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“General?” Finn asks from his cross legged position on the ground. General Organa sits on a rock in front of him.
“I’ve told you Finn, you can call me Leia now. If I’m going to be your teacher, I’d rather not feel like your superior officer too.”
“You are my superior officer.” The General raises an eyebrow at him. “Leia.”
“Very good.”
Finn’s hands fidget at his sides. “Leia,” he starts again. “Can I ask you a question?”
The General– Leia waves a hand in front of her, as if to open the floor to him. “You can ask me whatever you’d like.”
Finn sucks in a breath and steels himself. The forest around them is beautiful, lush and brimming with color. Rey will always be more shocked at all the green, but Finn has still not gotten over being allowed to relax around so much vibrant life. Part of him will never be out of the tense, sterile halls of the First Order. Each moment away is a gift. A blessing. He still wonders if he deserves it.
Of course you do, a stern voice says, sounding like Poe. You deserve this.
The more and more he trains with Leia, the more the Force in the plants and the dirt and the ground and the air becomes tangible to him. It’s huge. It’s like he’s looking out at all of space, except all that space is in each leaf, starting over and over, infinitely inhabiting things that can fit in his palm.
“Does it ever feel… like too much?”
“It?” She asks, but Finn is pretty sure she’s aware of his meaning without needing his elaboration. She always stays one step ahead.
“The Force.”
“It’s been its own burden at times.” She rolls her shoulders back, looking at a trio of birds flying above. "I had my own feelings to work through over my connection to the Force. For a while after I was able to put words to it, I viewed it as an occasionally helpful inconvenience." She crosses her arms, gaze returning from far away to look back at Finn. She leaves a lot unsaid, he can tell. "Training helped me. It will help you, too. No matter what you want to do with it."
He wants that to be true. Leia can probably see he doesn’t yet believe it, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Try lifting the rocks again. When you open yourself to the Force, just breathe. If it’s too much, let it be too much for as long as you can stand it.” She crosses her legs atop the mossy boulder. “You don’t have to run from it. You aren’t failing if it’s overwhelming.”
He drops his head to look at the pebbles in front of him.
“You’re lucky. I could demand to be carried on your back for this part.” She grins at his bemused expression. “Just a little joke for someone who isn’t here.” There is a sadness in her eyes mixed with the amusement. Finn only recently began recognizing it as such; it’s always there, making it hard to distinguish.
One cloudy and cool night after Leia asked Finn to train with her but before the training actually started and they were splitting some technically contraband booze, Poe quietly admitted that he worries about the General. She's one hell of a woman, he said, in between sips. I've never heard of someone going through what she has and making it through in one piece. Their fingers collided in the exchange of the bottle. She'll understand, you know. She'll get the stuff you carry, because she carries stuff too.
He pushes away thoughts of Poe, and the distracting ache in his right shoulder from sleeping on it wrong, and the things he carries, and the beginnings of hunger deep in his stomach. The Force flows into all the gaps left open by all other feelings. He sinks into it. Lets them meld into one being. He wants to shy away from the swirling vastness. But he doesn’t. He stays strong and still and scared, all at once.
The whole world explodes in his awareness, an alarming moment where he still isn't sure he can do this, but then he breathes in and out and does. He couldn’t explain what happened before and after in words. There is balance, balance in him and balance out of him which right now are the same thing entirely.
"Good," says Leia from very far away but also from within his skull. "Very good, Finn. Now lift these rocks."
He closes his eyes, but still feels the outline of the rocks around him. They all thrum, so he thrums with them. He raises one hand. All the outlines rise with him, shaky at first. He breathes in deeply, and they steady themselves. Or he steadies them. They are one and the same, so the difference doesn't really matter.
It starts to be too much, but in a new and better way than before. Is this progress? He opens his eyes to see the rocks in the air, to remember the moment. Leia smiles at him from 5 ft in the air, still sitting on the boulder she started on, looking perfectly comfortable and pleasantly surprised.
"Sorry!" Finn says automatically. He drops Leia and the rocks back down, but in his haste, he loses focus and they tumble erratically towards the ground. He catches Leia's boulder and lets the rest fall where they want to. She doesn't even look fazed at the jolt.
"No apology necessary."
He lowers her gently, grimacing. “I should have realized.”
“You will. You’re learning.” She smiles. “I was in no danger.”
Her unwavering trust in him shocks him still, even years after she gave it to him. Leia, and Poe, and Rey, and Rose… they care for him so much. He can feel it, sure as the Force itself, a buoy in his doubt and wondering. He's on his way to– understanding? He doesn't know what.
"Do it again," Leia says. "I'll leave it up to you if you'd like to leave me on the ground this time or not." He huffs a laugh and closes his eyes. Maybe he doesn't need to know. Not yet. It will come.
The Force laps at him like rolling waves on the shore. He wades back into it; both he and the stones float together over its edge. Everything sings.