Force Bond

by Ralph_E_Silvering

Summary:

No matter what happens, Ben can’t stay away from her. Whatever is left of his soul, she is the other half of it. A story about the Force Bond between Ben and Rey.

Notes:

I don’t own anything from Star Wars.

Chapter 1: Snow

It had been a long time since Ben Solo had had a snowball thrown at his face.

One moment he had been listening to a report delivered by Admiral Vlodavsky of the Fifth Fleet, and the next he was standing in snow and staring at Rey’s horrified face. Her cheeks were pink from the cold and snowflakes dusted her dark hair and eyelashes. Her eyes were wide as she stared at him and her hands were covered in incriminating evidence; more snow.

“I didn’t think that would actually hit you,” she muttered, eyes shifting away from his, guiltily. Her lips twitched and he knew he looked ridiculous with snow dripping down his face and liberally coating his hair. It had, of course, been a huge snowball.

His eyes shifted to Admiral Vlodavsky, who may not have heard Rey but definitely saw the snow now covering his Emperor. He had fallen silent and seemed torn between shock and bemusement. “My Lord?” he asked, hesitantly.

“Dismissed, Admiral,” the leader of the First Order said curtly, waving the elderly naval officer out. “I’ll hear the rest of your report later.”

He wondered how long it would be before this story spread throughout the High Command. He gave it until lunch.

Rey shifted from foot to foot, patiently waiting until he was alone and carefully watching him, no doubt looking to see if he was angry.

He should be, but she looked rather enchanting in her mittens and with snow dancing around her. The first time he had fought her, there had been snow all around them both as well. He wiped the snow off his face with his gloves, eyes never leaving hers as he reached out to the Force.

A pile of snow dropped on the Jedi’s head.

She shrieked in surprise, sputtering and flailing her way out of the mound. “That’s cheating,” she cried, eyes flashing, and he couldn't help laughing at her affronted look.

For a moment her anger was stalled, and she stared at him in wonderment. Then, with a primitive war cry, she tackled him back into the snow.

Chapter 2: Words

Notes:

So Riyo Chuchi from The Clone Wars makes an appearance in this one. And we jump to Rey’s point of view. Thank you so much for your kudos/favorites and comments. I’m not sure how many one-shots I’ll do, but if anyone has any scenes they’d like to see, let me know and I’ll see if inspiration strikes for it.

It had been a long, fruitless day, and by the end of it even General Organa looked like she wanted to spit blaster bolts.

If Rey had to listen to one more middle-grade, planetary bureaucrat telling her they’d love to support the Republic and the Jedi, but officially they would swear allegiance to the First Order…

With a growl of aggravation, she stalked back to her small room on the Falcon and hit the door release, enclosing herself in blessed darkness and quiet. The Pantorans had offered General Organa’s delegation excellent rooms in the palace and although Leia had accepted so as not to offend their hosts, Rey stubbornly stayed on the Falcon.

“We might need a quick escape,” she’d insisted to the princess, who had looked wry. The Pantorans had promised them safe passage.

The aged Pantoran, Riyo Chuchi, who had been the Senator for Pantora during the Clone Wars, shook her head ruefully. “Words. That’s all people give each other these days. Words, empty of meaning.”

Leia’s eyes blazed. “My word still means something.” The regal bearing in her small frame was inescapable.

Senator Chuchi, delicate and still beautiful in old age, smiled. “As does mine. I will find a way to aid you, Your Highness. Pantora will support the Republic.”

Rey hoped the senator was as good as her word. Now, though, she settled down on the small mat she’d placed on the floor next to her bunk and attempted to center herself, to let go of the day’s disappointments.

When she opened her eyes, she was back in Ben’s chambers aboard the re-built Supremacy. Ever since Snoke died, their Bond only seemed to grow stronger. Now, they could see each other’s surroundings, if not the people in them.

These were definitely Ben’s rooms. It was the unremitting black décor which gave it away. But the room she was currently in was distant and foggy, insubstantial. The only clear thing in the room was Ben himself, seated in a chair at his desk, head resting on top of a sheaf of papers, and fast asleep.

Rey held her breath in wonder, watching him. His face, so expressive and tormented while awake, was soft in repose. His beautiful, dark hair fell in waves which partially covered his eyes and nose, and his full lips were slightly parted. The only sound in the room was his deep, even breathing.

He looked…he looked beautiful.

