God. Why.

He averts his eyes.

"...yeah. Time to go."

Yup. Speeder, shuttle, let's go. She tosses the collected purchases in the shuttle's living area and gets the speeder and carts loaded into the cargo bay.

"Just take off, I'll keep everything from flying around," she directs, sitting abruptly on the floor as soon as she's back in the main area.

She doesn't have to tell him twice. He steps into the cockpit and a minute later the shuttle begins to lift.

A few things might shift in the cabinets, but everything visible stays firmly put.

He calls back from the cockpit.

"Tell me where I'm going!"

"Follow the road east, I'll be up in a bit."

He flies the way she told him.

As soon as they're clear of the town, she drops the aura, and ten minutes later she comes up to flop into the copilot's chair. "Ugh."

"...that could have gone better, huh."

He pulls back a little when she comes in, as if the aura is still up.

"Yeah. Not much, that guy was dead the minute he decided to pick up the pipe, but."

He nods and watches the road twist in front of them. He's glad this is faster than the speeder.

"Yeah."

"Hey. You can't blame yourself for someone else's stupidity. They know how this works; I've been very clear about it. Sometimes they decide to do stupid things anyway, that's on them."

"...how does this work?"

He turns a little in his chair.

"I mean...stay out of your way when you come to town, sure. But not everyone can get out of the way."

"I've never killed anyone just for being in the way - not here, anyway. Scared 'em, sure, I don't want them getting into habits that'll get them killed if some other Sith comes through, but there's only four things that'll get them killed - not following directions, coming into my territory, mistreating Daisy, and attacking me. It hasn't always been that simple - I know what it's like to have an impulse problem - but those four have never not been trouble."

He nods.

"...makes sense."

He looks back out at the road.

(This is fucked up. This is fucked up for everyone. This isn't okay, but he can't think of a better way for things to be and he doesn't know how to fix it. He probably can't fix it.

It's a lot easier to ignore this shit when you think you have no power at all.)

"Yeah."

"I don't - I'm hesitant to just let you go off on your own, it seems like you're kind of courting some Force problems yourself, there. But if you want to, I'm not going to stop you."

He thinks about that, for a minute.

"...I don't think that'd help anything. I think...maybe if I stay, something could get better for somebody."

"Mm."

"Maybe."

"We're going to have to figure out what to tell them about you; I don't want them suspecting random people of being Sith. I think we can get away with - you're my apprentice now, you didn't know you were Force sensitive until I told you, and telekinesis is just that easy to learn. If you're okay with them thinking that."

"...wait, wasn't it just us and him there?"

Fuck. He thinks back, tries to remember if he saw or felt or heard anything.

"Yeah, there was somebody else hiding with him. I'm not sure what she saw; Daisy can probably figure it out and just not say anything if she assumed it was me."

"...okay, so, uh. Today I learned I'm really bad at stealth."

"Yeah, the impulse control problem will do that. You probably wouldn't be bad, otherwise, just not as good as a sensory specialist."

"I'd say I'd work on my impulse control, but...last time somebody tried to fix that I ran as fast as I could in the other direction."

"Yeah. And they're some pretty good impulses, for the most part. Implementation's a little iffy but that's not so hard to fix."

"Ha. Yeah, that's one way to say it."

He seems slightly reassured, though.

"Maybe you can teach me that and how to fix headaches."