother grieving her shattered family.

But they both knew that he wouldn’t turn away even if he could; that wasn’t his nature. He would walk unflinchingly into the teeth of whatever awaited him, charging, throwing his entire being into the effort of breaking those teeth to come unscathed out the other side. She was sure that there was still good in Ben, as there had still been good in Vader, and he wouldn’t let himself believe anything else.

Even if it was - and it was looking like it would be - the last thing he did.

* * * * *

The girl - Rey, but he knew better than to think of her by anything more personal; he was already too attached - had rescued herself. She claimed she wasn’t sure how, but Han knew. Like him, she had been making her own destiny for most of her life. The only thing that had changed was that she’d picked up a few tricks, probably from his son. The kid, too, was startlingly proficient in feeling the flow of things. They would be well-equipped to deal with whatever was ahead of them. For a moment, he regretted that he hadn’t told Leia how far under his skin the girl had gotten, but she would sense it anyway, he was sure. And with luck, Han would be telling her himself.

But first, they had to get out of there.

Except that it wasn’t going to be that easy. He’d known it wasn’t, and as he set bomb after bomb he found himself thinking that he would be leaving the Falcon in good hands. Rey was smart and clever, good attention to detail, and she kept her head. She had all of Leia’s spirit with all of Luke’s idealism, and Han wished he’d be there to see it when she inevitably found whatever hole Luke had hidden himself in and dragged him, kicking and screaming, out of his shell.

Hold up; not good. He was thinking of himself in the past tense, and that wasn’t the mindset he needed for surviving that seething blackness in his future. There was a path through; he could see it, feel it, a hairline crack of light. A thread weaving its slender path through the storm, like so many other threads he’d followed in the past. He could do this.

He could do this.

Still, when he actually saw his son on that walkway, he hesitated. There was so much anger in the boy, so much pain - was it really possible to turn that around? Sure, Vader had, but he hadn’t been so...volatile. He’d been controlled, maybe even tired. Ben was seething, ready to lash out at the slightest provocation.

Ben was hurting.

His son, his only blood, was hurting.

Han was on the walkway almost before he’d realized he was moving, chasing the faint thread that promised a way out of all of this.

“BEN!!”

His voice echoed. That dark figure stopped and turned around, wearing the helmet he’d seen before.

“Han Solo.” Ben sounded detached. “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.”

The helmet added distortion to the words, and Han gritted his teeth as he strode forward, steadily closing the distance between them, silently defying the sense that he was walking towards his death. “Take off that mask,” he spat. “You don’t need it.”

The meaning sang between them, unspoken: you don’t need it, you don’t need to hide who you are, you don’t need to distance yourself.

“What do you think you’ll see if I do?”

Han ignored the barbed implication in those seemingly-mild words. “The face of my son,” he declared firmly. There was no other, could be no other answer.

Slowly, the helmet came off and Han’s heart leaped as that faint thread grew brighter. The act was a silent agreement that what lay beneath was the face of Ben Solo.

Ben looked…

Well, to be honest, he looked like he’d just been caught disobeying and was trying to not show any emotion to the parent chastising him. Like he was angry, scared, possibly hurt. Trying not to cry and secretly wanting a hug. No matter what Snoke had twisted him into, no matter the things he’d done, this was still Ben Solo and Han tightened his metaphoric grasp on that shining thread of hope.

“Your son is gone,” Ben said in a voice that didn’t tremble as it taunted, but the words that followed came out too fast, too rushed, holding back the flood of emotion. “He was weak and foolish, like his father, so I destroyed him.”

The accusation hurt, but not as much as it could have. Han had lived long enough to be comfortable with the fact that he was foolish sometimes, throwing caution to the wind for some ill-advised venture.

This was one of those times.

“That’s what Snoke wants you to believe,” he countered evenly, advancing towards his son again, “but it’s not true.” It’s not too late, the door is still open. “My son is alive.” You are still my son. You can come back.

Ben hesitated a bare moment, and that faint thread grew a hair brighter. “No. The Supreme Leader is wise.”