Like an enchanted prince from the stories the weathered, old women in Niima Outpost used to tell.

Rey drifted over to his side like a ghost, trying not to make the slightest sound in case she woke him.

He looked exhausted, thinner than when she had last seen him. She found her own hand hovering above him, fluttering in indecision. At last she reached out, heart pounding in her chest, to lightly press the tips of her fingers to the back of his hand, resting on the table. Her heart jumped as he sighed and muttered in his sleep. He made a faint humming noise in his throat, almost like a cat.

Rey smiled and brushed some silky strands of hair away from his eyes, watching with delight as his nose scrunched up before he relaxed again.

Her eyes were caught by the paper on which he’d fallen asleep. The sheets were thick and heavy, and the pages were covered with beautiful letters which flowed together and looked almost more like pictures than words. Strangely-tipped pens and bottles of some type of black in covered his desk. Rey could not read the language he wrote in, but she loved the way he delicately formed these unknown words.

She realized she wasn’t actually surprised that Kylo Ren, feared Emperor of the First Order, spent his spare time drawing fancy letters.

“Calligraphy,” Leia explained later, when Rey asked her about it. The general’s face was a difficult mix of sadness, fondness and disappointment. “He used to say that words were as insubstantial as dust or memory, but at least he could make them beautiful.”

“They were beautiful,” Rey promised the princess. She also wasn’t surprised that Ben had the soul of a poet. One day, she would learn what his words meant.

“Yes,” Leia agreed, and she smiled.

Chapter 3: The Rebel Princess

Notes:

I don’t own anything from Star Wars. Yes, I know there is a shift from third person to first person at one point in this chapter. It’s meant to represent the immediacy of the emotions Ben is feeling.

Ben felt her leave him.

One moment he was lying in his chambers, staring blankly at the ceiling, waiting as always for sleep which never came. The sheets were of finest Chandrilan silk, soft and cool against his skin, but his mind could not rest and so his body remained awake. He was musing in a desultory way of what to do about the inimical General Hux.

The next moment, the Force was rent apart in burning, all-consuming agony. It felt as though his every nerve was on fire, his every bone was breaking, as though that ever-present aching pit of loneliness and despair inside him was all that had ever been and ever would be.

Ben fell out of bed, stumbled, hit the floor again, pain shooting through his knees, dragged himself ruthlessly back to his feet, half-fell and half-ran to the darkened viewports. With a snarl and a careless flick of his wrist, the shades receded and the nebula around which the Supremacy was currently orbiting blazed brilliantly into the room.

A star had become trapped and was slowly dying. Ben had watched its inexorable demise for days now. He could feel it screaming in the Force. He reached out, frowned…

No…that wasn’t it.

The Force wasn’t screaming for this ball of gas, it was screaming for…his mother.

Leia was…Leia was dying. In unimaginable agony.

Mother, Ben cried out silently, throwing his consciousness, his presence in the Force, towards her automatically. It felt like he was being ripped apart, atom by atom, in a high gale. Mother, he cried out again, frantically.

She was fighting. Of course, she was. But there was no escape. Ben desperately tried to soak up some of her pain, lend her some of his strength, give her some of his life force, but she closed herself off ruthlessly.

He felt her fade, felt her vibrant, brilliant presence dim in the Force. At last he felt one, brief touch, one brush, felt her love for him – warm, like spring sunshine – and then she was gone.

He screams. He knows he does. And the violent Force-storm which springs up around him destroys everything in his immediate vicinity.

All he feels is alone. And betrayed in a way he hadn’t thought he was capable of being anymore.

It’s only when he feels strong arms around him, holding him, and a familiar voice begging him to be calm, that he breathes again.

“It’s alright. It’s going to be alright,” Rey said, over and over again, when he could finally hear her. Her face was buried in the back of his sweaty hair as she held onto him tenaciously, but he felt her trembling. He sank to his knees, stilled himself ruthlessly, and placed torn and bloody hands over hers, where they gripped his middle. Debris fell around them as he released his Force grip from his surroundings.

His voice was a ruin when he spoke. “She’s gone.” Even now he couldn’t believe it. Leia…Princess Leia…his mother…was indestructible, was an ever-burning fire, she couldn’t be –

Rey shook her head emphatically against his back. “No, she’s not. Can’t you feel her?”

He couldn’t feel anything…anything but her.

