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[imahologram]

for whatever miscellaneous bullshit your little heart can come up with.

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[dancingmd]

She nods. It'll be a hundred times harder on Ben than Wes. In fact, she has no worries whatsoever about the latter, so however Leia wants to approach the situation with Ben, Beverly will follow her lead. Part of her wonders if he will ever truly accept her presence in his mother's life and therefore his. She hopes so, of course she does, but it's difficult to imagine at this point.

Still, she chuckles at Leia's comment. "Only sometimes? I think it's a miracle he wasn't already trying to set us up. He worries all the time about me being alone."

[generalorgana]

"He's your son. I wouldn't breathe a word against him." The goal is to make friends with the kid. (The boy, she corrects herself; kid sounds too much like Han, and she still can't think of him without feeling her heart clench in her chest.) And Wesley makes it easy enough; he's been friendly and talkative every time they've met.

Ben, on the other hand...he's a shadow that haunts the ship, sallow-skinned and cloaked always in black. He's never spoken to Wesley; he hardly speaks to her. And for all that he still professes that he hated his father, Leia doubts he'll want to see someone else in his place.

"He's a good man," she adds, taking a thoughtful sip of caf, "to worry about you."

[dancingmd]

"He is." Her smile is soft and sad, thinking about the stark contrast between their sons. After Jack died, Wesley was her rock and she was his, always there for one another. But Leia doesn't have that, doesn't even have her Resistance family anymore. It hurts to see how Ben treats Leia and Beverly wishes more than anything that she could change that. "And trust me, he likes you a lot."

[generalorgana]

"I don't know if I'd be here if he didn't." Light, teasing, but with a grain of truth to it. Not because she thinks Beverly would drop her for that reason--Wesley is a grown man, and Leia can't imagine Beverly letting him make such a decision for her--but because she's not sure she'd be able to tolerate two unhappy sons. Ben is a known, if unstable, quantity for her, someone she's slowly learning to manage. His anger is something she can bear. The anger of someone else's son isn't. "I'd better talk to Ben alone. But if you don't mind some company with Wesley..."

[dancingmd]

Fortunately for them both, Wesley cannot tolerate an unhappy mother. And Beverly now is very happy, however quietly. She smiles softly and reaches across the table to take Leia's hand. "Of course I don't mind. I'll give him a call this afternoon and we'll arrange something. Lunch perhaps."