Scoundrels

There wasn't much to do on the Millennium Falcon.

Alright, technically there was – any moment not spent preparing for their heist on Kessel was a moment wasted, and potentially a moment that could mean the difference between life and death. But if one equated stuff "to do" with "keep the ship flying," then, no, there really wasn't anything. Lando could fly the ship. L3 could navigate. The wookie could continue to try his hand at holochess (and fail), Beckett and Han could continue to clean their blaster rifles, and she…she could do nothing. Nothing but think, reflect, worry, and perhaps use field strip her own blaster pistol for the umpteenth time.

She didn't do that though. She just walked through the corridors, trying to stop her mind moving by keeping her body moving instead. Problem was, that involved keeping her eyes faced downwards. And in this case, that meant bumping into-

"Hey, watch it."

Beckett.

"Watch it," the criminal had said. He was holding his blaster pistol by the middle of the barrel – she could tell that the safety wasn't on. He might have been tinkering with it while moving as well.

"Sorry," she said, moving around him. She didn't have any destination in mind. All that she wanted to do was to keep moving. And would have done so if she didn't hear Beckett snort. The type of snort that sounded more gamorrean than human. She turned around, and saw him smirking in the manner that only people like Tobias Beckett could.

"What?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing." He turned around and began to slowly walk down the corridor.

"What?" she repeated, easily catching up to him and blocking his route. He wanted her to play his game? Fine. She'd play. Only other game on this ship was holochess, and the wookie had already suffered enough humiliation.

"Oh, just…" He put a hand to his chin, still smirking. "Just…you."

"Me?"

"You. Apologizing for anything." He patted her on the shoulder, and she instinctively recoiled. Not so much because of Beckett, because usually it was Dryden Voss who put his hand there. And with Dryden Voss, she'd trained herself to play the game he wanted her to play. "Guess Han is rubbing off on you."

Beckett wasn't Voss though. Beckett could only dream of being anything like Voss. So, with him not being Voss, and she not being beholden to him, she again blocked his pathway.

"What do you mean, Han is rubbing off on me?"

Beckett shrugged. "Oh, I dunno. Just can't help but wonder if it was just you and me, if you'd be a bit less nice."

"I'm not nice."

"Really? Because if half of what I've heard about you is true, then by your standards, this is beyond nice." Qi'ra opened her mouth, but Beckett kept talking. "Yeah, I got ears. Word travels faster than lightspeed and all that."

She'd long played the game with Voss, so she knew how to play this one. Lowering her voice, she said, "if you know what I've done…what makes you think I won't do the same to you?"

"Well, you need some muscle on this job. Plus, your boyfriend is on this ship, so him finding my body wouldn't do much for his sense of ease."

"What if he doesn't find your body?"

"Conspicuous absence."

Yes Beckett, you're very conspicuous, she reflected. She also reflected whether she should play the game further and ask whether her killing Beckett could be pinned on any other of the crew members. Still, she didn't. She'd been on jobs like this before, always with Voss's own men. She'd killed alongside killers. Problem was, she wasn't on a ship of killers. People who could kill, maybe, and had done so in the past, but not people who slept easy because of it. Out of all of them, Beckett was the closest to Voss's ideal lackey.

"Well," she said, smiling. "I'll have to make sure you live long enough to deliver the coaxium, won't I?"

She moved past him. Beckett could have his fun. Beckett knew that this was his last chance, that if he failed, that there was nowhere Dryden Voss couldn't find him. Also knew that if anything happened to her, his body would be found in a black hole somewhere, even if he delivered the coaxium on time. Faced with such circumstances, if he wanted to make life difficult for her while he still had a life to live, well, who was she to say otherwise?

"Do you love him?"

Right now, she couldn't say much. She just stood there, frozen, between one hull plate and the next.

"Well?"

Stars and galaxies, he was really doing this. And, more stars and more galaxies…damn it, she didn't know how to respond to that.

"Still waiting."

She slowly turned around to face Beckett, pondering her course of action. Kill the bastard and be done with it? Tempting, but far too damaging in the long run. Ignore him? That would mean he 'won,' make him think he had power he didn't. Lie? She could try, but even after lying for three years, she'd done that without Han being around, so she wasn't sure of her ability to pull it off here. Tell the truth?

"Who?" she asked slowly.

What even was the truth anymore?

"You know – your boyfriend from Corellia."

Something dark, complicated, and what had kept her up at night far more than the killing she'd done with Voss's other cronies.

"I don't think that's any of your business."

Did that make her a terrible person? She'd done terrible things, for a terrible man, for a terrible organization, which was pulled at the strings by someone far more terrible than anything she'd ever known, but…but…

"Well, all things considered, I think it is." Beckett drew out his pistol and began twirling it – twirling it quite well, she had to admit. "I mean, I have to wonder, if Han wasn't in the room when we met your boss, would you be quite as eager to suggest another source of coaxium?"

"I was just-"

"And yeah, the whole cloak-kissing thing," Beckett continued. "Won't dwell on that."

"But you're dwelling on something," she said. "So come on and say it."

The twirl stopped. The gun hovered. Something flashed in Beckett's eyes.

"Just curious," he said, "as to whether you're the girl he thinks you are."

I'm not, she reflected. But she didn't say that. Beckett kept talking anyway, so she barely got the chance.

"See, here's the thing," Beckett said. "I figured that after seeing you on your boss's arm all those years, you'd be one of those girls who goes for scoundrels. Girl who gets her hands dirty, and likes boys with dirty hands as well." She opened her mouth, but he still interrupted. "Yeah yeah, I know, your hands look clean, because your boss's yacht ain't short on tap water, or anything else." He frowned. "But here's the thing – I ain't sure Han is a scoundrel. I mean, he thinks he is, and he wants everyone to think he is, and I bet he even thinks he thinks he's in love with you. But…"

"But?"

"But I'm left to ask, is he the nice man, or the scoundrel? And which one, if either, do you like?"

Qi'ra didn't answer. She knew what Han was. Beckett was close to getting the answer, but he wasn't quite there yet. But…damn it, she could have lied easily in this situation, because something was pumping through her body – the same something that kept her alive when blaster bolts were going through the air, or when Voss needed 'attending' to. Problem was, she could tell that part of Beckett did care for Han. Maybe in the way she did – the type of way that was fondness, but…

Nothing more.

She knew the answer. Beckett probably already knew the answer as well. The question wasn't whether she liked scoundrels, or nice men. The question was who was going to get hurt when the bigger answer to the question Han wasn't even asking came out.

"You lovebirds aright?"

L3. Right now, Qi'ra would take a lecture on droid rights a thousand times over than deal with this particular field of study – Boyfriends and Nice Men, 101. Delivered by the finest lecturers of Imperial Centre.

"Fine," said Beckett. "Just having a chat."

"How nice for you," the droid said. "'Scuse me."

Both meatbags let her get through. Qi'ra headed after her – anything to put distance from Beckett. Away from his questions.

Away from the answers.

A/N

Okay, fun fact, I originally planned this as something completely different. As in, to take the Han/Leia kiss scene from Empire, transpose it to Qi'ra/Han, and replace the whole "I say I like nice men but really like scoundrels" with the opposite thought/protest process. Still, having seen Solo, that couldn't work. First reason is that given the pacing of the trip to Kessel, there's no real place to fit it in. Secondly...I'll be honest, I'm not really partial to HanxQi'ra, and even if I didn't know that Han would end up with Leia over a decade later, I wouldn't be that more partial to it. Still, I liked the idea behind the idea, so to speak, so just ended up transposing it.