Star Wars: Edge of Hope

Chapter Twenty Three: Choices & Consequences

The brilliance of the star bursts as the Whisper made its way through the jumps brought back feelings of nostalgia. Memories of sitting in a different seat, watching the multiple indicator lights blinking on and off...sometimes on purpose. Flying through oceans of time on only light. He didn't understand why flying always took him back to those moments. The moments when he'd been sure of what his life would be, of the person he wanted to be, when the world was filled with it's endless possibilities. These moments cut him deep, but he had no one to blame but himself. After all the blade that destroyed the person these memories were tied to had been the one in his hands. He could still see the look on his face when he closed his eyes. The pain as it struck him, then the fading of that into acceptance, peace, and lastly, forgiveness. Ben couldn't understand how he managed it. The betrayal he'd committed was the cruelest stroke, but for his father, Han Solo, it didn't matter...The ends justify the means...as long as he'd completed his mission and set his son free, he was able to face his death without regret. The way his eyes had went soft and his hand reached out to caress his face...he had been right, Ben Solo was alive. But after he died...there wasn't much of him left...nothing worth saving. Or so he'd thought...Ben pushed the fighter faster through the lightspeed tunnel. He let the flashing lights dancing on his display take him back to the first time he'd held a ships controls in his hands. When they were guided by anothers...

"Look at this, Ben. If you flood the intake and sweep to the bilats at precisely the right moment...She'll really show you something, Kid.

"Can I fly her sometime, Dad?"

"Absol..."

"Don't even think about it, Han!"

Han whispers to Ben as they huddle near the yolk out of earshot of Leia.

"Absolutely, Kid...One day she'll be your's"

"For real?! I'll get to fly the Falcon and see the universe..."

"Well, yeah..But you gotta take care of her..like she takes care of us...and the way we take care of each other..."

One day. A day that never came...Ben had gone sailing through oceans of time, but always alone. She sat in his place, she stepped into the hole that he'd left in their lives, in their hearts. But honestly, Ben was grateful to her for that, at least Han felt like a father again before the end came. In some small measure Ben felt he owed her for that kindness, but at the bottom of his stomach...it burned him to think he'd been replaced so easily.

The quietness of the Whispers engines only allowed the mind to wander farther afield than perhaps, Ben Solo intended to travel, but he couldn't help hearing that same voice in his head. The only one that could drown out the others, a voice he'd remember the rest of his life, not a voice belonging to a famour brigand or pirate of the skies, or that of the Rebellion's General. Legends and Legacies make for poor companions, and even worse heros. But Han Solo never felt like a hero...He was just doing what needed to be done. That's what had put him on that cat walk, that's what had made him stretch his hand out to take his saber, and that was what had ended his life. Not his name or his reputation, but the one thing he fought with most of all. His heart...

"You could never be replaced, Ben. Not by anyone, not ever...you have always been the best and the only thing that matters to me. When I started out I did have anybody...I didn't know what belonging to someone felt like...until the day your mother showed up. And after that...we all became a sort of family, and then you came along. You made completed us, Ben. All those years waiting and wondering what was missing from my life, and it was you, just you."

The words burned him because he knew they were true. As he broke into the atmosphere of the planet the warm golden rays cresting the deep slate blue of the waters rolling over themselves preparing for the new day. A new Dawn was on the horizon streaking the sky with a golden halo that sat perhed above the island. What waited for him on Ahch-To...would test his soul and his will. But the choice had to be made...but in Ben's mind he'd forfeited his right and chance to that choice a long time ago. Upon the first life he took, his was no longer his own, and as if the Force felt it too, it put her in his path. The one thing he wanted more for himself, cared for more than anyone else,...and the one thing he couldn't ever have.