Finn kept reminding himself that he’d been expecting the vote to fail.

It had always been a long shot. Finn might’ve joined the Resistance, but he wasn’t exactly a wide-eyed idealist. He knew what Senators are like, how many of them had stood aside while children were stolen and Imperial loyalists mounted a coup. How many of them had profited, even, on the theft happening right under their noses.

He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t naive. But that night, alone in his suite, he felt like the biggest fool in the galaxy, a contemptible idiot. He hated himself. He hated the Senate. He hated -

“Rey Skywalker and Poe Dameron would like to see you.”

He hated his fucking bodyguard, who’d decided to pretend to be a butler for the night.

“You’re not responsible for screening my contacts,” Finn snapped. “Let them in.”

“I’m responsible for screening all security risks, Senator,” Kylo said in that provocatively toneless voice he sometimes adopted. Finn wanted to throw something at his head.

It would be nice if this was the dark side influencing him, but he knew it wasn’t. It was just him, Finn, furious and alone.

Well, not quite alone. “Those motherfuckers,” Poe said, fury infusing his quiet tone. He’d come prepared: he held three glasses and three bottles of liquor.

“How dare they!” Rey said hotly. She flopped down on the floor, glaring at the ceiling. “To just reject your entire argument like that! To pretend it all doesn’t matte!”

“Unbelievable,” Poe agreed, pouring them each a glass of bright blue liquor.

It should’ve been comforting. It was, kind of. But Kylo was standing in the corner, watching them with his hands folded behind his back. He obviously didn’t expect to be invited into the drinking, nor had Poe anticipated it. Fine. That was fine. Finn didn’t want to hang out with Kylo, anyway.

But if he had been talking to Kylo about this, he suspected Kylo would just be spewing contempt for the whole process: not just the Senators who’d voted against him, but the need to plead for money, the fact that Finn had refused to use the Force to persuade. All of it. And Finn didn’t want that, he really didn’t. But…

Well.

It just might have been easier to deal with, compared to Rey’s genuine frustration and shock, Poe’s grim certainty that the Republic could be better on this issue. They were trying to be supportive, but it felt, a bit, like another weight around his neck, another group of people to manage.

Those were the thoughts he tried to chase out with the liquor. It didn’t really work. An hour later he just felt morose, like he might cry or just fall asleep from sheer deadened disappointment.

“I promise you, I’m not joking,” Rey said for the third or fourth time. “Say the word, and I’ll do it. I’ll go dark side and make them pay you.”

“Ha ha,” Finn said dully.

“No, really, I - oh.” Finn glanced over in time to see Rey looking between Finn and Kylo, a furrow in her brow. “Finn, I’m sorry.”

Shit: dyad. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Well, but I didn’t do much right, either.” She reached out and put a hand on his arm. If that pissed Kylo off, she gave no sign of it. “We’re here for you. In whatever way you need.”

He wanted to be back on Naboo with Jannah and preferably no one who wasn’t a ’trooper, Kylo included. But that wasn’t doable just now, so he said, “Tell me about your recon mission. Did you find more kids?”

“Oh hell yeah,” Poe said, “but also, Rose got in a fight with a Hutt dealer - no, I’m serious!”

They kept drinking into the night, and the conversation stayed firmly away from the legislative realm. Poe had reams of good stories, all of them - deliberately, Finn thought - featuring people Finn had never met in situations that were both ridiculous and as non-political as possible. They didn’t talk about Snoke, or the Sith, or the Empire, or even the General or the Republic. Finn thought maybe it was cowardly: wasn’t he just running away from his problems? But it was also what he’d needed so desperately without even realizing it.

Eventually, the evening turned into the early hours of the morning, and even Rey with her juiced-up connection to the Force started looking tired. They got up to leave, Poe waving Finn off when he tried to get him to take the last of the booze.

At the door, Rey hesitated. “When you see Jannah,” she said, and stopped.

“…yes?”

“Nothing.” A lopsided smile. “Just tell her I send my best, I guess.”

“Weird,” was Finn’s verdict when the door shut behind her. But of course he’d do it.

“Not particularly. Her crush is obvious; I’m sure Jannah knows, too.”

He hadn’t forgotten Kylo was there, exactly, but he’d been so quiet the whole night that hearing an actual opinion out of him made Finn jump in surprise. “How do you you know?”