She must have felt his despair through their bond because the next moment she dragged him to his feet and pulled him over to the viewport. “I don’t know what you’re seeing,” she said softly, “but I know there’s a window here and I can feel her out there. Look,” she begged, “and I promise you will find her.”

Ben looked. In a process which should have taken millennia, the dying star had turned supernova, it’s rays of brilliant white light expanding towards him even as they watched. The Supremacy’s alarms were blaring, and he felt the ship jerk as it pulled rapidly away. Pounding feet sounded above him as all hands were called to stations.

Daughter of the Chosen One, he thought distantly, watching the star expand, Rey’s hand in his. Child of The Force.

The rage and despair had settled, for now, into a bittersweet ache which gnawed at him. He tried to remember to breathe. The Force had loved his mother; he could see it, even if he could not feel it. Or her.

“One day you will,” Rey promised him, still standing beside him, her voice strong and sure and filled with hope.

And Ben…well, Ben couldn’t help but believe her.

Chapter 4: The Funeral

Notes:

I don’t own anything from "Star Wars". If I did, there would have been several more seasons of "The Clone Wars", a spin off involving just Obi-Wan and Anakin, and what happened on "Rebels" last week would never have happened.

The morning dawned, suffused in colors of rose and gold and deepest black-violet. Rey was awakened by the mournful tolling of a single, deep, sonorous bell, ringing from somewhere out over the capital city. She got up and went to sit cross-legged on the balcony attached to her room, watching the sun rise over the elegant silver and white spires of New Aldera; glinting off the snow-capped mountains surrounding them, until it bathed the winding stone streets and the quiet people hanging garlands of flowers along the way their princess would pass.

Today Leia Organa would be sent to her final resting place.

The last princess of Alderaan, the queen of New Alderaan. Rey had been told that the princess had chosen well the new homeworld which would harbor the remnants of her people. Rey had listened, over the past few days, to the warmth and respect and grief in the voices of the Alderaanians as they spoke of Leia and she knew that the general would be honored and missed for as long as any remnant of Alderaan endured.

Quiet tears of her own slipped down her cheeks as the road below her was festooned in white and purple and blue blossoms. Someone was singing quietly, and several other voices soon joined in, the melodious sounds of the sad song mingling with the lonely bell until Rey could listen no more and she fled back inside.

Later, she stood next to Poe, just behind the coffin, as the party moved down silent, crowded streets, from the palace to the Masoleum which was built to honor the rulers of Alderaan. The day was warm and balmy, and she could hear birds chirping over the soft tread of their shoes and the whisper of moving cloth.

Between one heartbeat and the next, Ben appeared on her other side. He kept pace with her for several steps. “Where are we?” he asked at last, his voice echoing strangely like it always did across the bond.

Rey reached over and grabbed his hand, clinging tightly, as she raised a tear-streaked face to his, and he knew then. “Look,” she murmured, as quietly as she could, willing the Force to let him see his mother’s funeral.

At his small, shocked intake of breath, she knew that he could see Leia and she gave his hand a squeeze, trying to offer what comfort she could.

Poe was watching her from the corner of his eye, gaze darting to her hand, which clenched the empty air. He leaner close to her. “He’s here?”

Rey nodded.

Poe attempted to discreetly and nonchalantly lean across Rey and almost fell over. He cursed volubly. Admiral Miara Laerte, who was in charge of the princess’ Honor Guard, gave them both a look of profound dislike. “You get that bastard Hux, Solo?” he demanded. Poe Dameron, Rey realized, wasn’t good at either subtlety or tact. She sighed. Ben shot an unreadable look over at the pilot. His face was pale, his eyes bloodshot and his palm was sweaty against hers, but he nodded once, sharply.

“Yes,” Rey breathed to Poe, unsurprised.

Poe nodded once, decisively. “Good.”

Later, as they stood by Leia’s bier and watched her peaceful, beautiful face surrounded by flowers, as Ben reached out and insubstantially brushed his mother’s cheek, Poe – in the mistaken belief he was being quiet enough Ben could not hear – whispered, “Maybe he’s not so bad after all.”

Rey felt Ben’s shock flare across their bond. She rolled her eyes and elbowed Poe in the side but felt, for the first time since Leia died, a bit like laughing.

 

Chapter 5: Anakin's lightsaber

Notes:

Notes: I don’t own anything from Star Wars. Ahsoka lives. That is all.

Rey was…concentrating. Very intently.

