Archive of Our Own ^beta

Seven-year-old Ben liked art class, even if his art teacher, Ms. Fitz, didn’t always seem nice. She was a human with black braids tightly pinned to her scalp and even though she was a teacher, she rarely smiled. “Color neat and inside the lines, no scribble-scrabble” she repeated frequently, as if scribble-scrabble would bring the Empire back.

Still, Ben liked to draw. Besides, today they were making Father’s Day cards (or cards for any kind of guardian if a kid didn’t have a father), and Ben could already imagine his dad’s big grin when Ben gave him the card.

He’d written “I love you Dad, Love Ben” on the inside of the card and now he was drawing a heart on the front. It was a small heart, but he didn’t want to get in trouble for making the heart too big. He bit his lip as he colored the heart red, keeping the color away from the lines so he wouldn’t color outside them.

All right, he was done. The heart looked like it had a border of white outside the red, but that was better than coloring outside the lines. He smiled to himself. Dad was gonna love it.

“How are you doing, Ben?”

Ben looked up from his desk and there was Ms. Fitz, towering over him. “I’m done,” he said.

Ms. Fitz immediately grabbed the card. After looking over the cover, opening it, and looking at the inside, she slammed it back on the desk. “Draw more,” she said in a clipped voice. “I don’t think your dad would appreciate it if you gave it to him like that.”

Dad wouldn’t like it?

Ben froze, his eyes welling up, his mind now seeing Dad glaring at the card, shouting “Why didn’t you draw more?” No, no, Dad wouldn’t do that, he’d love the card, right?

In a few seconds he was sobbing.

“Stop crying,” Ms. Fitz said, still in that clipped voice.

“Dad will too like the card!” Ben choked out between sobs.

“Ben, you need to calm down.”

At that point, telling Ben to calm down was like telling him to wrestle down a Wookiee. Hot tears poured down his cheeks, stinging his eyes.

“Ben, STOP!” Ms. Fitz shouted. “What do you think your parents would say if they saw you crying like this?”

Ben’s hands clenched. His teeth ground. Another sob, this one louder than the others.

And Ms. Fitz slammed against the wall as if an invisible being shoved her.

. . .

Ben had been sent to the office again.

Han released a sigh as he entered the principal’s office, seeing Ben slouched on the bench and Principal Mimon, a red-skinned Torgruta woman, seated at her desk across from him.

“Mr. Solo,” the principal greeted with a nod.

“What’s goin’ on here?” asked Han. “What’d the kids do to Ben this time?”

Principal Mimon looked like she was restraining herself from rolling her eyes. “Mr. Solo, it doesn’t benefit your son to always assume that he must be the victim.”

“The kids didn’t do anything,” Ben mumbled.

Han sat on the bench next to Ben, wrapping an arm around his son. “Then what happened, son?”

“Your son pushed the art teacher with the Force,” said the principal.

“I didn’t mean to!” Ben quickly insisted. “It just kinda happened!”

Han frowned, turning his attention to the principal. “Look, I’m sorry bout this. We’re tryin’ to teach him to control his powers. Is the teacher all right?”

“Yes,” said Principal Mimon, “but that’s not an excuse.”

“She said you wouldn’t like your Father’s Day card!” Ben exclaimed, a sob threatening to overtake his voice.

Immediately Han’s attention was back on his son. “Wait, what??”

Ben ran his hand over his eyes. “W-we were makin’ Father’s Day cards and she told me I had to draw more stuff on mine or else you wouldn’t like it!”

“What??” It was as if ice had settled in Han’s stomach.

“Mr. Solo,” said Principal Mimon, “Ms. Fitz was trying to encourage your son to stretch his creativity.”

Instantly Han leapt to his feet, glaring at the principal. “Oh yeah? Well where is she? I wanna word with her!”

“She has gone home for the day.”

“Then you can give her a message for me.” Han pointed an angry finger at the principal. “You can tell her that she’s gonna stop tellin’ my son that his dad won’t like his drawings or she’ll have to answer to General Han Solo!”

“I most certainly will not tell her that!” the principal said in a haughty voice.

Han’s glare intensified as a plaque on the wall behind the principal caught his eye.

It said “Color outside the lines.”

“So I guess that sign is bantha shit,” said Han, waving his finger at the plaque.

“Sign?” Principal Mimon asked as if she didn’t know what was on her own office walls.

“’Color outside the lines,’” said Han.

“Ms. Fitz is always tellin’ us that we gotta color inside the lines,” said Ben. “We can’t scribble-scrabble.”

“So it is bantha shit,” Han declared. “Sounds to me like the art teacher’s makin’ kids afraid of expressin’ themselves.”

“Are you an art teacher?” asked the principal. “Do you have any idea what teaching methods work best to stimulate children’s creativity?”

“Again, bantha shit!” By now Han’s face was heating up in rage and his breath was coming out in angry snarls. “Now you tell Ms. Fitz to leave my son alone or this whole school’s gonna have to answer to General Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa!” With that, he helped Ben up from the bench. “C’mon son, let’s go home.”

They left before the principal could say another word.

. . .
“You showed her up good, Dad,” Ben said during the speeder ride home.

Han had to keep his eyes on the road, but he still grinned even if his son couldn’t see it from the back seat. “Thanks, buddy. But, ah, we might not wanna tell your mother that I said the s-word. You know you ain’t s’posed to say that word.”

“I think Mom’ll say you had a reason to say it,” said Ben.

They rode in silence for a few more minutes before Ben spoke up, his voice hesitant. “Dad, what if I didn’t draw enough? Will you still like it?”

Han ground his teeth, wishing that Ms. Fitz had been available for him to yell at directly. “You think I care about that? I’ll love whatever card you give me cause it came from you.” Again he resented having to watch the road instead of give Ben a reassuring smile. “Ms. Fitz is just full of poodoo.”

“You mean that?”

Han gave a determined nod. “Always.”

. . .

“Haaaaaaappppyyyyy Father’s Day!”

Ben’s singsongy voice coaxed Han out of sleep. With a yawn, he opened his eyes to see Ben sitting on the bed next to him, a cute grin on his face. “You awake?” he asked.

“Kinda,” said Han, blinking the world into focus and realizing that Leia was standing next to the bed, holding a tray.

“Hey,” she said, “I kept telling him that you wanted to sleep in for Father’s Day, but he finally got bored of waiting.”

“We made you breakfast in bed!” Ben exclaimed.

“Breakfast in bed?” Han shuffled himself to a sitting position. “You guys spoil me!”

Leia placed the tray in her husband’s lap, and leaning against a cup of caf was a card with a heart drawn on the front. “And what’s this?” he asked, picking up the card.

Ben bit his lip. “It’s . . . from me.”

Han’s heart thumped as he found himself wishing once again that he could have yelled in Ms. Fitz’s face for making his son think that he wouldn’t like his card. “Can I open it?”

Ben gazed down at the blankets. “Sure.”

He opened the card and there was “I love you Dad, Love Ben” written in his son’s scrawly handwriting. A large smile pulled at his mouth as he opened and closed the card several times.

“Do you like it?” Ben said in a nervous voice.

“Like it?” Han said as he turned to his son. “Buddy, I love it! C’mere, you!” He gathered Ben into his arms, planting a kiss on his head. “Thank you so much!”

The tiny smile on Ben’s face still looked unsure, as if Ms. Fitz’s words still haunted him. “You mean it?”

“Yes, I mean it.” Han squeezed his son tighter. “I love you, son.”

Finally Ben seemed to relax in his father’s arms. “I love you too, Dad.”

THE END