Finn’s head was only spinning a little. There was no reason to feel like the rug had been yanked out from under him when Kylo gave him a dry look, so similar to one of the General’s that it was almost like seeing a ghost. “As I said, it’s obvious. Everyone knows.”

“Well, it’s not obvious to me.”

“You’re not particularly perceptive with regards to romance.”

“Great, thanks.”

Kylo tilted his head. “You’re welcome.”

For a moment they seemed to be suspended in time, Finn’s annoyance prickling all over him, the bitter grief of the lost vote transforming into anger, the anger trying to make itself into - well. Something else. But it really was late. He didn’t actually want to start a fight, especially not with someone who was technically his employee. Or the Senate’s employee, anyway. Ugh.

Actually, that was a good question. “Am I paying you, or is the Senate?”

“The Senate provides protection to its members. They’re paying me.” Kylo’s lips lifted in a sneer. “Surely if you were paying for it, you’d have picked a different bodyguard.”

Finn met Kylo’s sneer with an eye roll of his own. “I know this is second nature to Leia Organa’s son and all, but I’m still learning the ins and outs of all this bureaucracy, okay?”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m - never mind. Are we done here?”

Finn waved a hand. “We’re done. I’ll be staying in tomorrow. I need to…figure things out. So you can do whatever you want.”

“I very much doubt that,” Kylo said coldly. But thank the Force, he left Finn to stew in his frustration.

Rey and Poe had both made Finn promise he’d try to rest, and he really did try, but every time he closed his eyes his thoughts only ran in circles. Eventually he dragged himself out of bed and went through his mail.

Jurtel Hux was trying to sue him, claiming he’d been awarded Padme Amidala’s estate for wartime valiance. “You lost the war and bombed our home,” Finn muttered to himself, but he sent a message to Jannah. They’d need to get a lawyer, something Finn had never even imagined needing to bother with before he’d been elected. And of course there were other problems as well: provisions needed for newly arrived stormtroopers, complicated paperwork for water rights, all kinds of crap.

He worked well into the morning without stopping. When he finally buzzed a droid for some food, he saw that Kylo had left his room.

Huh. He’d taken Finn at his word, for once. Well, more pancakes for him, he supposed. And then he could keep working, hopefully better able to concentrate without Kylo glaring over his shoulder.

Meditating without the Force was just sitting with your eyes closed, but Kylo persisted.

He simply couldn’t make this decision without meditating on it. And of course, Luke and others in Kylo’s life had repeatedly informed him that meditation was for everyone, not just those sensitive to the Force. The Force was everywhere, after all, and everyone had a mind. Supposedly.

Kylo had met too many stupid people to really believe that, but nevertheless: he closed his eyes and tried to calm his thoughts, focusing on oneness with the universe.

Finn was going to be furious.

But of course, that didn’t matter. Kylo didn’t care what Finn thought; Kylo didn’t care about Finn at all, in any way. He needed to meditate to think about the next steps in his ongoing efforts to retain access to the Force, which necessarily involved Finn, but it didn’t go beyond that relatively bloodless necessity.

His decision had been foregone for some time now. He stopped meditating and left, trusting Finn to keep himself safe while he did what he had to.

Finn likely wouldn’t forgive him, but he would be bound to Kylo. In the end, that was all Kylo required.

It took Finn an embarrassingly long time to realize Kylo was missing.

Okay: not that long, all things considered. Rey had gone off-planet once and it had taken Finn a week to realize. He figured out Kylo was missing after twenty-two hours, when he went to have breakfast with three other Senators and Kylo didn’t meet him at the door.

He tried not to worry. Kylo had a tracker on him, but given the unpredictable schedule of a Senator, galactic authorities wouldn’t be notified unless Finn reached out himself, which obviously he wasn’t going to do if he had any other options. He couldn’t stop thinking about Kylo’s eager expression, his desperation when he touched Finn. He wanted to reach the Force and he could only do that through Finn. Why would he leave?

Except, of course, everyone in the galaxy knew about Kylo Ren’s sentence. If someone sidled up to Kylo and told him they could fix his little problem with the Force, Finn had no problem believing that Kylo would take them at their word and try to make it happen. He was that kind of person.

So it was kind of uncomfortable, hanging around and waiting for Kylo to come back. But Finn didn’t really want to talk to galactic parole officers, regardless of his reason, so he kept his mouth shut for the time being.