Ben paused in his perusal of a report on the delegation, in route to Coruscant, from Naboo. They had joined up with the Ambassador from Kashyyk somewhere within the Corellian sector and Ben harbored deep suspicions about that they were really up to.

But Rey was distracting him.

She felt…frustrated, across their bond.

Ben massaged his temples and attempted to concentrate. What were his grandmother’s Republic-and-Jedi loving, traitorous people up to now?

A particularly sharp swell of annoyance and despair pulsed across the bond, as though Rey had chucked something across the room in anger. Ben gave a last, regretful glance at the intelligence report and then placed it down on his desk. Standing, and straightening out his attire, he reached out to Rey through their bond.

She was seated, cross-legged, in what looked like one of the holds of the Millennium Falcon, biting her lip and with her brow scrunched in fierce absorption as she glared at whatever lay in her open hand. It was dark and all he could see was her.

He focused a bit harder and opened himself up to the Force. Closing his eyes, he concentrated again. There were the sounds of Rey’s quick breaths, the hum of the Falcon’s engines, a faint gurgle from his own stomach. He could feel his own heart beating, smell the faint scent of parchment from his desk, mingling with the sharp tang of oil and mechanical grease which seemed to cling to Rey.

He opened his eyes. The Jedi was clutching the broken pieces of Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber. His lightsaber.

“Oh,” Ben said softly, and Rey’s eyes shot up to meet his. Her hands reflexively closed around the lightsaber pieces and she met his gaze defiantly.

He frowned, in thought not annoyance, and moved until he was directly in front of her. Then he sat, cross-legged before her, hands held out, palms up. Their knees brushed.

There were freckles on Rey’s nose.

Her eyes were wide, her lips parted, and her breathing increased. He almost drew back; he hadn’t meant to frighten her. “You’re doing it wrong,” he explained. “You have to heal the crystal first before you re-attach the wiring.”

She nodded sharply, eyes darting downwards before meeting his again. “Place your hands, holding the lightsaber parts, in mine,” he coaxed. Her eyes went, if possible, even wider and her cheeks flushed. Did he frighten her that badly?

He hadn’t thought she’d been afraid of him since the first time he’d taken his mask off. Unexpectedly stung, he tried to draw his hands back.

Rey cleared her throat hastily. “Alright,” she muttered and laid her clenched fists upon his upturned palms. Her eyes watched her own movements, seemingly half-alarmed and half-fascinated.

He brushed the tips of his fingers reassuringly along her wrists and she jumped. “Relax your hands,” he murmured. She was too tense. This would never work if she was so closed off.

“Close your eyes and just listen to the sound of my voice,” he prompted gently.

The faintly suspicious look she shot him almost made his lips twitch in amusement, but she did as he asked and she gradually relaxed, her Force presence reaching out to entwine with his as he guided her into meditation.

Her presence was light and fire, warm like the morning-desert sun but as fierce and destructive as a sudden sandstorm in the Jundland Wastes. No wonder the lightsaber of his Tatooine-born grandfather called to her.

Her Force presence pulsed around him, invading him, teasing him, wrapping him in warmth and power. She pushed tenaciously until he let her in fully, until every dark recess of his heart contained some part of her.

He expected it to hurt but it was more akin to too-full, too-much than anything like pain.

Only when they were completely entwined like this did Ben reach out towards the kyber crystal. It’s faint, sad song grew in beauty and strength as the two halves floated from their metal casing and hovered between Ben and Rey. Rey kept her eyes closed but Ben watched as the two halves of the crystal fused into a single whole, until not even a crack in the exterior remained.

There was a brilliant flash of blue light.

Rey’s eyes flew open and there, lying gently in her right hand, was a perfect lightsaber crystal, its song more beautiful than any Ben had ever heard.

Rey’s smile was the last thing Ben saw before the Force pulled him away.

Notes:

I ship Ben/Rey like I ship Obi-Wan/Anakin; in every way possible. So, they’re soulmates, brothers-in-arms, fellow Jedi-and-heroes on a quest for enlightenment, best friends, family, romantically attracted to one another, Master-Padawan, tragically separated, star-crossed lovers, etc. Basically, what I’m saying is, we’ll come to more romantic, sexually-charged moments soon, I promise! For now, you have Ben’s cluelessness to entertain you, lol.

Chapter 6: Duel

Notes:

I don’t own anything from Star Wars. Star Wars Rebels everyone. I can’t believe everything that happened, and I’m totally going to add the new character we learned about in the epilogue to this story.