“Snoke is using you for your power,” Han said, knowing it was true without knowing what he had been going to say before it had come out. This, too, was a familiar dance and he let his mind be receptive to whatever words chose to come forward, chasing the glimmering promise of that thread. “When he gets what he wants, he’ll crush you.” The horror of what he was saying made those words tremble slightly as they came out. “You know it’s true.”

Apparently, Ben did know it was true because the glowing crack became a crevice. He blinked, almost shaking his head. Holding back tears. “It’s too late,” his son said in a tone of heavy fatalism, but the words sounded more like a cry for help.

Han took another step forward. “No, it’s not,” he urged. “Leave here with me. Come home.” Shamelessly, he forced his way into that glowing crevice, shoving it wider, tilting the scales with the force of his will. When Ben hesitated, he stepped closer, until there was almost no space between them. “We miss you,” he said quietly.

He could see them, now. The tears in the corners of Ben’s eyes. This was no ruthless dictator, no homicidal madman. This was a scared little boy trapped in a role he was not meant for, desperately unhappy but yearning for someone, anyone, to tell him he was doing a good job. In silence Han waited, offering his son compassion and understanding, the freedom to come clean without anger or judgment as he had so many times while Ben was growing up.

“I’m being torn apart,” Ben said finally, lip trembling.

It took a great deal of effort to not embrace his son right then and there.

“I want to be free of this pain!” Ben hesitated, forcing back the tears, forcing the hurt back down. The next words came out in a rush. “I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” Another hesitation, then- “Will you help me?”

The words were quick and quiet; none of them were any good at asking for help, and Han thought his heart would break at seeing his boy so hurt, so vulnerable. Trying so hard to be the evil man he was supposed to be, but still placing enough trust in his father to ask for help.

“Yes.” Han stepped forward, into arm’s reach. “Anything.”

For just a moment, gratitude showed in Ben’s eyes. Then he lowered them, preparing himself. The helmet fell to the walkway with an echoing clang and Ben met his eyes briefly before dropping again, hiding burning shame at not being strong enough. Then he was holding the handle of his lightsaber out, like an offering, and the glowing crevice widened like a creek struggling to hold floodmelt. He could see it, now, where that path led, and without hesitation he wrapped one hand around the hilt of the weapon.

The future opened before him. In just a moment, Ben’s hands would drop and in one sharp gesture, Han would send the thing flying out into the abyss below them. He would pull his son to his chest and Ben would let out one choked, dry sob before embracing his father. Together, they would leave while the bombs went off and the Resistance destroyed the horrible weapon housed in the planet. Together, with the girl and the kid, they would go home and Leia would meet them, arms open, tears in her eyes as she welcomed home her estranged son-

Han pushed at that future with everything he had, willing the scales to tip, refusing to believe there was any other outcome, denying the dark finality on the other side of the coin.

The light of the sun dimmed, and a sharp sound – not quite the familiar vibrating purr but something harsher – ripped through the air as the handle in his hand twisted. That bright future popped, the light bleeding away, and it took Han a moment to realize there was a tight pain in his chest.

A red glow, illuminating Ben’s face.

Somewhere in the distance, Chewie bellowed a protest.

Ben’s face twisted and he changed his grip on the lightsaber, cutting upwards with a jerking motion, and Han felt his heart shudder to a stop. Still, he kept his eyes on his son’s face and found anguish there even as Ben gritted his teeth and said, “Thank you,” in a voice barely louder than a breath. As though apologizing for the pain he was about to inflict, he winced away as he jerked the burning red blade out of his father’s chest.

There was still a glowing thread.

With the last crumb of strength left in his dying body, Han lifted his other hand to cup his son’s cheek.

You are still my son. You can still come home.

Then he was falling, chasing that glowing thread, tracing the impossibly narrow path that led towards victory as he had so many times. Only this time it was different – the world faded out, leaving only the billowing darkness and that hairline-thin crack that he poured himself through-

The world opened up into a landscape he’d only ever sensed dimly, ever-changing, less about space and form and more about intention and potential. He could see his connection to Leia, watch it wither and vanish like a lost opportunity, and knew that she knew he was-

Well, fuck. He was dead. Dead, but not gone.

In the vast and confusing field that was the Force, Han grinned.

He could work with this.