One day turned into two, which became five, which became two weeks. The Senate’s session closed. Finn’s failed vote had happened towards the end, after all the major legislation had moved or been shot down. The last weeks were mostly political winding-down: promises to meet in a month, re-negotiated alliances, all the other bullshit that sometimes, eventually, turned into a law that might actually help someone.

Finn sometimes really regretted going into politics.

When the Senate session officially ended, though, Finn was in a pickle. He needed to travel back to Naboo, to report back to Jannah and plan their next move. But of course, he’d almost been assassinated the first time while he was traveling. Common sense said he needed a bodyguard, and Kylo was nowhere to be found.

Finn had sent him six messages on his comm before giving up. As far as he knew, Kylo wasn’t even checking in. He’d very thoroughly gone to ground.

Should Finn deal with it? Probably, he thought. If he asked Rey or Poe - Force, if he asked Jannah for sure - they’d tell him that he should’ve called it in already. But he just…couldn’t.

The assassination attempt had thrown everything off, and Finn had been part of that. He’d kissed back, taken advantage. In a small way, maybe, but still. It seemed plausible that Kylo had weighed his options and simply decided he needed some space.

In the end, Finn booked the trip to Naboo on his own. He had a couple droids, and while he was technically taking a public transport ship, his Senate credentials got him a private car. It would be fine, he told himself. No big deal. Nothing to worry about.

That was so close to being true until the third day. They had another two days to go till Naboo, and the transport had mostly emptied out. Finn was enjoying a thick, savory stew when his compartment door opened.

“Excuse me. I didn’t order anything.”

“I know,” said General Hux’s uncle, locking the door behind him and sitting down in the opposite seat. “Hello, Finn. How far you’ve climbed since I last saw you.”

It had been so long since Finn was a ’trooper, ages since he’d been in this sort of situation: helpless, abject, afraid. He hated how well he remembered it, how easily he could change his demeanor. But he also wanted to live, so he put his spoon down and took a deep, calming breath. “Jurtel Hux. Nice to meet you.”

“We’ve met,” Jurtel said, lip curling up in a sneer. “Thought not, I suppose, recently enough for you to have a name and an honorific. How fortunate for you, FN-2187. What did you have to do to get such a position, I wonder.”

“I’m sure you do,” Finn said, tone level despite the racing of his heart. “Still, though, I gotta ask, is there anything specific you want? Because I’m eating, and once I’m done I have a pretty full schedule. Being a Senator is hard work.”

“Mmmm, when one represents such a deceitful and poisonous populace, I imagine it is. What did you suppose you could leech from the Empire?”

Finn hated how familiar this was, helpless rage directed at someone who wanted to hurt him. Someone he had limited ability to hurt back. It wasn’t how things had been when he was a ’trooper, but it was a faded imitation, a ghostly reminder.

The worst part was, it was his job to stay calm now, and the consequences of failure were way worse: letting his people down, not just risking reconditioning or other punishment. “I suspect you read the bill,” he said, careful to keep his voice level.

“Indeed. How did it even make it out of committee, I wonder.”

“Just good at my job, I guess.”

“And so very persuasive.”

Finn’s heart felt like it might break out of his chest. He swallowed, hoping his nervousness didn’t show on his face. He hadn’t used the Force. He hadn’t. But he didn’t want Jurtel to know that was even a possibility. “Well, I went into politics for a reason.”

“Mmm. You know, you didn’t show up on our scans.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t play dumb, boy.”

Finn clenched his hand on his knee. “Mr. Hux, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

But of course, Jurtel ignored him. “We tested all of you for capabilities with the Force. Where do you think your bodyguard got his little knights from? But you never registered so much as a blip. How did you hide from us?”

It was almost certainly a bad idea to physically throw Jurtel out of his compartment. Finn gritted his teeth. “Look, I get what you’re trying to imply. You’re wrong, okay? And I know you don’t care about the truth, so how about you just skip to the part where you threaten my whole career and all that crap so I can get back to my dinner?”

“Oh, I’m not interested in your career.” Watery grey eyes focused on him. “I’m interested in you, Finn, and everything you could lend to the cause, if only you could be…persuaded. Enjoy your dinner.”

Finn didn’t, actually. As soon as Jurtel left, he pushed the bowl away and closed his eyes, willing his hands to stop shaking, his heartbeat to slow down.