Sweat poured into her eyes and dripped down her back. Exhilaration, heady and sweet, burned through her veins and she knew she was grinning recklessly, her teeth barred. She readjusted her slippery hands on the smooth silver hilt of her lightsaber – Luke’s lightsaber, Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber, Ben’s lightsaber – ducked the swing from her opponent’s crackling blade and kicked his front knee out.

He swore as he stumbled, and she couldn’t help laughing. “Don’t narrow your focus so much that you forget your surroundings,” she mimicked his advice from minutes earlier.

Ben shot her a mildly exasperated look. He adjusted his stance, reversed his grip and swung at her. As she arched her back and dropped her head – the spitting, hissing blade passing mere centimeters above her face – she forgot his backswing. His other elbow came up and around behind him, clocking her soundly on the side of her head. Although nowhere close to his full-strength, she blinked back spots as they danced across her vision, from the force of his blow.

The pine trees, which encircled the clearing in which they fought, whistled and whispered in the swift, cold breeze. The sweat cooled on her skin. Ben, elegant in black, looked neither hot nor cold. Nor out of breath.

“No fair,” she protested as he patiently waited for her to assume a guard position again. “This is a lightsaber match, not a brawl.” Smuggler’s son, she silently added.

He arched an eyebrow, looking utterly unimpressed and so much like his uncle in that moment, that Rey hastily stifled a laugh.

“Everything is a weapon,” he reminded her, and she remembered how he had used his cross-guard against Finn on Starkiller Base and his liberal use of misdirection and punches against Snoke’s Praetorian Guard.

She growled in annoyance, hating that she always felt so naïve and inadequate next to him, and charged. The next few seconds passed in a blur; she ducked, wove, punched, and kicked. His hair was in her face. At one point, she may have even attempted to bite him.

Finally, he dropped his saber, casually dodged her swing and tried to grab her, but she was in the midst of hurling herself bodily at him and was carrying too much momentum.

The end result was that they both went over in a tangle of limbs. “Sithspit!” Rey shouted, just barely keeping her lightsaber from chopping Ben’s arm off. She let go of it and grabbed for Ben’s head, trying to protect it as he slammed onto the ground, Rey on top of him.

His breath was driven from him harshly, but his head didn’t hit rock. For a long second, neither of them moved. Rey’s face and hands were buried in his beautiful, black hair, which was just as soft as it looked. She was pressed completely against him, her legs straddling his hips and her stomach flush against the smooth, hard planes of his. He smelled like cinnamon and sweat; clean and warm and welcoming.

His large hands gripped her thighs, where he had caught her when she’d launched herself at him. Like some sort of crazy person.

“Er,” Rey began, eloquently, trying to pull back and wriggle off him while simultaneously not wanting to let go. His eyes widened. “Don’t,” he choked hastily, stilling her movements. There was a faint flush to his cheeks and she felt him stir underneath her.

Rey wanted to the ground to swallow her whole. “Sorry,” she muttered quickly, standing upright as fast as possible before grabbing her lightsaber from the ground. She stepped away from him, not knowing what to say and unable to meet his eyes. The bond between them still held and he didn’t vanish, which was just typical really.

She took another step back, risked a glance at him and found him staring upwards at the sky. She turned and took off running through the woods, back to the Resistance base. When she looked behind her, Ben still lay where she’d left him, but now he watched her leave with an indefinable look on his face, just as he had in the snows on Starkiller base.

Rey kept running.

Chapter 7: Coronation

Notes:

I don’t own anything from Star Wars. Two chapters in one week, I’m on a roll. Thank you so much for all of your kudos and comments! They are the life force of all writers.

Ben looked out upon the sea of spectators – the sycophants and power-hungry bureaucrats and incompetent military officials which made up the ruling class of the First Order – and tried not to hate every single one of them.

The scum had risen to the top; as he’d predicted when the First Order had seized power on Coruscant and the rest of the Core Worlds several months ago.

“If only your dear mother could be here to see this,” said Carise Sindian from his right. Her tone was false and her presence in the Force was malicious. Leia Organa had had the Elder Houses strip the former Lady Carise of her title after Sindian released the information that proved Luke and Leia were Darth Vader’s children. His mother’s career in the Senate, her run for First Senator, and any chance she’d had to reverse corruption in the New Republic had all been destroyed.