Jannah greeted him with a hug so tight Finn was a little scared for his ribs. “Hi,” he wheezed. “How are things?”

“Fine. Listen, Finn.” She pushed him away, looking at him with a mulish expression that reminded Finn, inexplicably, of Rey. “You did your best. Don’t you dare let yourself think otherwise.”

“Maybe I was coming back to say I’d triumphed just by getting the bill to a vote, did you think that?”

Jannah rolled her eyes. “Don’t think I haven’t been talking with your Coruscant friends about this. Plus, we do get the news, you know.”

“Rey says hi, by the way.”

“I’m sure she does.”

Finn blinked. Jannah didn’t sound mad, exactly, but there was something weird going on there. “Should I comm her, see if she can visit?”

“Nah, she’ll be by when she gets time. Speaking of Jedi. Where’s your bodyguard?”

“He’s not a Jedi.”

“Speaking of Skywalkers, then.”

“Well, he repudiated -”

“Finn. Where the fuck is your bodyguard.”

Finn winced. “Okay, look. First of all, I’m here in one piece, so all’s well that ends well, right? But also, I, uh. Don’t know.”

“You don’t know.”

“He disappeared.” Not quite the full truth. “We argued, and then he disappeared.”

Jannah’s expression hardened. “And you’re not calling Galactic security why, exactly? Don’t tell me you feel like you owe him.”

“Of course not.” Giving them the estate didn’t come close to being true recompense for what the ’troopers had gone through. But: “That doesn’t mean I want to send him back to prison.”

“For violating the terms of his release.”

“For needing space.” Finn bit his lip. “Things have been weird, okay? And I might not pay him directly, but I’m still his employer. I don’t want to force him.”

“Force him to spend time around you, someone who’s never hurt him, which is more than you can say about him.” Jannah shook her head. “Of course, you won’t send him to conditioning or control his reading material, or have him bunk with thirty other people.”

“No. What they did to us was a crime.”

“And they’ll never pay up.”

Finn lifted a shoulder in response. “You know I’ll keep trying.”

“I do.” Glumly: she understood why he hadn’t called security, even if she didn’t like it. Finn couldn’t bring himself to throw another person back into captivity after what they’d endured. “All right, then. We’ve got plenty of work for you to do, anyway.”

Naboo was treating the ’troopers well so far. Kef Bir had been a hostile environment, remarkably poorly suited to agrarian society. After they’d spent the time to shore up the decaying structures of the Amidala estate, it had been simple to set up gardening plots. According to Jannah, the plants were already starting to thrive; they’d be self-sufficient within a year or two.

In the meantime, they needed to prepare for the coming weeks. Jannah put Finn to work repairing some harvest droids. Ideally, the whole process would be carried out by droids, from the harvest to cleaning the vegetables to preserving them. Droids could make them olive oil and beer, too. “But we watch over the process,” Jannah said, “and step in every now and then - we can’t afford the most advanced droids yet, and we don’t want any surprises during the canning.”

So Finn repaired the droids, one by one, slower than he wanted. They all had something different wrong: some were rusted, some needed new bearings, some needed software upgrades. That was, apparently, what happened when you bought robots on deep discount. He was in a zone after awhile, though, until he realized he was starving and the sun was starting to set.

The repair shed was a ways off from the cafeteria. Finn decided to take the shortcut he’d used the last time he was here, following an old, worn footpath through some woods. The woods mostly held wild game, but they’d managed to forage mushrooms, too; he kept his eyes peeled as he walked.

It was a good thing he did. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have seen Kylo sitting against a gnarled old tree, eyes closed, fists clenched on his knees.

“Where the fuck have you been!” Finn winced as soon as the shout left him. He hadn’t realized he’d been worrying, but seeing Kylo sitting there, looking stupid but uninjured, he realized: of course he had. It wasn’t like it was impossible that Kylo had been kidnapped, and Finn didn’t hate him enough to want him dead.

“I was busy,” Kylo said in that cold, nasal tone he loved to use.

“Obviously. So busy you couldn’t be bothered to do your legally mandated job?”

“Yes.”

“So why are you here now? You must’ve figured out I didn’t call anyone. You could’ve kept running.”

Kylo’s eyes darted back and forth, his expression completely impenetrable to Finn. “Of course I figured it out. As I said, I was busy. That doesn’t mean I intended to abandon my responsibility.”

“You already did, though. I got threatened by Jurtel Hux, which was just. Annoying.”

Kylo’s expression flickered, gaze sharpening on Finn. “What? What did he say? Did her hurt you? Or the others? Did he mention Kef Bir? When -”

“Calm down, it’s fine. Now, anyway.” Finn took a deep breath, trying to take his own advice. “Why are you even here?”

“I’m meditating. The woods are good for it.”

“I meant - here. On Naboo.”

“As I mentioned. I’m returning to my post.”

“Maybe I want to fire you, ever think of that?”

“I don’t believe you’re cruel enough to deprive me of my last connection to the Force.” Kylo paused. “And even if you were, there is the small matter of bureaucracy. You didn’t hire me; you can’t fire me without cause.”

Finn’s heart felt like it was beating in double-time. It made him stupid. “I have cause, though. And you’re forgetting an option. I could make you go away.”

The look Kylo bestowed upon him would have been hilariously pissy had he directed it at anyone else. “Given your refusal to use the Force in combat or persuasion, I very much doubt that.”

“Fine. Okay. Well.” There was really nothing else to say. “Thanks, I guess. Bye.” He couldn’t face the idea of going deeper into the woods, knowing he might run into Kylo again at any time, so he turned and left the way he’d come.

He wished, futilely, that Kylo had just stayed gone.

Kylo had intended to tell Finn right then. The words would not allow themselves to be released from his mouth.

All the lawyers had informed him this step was non-negotiable. Apparently, one could remove one’s own wealth on the flimsiest of motivations, but other accounting required consent of both parties. It was a pretty short sentence: “Come back to my room, I have documents you need to sign.” But he hadn’t been able to get it out.

What if he had? Finn would demand to know what the documents were for. He might even refuse to go with Kylo until he revealed the answer. Then Kylo would have to drag him there, and Finn would feel him in the Force and know what had happened.

An irritating set of possibilities. Kylo would simply wait for a better opportunity.

He had, however, arrived at his grandmother’s estate - the ’trooper’s estate - with the intention of staying for awhile. He’d already secured a room in the building closest to Finn’s, identified as such by Khajee, who took pains to make it clear that the ’troopers would have preferred Kylo leave Naboo entirely.

But she was honest; it was the room nearest Finn’s building, both in a newly restored part of the old Amidala complex. Which meant that it was really ridiculous to feel shocked when he saw Finn standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall, arms bulging with muscle, face covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

Kylo’s hands twitched at his side. He did not reach out to touch Finn. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting on a droid to bring me some cream for the poison nettles we apparently have growing all over,” Finn said. “Did you know about the nettles?”

“I’m not a botanist.”

“Well, neither am I, and yet.” And now Kylo saw it: little blisters all over the back of both of Finn’s hands.

“You’re an idiot,” Kylo said. He stepped forward before he could think about it, before Finn even had time to protest, catching Finn’s hands in his own.

It was ridiculous. The power Kylo felt was Finn’s, not his own; Kylo needed Finn to feel even an echo of the Force, but Finn could have grabbed hold of it any time. It was only his own negligent attitude toward his power that allowed him to experience any injury for more than a few minutes.

“Hey,” Finn said belatedly. He tugged his hands, a limp movement with hardly any will behind it.

“Hush,” Kylo said. It came out softer than he intended, like he was comforting a child. He scowled and began channeling the Force with vicious focus, driving it into the soft tissue under his fingers.

(Driving it into Finn’s hands. Finn’s hands, rough and soft and strong. Hands he - no. Not here, not with Finn’s brilliant consciousness alongside his in the Force.)

“There,” he said a minute later, carefully thinking of nothing at all as he released Finn’s hands.

But unfortunately, Finn was smarter than Kylo’s subterfuge. “Something’s on your mind. What’s up?”

“Well, my employer refuses to perform basic first aid on himself.”

“Healing me through the Force isn’t basic, come on.”

“Nevertheless.”

“Never you less! What’s going on? Why did you disappear, why are you being so weird?”

Now was the time. Just say it, Kylo told himself. But he couldn’t.

Finn took a step forward, going from ‘standing too close’ to something even more intimate. “Kylo. You can tell me, all right? If someone’s blackmailing you, or messing with you, you can tell me. I’ll fix it. Okay?”