Ben’s hand clenched in a fist and it took all of his not-inconsiderable willpower to restrain himself from snapping the woman’s neck then and there.

“Yes,” he murmured, just loud enough that she could hear, “such a pit of scum and villainy would have given her a clear view of all her enemies.”

Sindian’s indrawn breath was immensely satisfying. He would deal with her after the festivities were over.

“You may return to your seat, madam,” he informed her, more loudly. “I am in no need of your assistance.”

She made to protest, unsurprisingly, but Jacen Syndulla, Kan Ren, second among the Knights of Ren, gripped her arm and forcibly removed her from the dais. He returned to his place by Ben’s side, his green hair and the jian sword at his shoulder glinting in the bright sunshine from many windows, and the other knights moved closer to their Emperor.

Ben had recalled them immediately after he’d seized power. Now, Hedala Fardi, Ashla Ren, stepped forward, a silver and black crown, with dark red stones adorning it, in her hands.

The thousands of people in the crowd rippled like a wave as, row by row, they knelt.

Hedala smirked at Ben. “My lord.” Ben knelt on the steps of the dais before her. Fardi’s brown hair was arranged in intricate braids, her black attire was silk today and the pike she favored as a weapon instead of a lightsaber, was tied to her back. She raised her voice and lifted the crown above her head. “By the will of the Force, in the name of the people, and through right of conquest, Ben Solo Organa, of the House Organa, Kylo Ren, the principe and Master of the Knights of Ren, is hereby named Emperor before you all.”

She handed him the crown.

Ben held it in his hands, feeling the cold weight of it in the silence of the great hall. The crowd held its collective breath and the silence echoed.

This place had once been Palpatine’s palace and, before that, the Jedi Temple of the Galactic Republic. Now he knelt in a beam of golden sunlight, watching as dust motes danced around him. He could do this.

Ben placed the crown on his head and the crowd roared its approval. Jacen’s grin was fierce and Hedala clapped him on the back as he stood.

Ben turned to face his subjects and there she was.

Rey stood before him, in front of the crowd but just below the steps of the dais. She was dressed in her usual Jedi attire, Anakin’s lightsaber at her waist and her staff held loosely in her hands.

The sun shone upon her, turning her eyes green and bathing her in light. Her gaze was fixed upon him and Ben couldn’t look away from her. No one else could see her, no one except him. The crowd’s cheers and roars were deafening but Ben only heard silence as he stared at Rey. How had he not noticed the green in her eyes?

She did not bow. At last she simply turned away, walking down the length of the hall and striding from his view as the Force pulled her away.

The noise of the crowd came back yet Ben had never felt more alone.

Notes:

Yes, I’ve added little Jacen, Kanan and Hera’s son from “Rebels”, as well as Hedala Fardi from the “Ahsoka” novel to this story. And Lady Carise from “Bloodlines” too!

Chapter 8: The Dance

Notes:

I don’t own anything from Star Wars. And the story continues.

Rey was on her way to meet Finn and Rose for dinner in the Mess when the Force pulled her back to Ben. One minute she was in the faceless, grey hallways and humid-filled air of the old Rebel base on Dantooine, the next she was in cool, sweetly-smelling, recycled air on Coruscant. She was standing next to a huge window, golden evening sunlight pouring in behind her, and a gauzy crimson curtain billowing out around her. Before her was a magnificent, high-vaulted ballroom filled with hanging chandeliers, slender and colorful marble pillars and glittering people, dressed in more finery than Rey had ever seen before in her life.

Floor-length, sparkling windows surrounded the huge, airy room, most leading off to balconies – one half in shadowy, purple twilight and the others bathed in the fiery reds and pinks, golds and oranges of the setting, Coruscant sun. The tinkle of glasses and the light, musical sound of polite laughter and voices filled her ears.

Beautiful, perfect people gathered in small groups and delicately tried hors d’oeuvres passed around by sleek, silver serving droids. Rey did not belong here, in her plain tunic and wrappings.

She took a step back, the crowd parted for a moment, and she saw him. She saw Ben.

He was seated on an ornately carved chair on a slightly raised platform at the far end of the room. The chair was silvery-grey, with soft-looking red backing and cushions. Ben, of course, wore black. This black was an elegant tunic and leggings made of something light and almost shiny looking. It could have been silk. Rey didn’t have much experience with silk, but a prince…no, an Emperor, would wear silk. His beautiful hair looked softer even than his clothes and hung in waves about his ivory skin. Full lips, angular features and a decided nose, completed the picture. She would never get tired of looking at him. There was nothing harmonious about his features, but there was something striking about his looks, and beauty in their intensity and unusual arrangement – as so many hidden, beautiful things turn out to possess.

Rey drank him in greedily. Her eyes dropped to his bare hands; long, pale elegant fingers tapping impatiently on the armrests of his chair. This was the feast and the ball after his coronation, Rey realized. He shifted a bit, long legs restless, and Rey unconsciously took a step forward.

A hush fell over the crowd, an air of expectation and, perhaps, excitement. The young-ish green-haired man, with the green-tipped ears and the vivid blue-green eyes, who Rey had noticed at the coronation, began to move through the crowd towards Ben’s side. He looked like a prowling, desert-lion, deadly and elegant. The bare sword across his back gleaned in the flickering candlelight from the chandeliers.

There was a muttering, low and unclear, amongst the elegantly-dressed courtiers. Slowly they began to part, allowing a pathway between a door, somewhere on Rey’s side of the room, and the throne. Rey stood on her tiptoes and attempted to see over the shoulders and around the heads of the people before her.

Rey caught a flash of green skirts, Ben stood up and descended to the main level, and Rey darted out into the open aisle the passing unknown person had left. A beautiful woman in a stunning, sea-foam green dress, her pale shoulders bare, was curtseying deeply before her newly-crowned Emperor. Rey could see the side of her face – high-cheekbones, brilliant dark eyes, and the features of a holovid star – all under red-gold ringlets. She was the most beautiful woman Rey had ever seen.

The woman tilted her head up to the young Emperor, her eyes bright and those red lips smiling mysteriously. Ben took her hand in his, raised her to her feet, and kissed the elegant fingers resting on his. His keen, passionate eyes were fixed on her face.

Rey gasped. There was a sharp, inexplicable pain somewhere in her chest and she felt, suddenly, like she wanted to throw up. At the sound, loud in the silent room although only one other person could hear it, Ben jerked his head up. His eyes met hers.

Rey’s outstretched hand – when did that happen? – was trembling. She dropped it to her side, tried to remember to keep breathing, spun around on her heel and strode, as quickly as she could without running, towards the nearest balcony. The Force wasn’t with her because it wouldn’t pull her back to the Rebel base, and the evening air was cold against her flushed cheeks.

Dusk had fallen upon Coruscant, the sky was purple-black and this far up a few stars were visible even through the clouds and the bright lights from the buildings all around them.

Music and light spilled out from the ballroom behind her, but Rey grasped the balcony’s railing in both hands and stared out fixedly at skyscrapers and lines of traffic. Her heart was pounding too quickly, and a brisk breeze made her eyes water. A large presence behind her and a hand, hesitantly placed on her arm, made her jump.

“Rey?”

Ben’s voice, sounding as uncertain as the hand. “I didn’t know you were here.”

Rey spun, his hand fell from her skin, but whatever fierce words were on her tongue died there unsaid. He held out his hand to her, bare of any glove, his hair blew in the breeze and his eyes…he looked glad to see her but there was fear there as well. She could feel it through their bond. He looked like a man preparing to jump off a cliff and hoping, against hope, that his ‘chute would open.

“Would you like to dance?”

Her eyes dropped down to his upturned palm, large fingers splayed, hand tilted invitingly. She looked back into his eyes – that intense gaze locked entirely upon her. He didn’t look like he was even breathing, and his eyes were burning.

Rey didn’t know how to dance but she reached out and placed her hand in his. She felt hot and cold all at once, and her skin tingled where it met his. He interlaced their fingers and tugged until she stepped closer. His other arm cam up and around her, hand splayed at the small of her back, and she almost jumped again.

“Relax,” he murmured, lips against her forehead. “Place your other hand on my shoulder.” He was so close that his voice was a rumble which she felt in her entire body. She ran her hand up his arm, fingers skating over the cloth of his sleeve – which felt like water – until she reached his broad shoulders. His arm tightened against her back and his breathing grew a bit uneven. Rey looked up at him; those eyes pierced through her. She stepped even closer, until she was all but pressed against him, and gripped his shoulder and hand hard, rather than gently placing her hands upon them.

“I’ll lead. As I’m the only one of us who knows how to do this.” His voice was hoarse and barely above a whisper.