Kylo laughed, a harsh bark of his voice. Trust Finn to be comically off-base in the way that was most sympathetic to Kylo’s own motivations. “I need to show you something,” he said, and jerked his head towards his own door.

He didn’t need to say the words, in the end. He only handed his tablet over and watched Finn read what was written there. It was easy to identify the moment Finn understood what the document meant: his brow furrowed and his hands began to shake.

“This isn’t real.”

“It is,” Kylo said, “but it’s not legally enforceable yet. Your signature is required for that.”

“Why mine?”

“Galactic law. I could get Jannah’s as well, since she’s technically your head of state, but as acting Senator you have the same rights as signatory that she would.” And Finn was marginally less likely to spit in his face.

“You can’t just…Kylo, what the fuck. You can’t sign the entire Organa estate over to us!”

“I can. I have. I did. My lawyer’s contact information is in the document, should you want more details. I’d recommend you retain him, actually; he won’t be particularly useful to me after this.” Finn still hadn’t signed. “Well? Sign for it, already.”

Finn shook his head a tiny bit, looking up to meet Kylo’s eyes. “Is something wrong? Are you dumping a toxic asset, or…is someone threatening you?”

Another bitter laugh. “No more than they already have.”

But it was obvious Finn didn’t understand. This was Kylo’s punishment for his many evil deeds: being forced to explain, word for word, his reasoning. “I am beholden to you right now. If you reject my services, I’ll be sent back to a penal ship. I have no desire to toil for the rest of my years, extracting selenium and aluminum from some miserable rock or sitting uselessly in a cell.”

“So this is, what? A bribe?”

Kylo gritted his teeth. “Insurance. Your bill was voted down.”

“It was never really up. I can’t believe I thought it might happen.”

“It still might,” Kylo said, “in five or ten years, when people start telling themselves - and each other - that they were always in favor of your right to self-determination, that they always knew you deserved somewhere safe.”

“But?”

Kylo closed his eyes. Opened them. Wished he could feel the dark side, if only to help him keep his voice steady as he laid bare the conclusions that had been evident to him since Finn’s friends were back on Kef Bir. “Five or ten years from now, without a massive infusion of cash, your little agrarian city-state will be dead, your ’troopers scattered throughout the galaxy. You may still receive payments; legally, you should. But the dream of Kef Bir will be dead, and with it, and with it, the relative freedom I currently enjoy.”

He heard only his own ragged breaths as Finn processed what he’d said. What was a fortune compared to the ability to breathe clean air and choose his own meals? Nothing at all, it turned out.

“I see,” Finn eventually said. He signed without complaint: two full signatures, ten initialed clauses. “I’ll need to meet with Jannah. You can…I mean, I’d appreciate it if you’d be around, but you know how it is here.”

Meaning: Finn was in no danger, and if he was, he had dozens of formerly-brainwashed brothers and sisters to guard him. “Yes.”

“Okay, then.” Finn nodded awkwardly, swiped on the tablet - sending the documents to himself, Kylo assumed - and then left, managing not to meet Kylo’s gaze the whole time.

Kylo wanted to smash his tablet very badly, but of course, he no longer had the funds to replace it. Instead, he lay down on the cold stone floor and stared at the ceiling, cursing in every language he could remember until he was able to enter a subpar meditative trance.

“Kriff. All of it? Force, General Organa’s money?”

Finn nodded. “Hundreds of millions of credits, six properties, all of it.”

Jannah whistled and leaned back in her chair. “Hell of a bribe to keep him on, don’t you think?”

For some reason, Finn had to fight the urge to squirm. “I guess.”

“We can use it, though. All of it. Kriff, Finn, this changes everything.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m kind of pissed about it, actually.”

“Oh thank the Force,” Finn said, relief rushing through him. “I just -”

“He’s the reason we were kidnapped! The conditioning -”

“I can’t even tell - it’s not an apology! I’d be pissed if it was, but it’s not!”

“Entirely self-serving, obviously,” Jannah said, nodding. Then she cut another look at Finn, some of her anger visibly ebbing. “Though still, it’s pretty lucky.”

“That’s what pisses me off the most,” Finn said miserably, slumping forward.

“Well, look on the bright side. We’d all die for you; you’re safe here. No need to keep your bodyguard close.”

“Would you let me quit if I decided to make that permanent? Send someone else to Coruscant to get shot at.”

“Aw,” Jannah said. “Absolutely not.”

Well, it had been worth a try.