Rey nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and as he stepped back, she followed him, mirroring his steps, dropping her eyes and then resting her head against his chest. His heart was pounding, and their palms were sweaty where their hands met. Rey smiled and closed her eyes. They moved from side to side, more swaying than dancing, until Ben drew her even closer and rested his cheek on top of her head. “Rey,” he whispered –

And the Force pulled her away again.

“You look like you need a drink,” Finn said, when he saw her.

She nodded mutely, plopped herself down on the bench and held out her hand for one.

Notes:

Rey would be completely jealous of anyone else Ben even looked at. I’m convinced.

Chapter 9: Just a Little Bit

Notes:

I don’t own anything from Star Wars. The more one-shots I write, the more I realize a plot is creeping in. *Shakes head at self-* This was just supposed to be cute and fluffy.

Ben was bored.

Utterly bored.

If he had to dance with one more insipid debutante from a prestigious Core world family, or discuss his plans for the future of the galaxy with one more ignoramus dilettante with a pretentious degree and no real-life experience…

Well, there would be hell to pay.

Ben bestowed a disgusted look upon the collection of academics from Coruscant University who were screeching at each other like a bunch of porgs, stood up, and strode away without any attempt at politeness.

Really, he had no idea how his mother had put up with these people all her life.

He tried to ignore the dull, ever-present throb of pain he still felt at her loss and slowed to allow Jacen to fall in step beside him. Together, the two Knights of Ren stalked through that glittering crowd of unreal people, until they exited out into the hallway and they could breathe again. Hedala gave them a commiserating look as she passed them on her way back in.

Ben and Jacen walked without speaking down ornate corridors and past silent stormtroopers in white, until they came to the doors leading out to the private gardens. It must have been long after midnight by then and the winding paths and imposing hedges were black smudges under an inky sky.

Jacen glanced at it, as though assessing security, before looking back to his Emperor. “You’ve managed to offend a lot of people today,” he said neutrally, both of them remembering the shocked, disapproving glances when Ben had refused to dance with the stunning Lady Elysia.

Ben looked away, out over the gardens, and frowned. There was a strange current in the Force located over there…

“We don’t need them,” he muttered, distracted. The Force was bright but jagged. Person or artifact? Ben mused.

The other knight shrugged, letting the matter drop. “If you say so,” he agreed easily. “You’re the Emperor after all,” and his lopsided grin was teasing and amused.

Ben snorted and looked back at him. “Yeah, great. Thanks for giving me all the work,” he groused, not really meaning it.

“My mother wasn’t a princess.”

No, Jacen Syndulla’s mother was an extraordinary pilot and a former Rebel general. And his father had been one of the last, Temple-trained Jedi Knights, who had survived Order 66. He was one of the only people who could outfly Ben in a cockpit and the two of them were the only Force-trained warriors who could see shatterpoints.

It was what had brought them together and why they led the Knights of Ren.

Ben looked away towards the anomaly in the Force again and missed Jacen’s eyeroll. “Go find your little Jedi, brother,” the other knight advised, before vanishing back inside.

Rey was indeed at the heart of the anomaly. She was squinting aggressively at some bushes when Ben entered the small garden where she stood. A fountain bubbled merrily at the center, but she obviously heard his footsteps for she swung around and poked a finger vigorously into his chest.

“You,” she demanded, “what is the meaning of this?”

She waved a hand vaguely at the bushes, which looked just like bushes as far as he could tell. Ben frowned.

She overbalanced in all her arm waving, stumbling into him, and as Ben automatically put his arms around her to steady her, she buried her face into his chest, sighing happily. “You smell lovely,” she informed him, voice muffled in his tunic. “All warm and spicy.”

Her hair was in complete disarray, she smelled of strong liquor and her words were slurred. “Rey,” Ben asked in sudden suspicion, “have you been drinking?”

“Just a little bit,” she said defensively, arms going around his neck.

Ben opened his mouth to say something, but she chose that moment to pull him down and as he struggled for balance, she pressed her hot, open mouth hard against his.

It felt like a thousand points of light behind his eyes and flickering as sparks over his skin.

Ben tried to draw back but Rey clung to him tenaciously, licking into his mouth, and Ben, with a quiet moan, gave up, gentling the kiss and brushing his mouth over and over her lips until she was breathless and trembling in his arms.

At last he pulled back, moving her hair out of her face and studying her dilated eyes. Rey watched him hazily, lips wet and slightly parted, swollen from his kisses, and Ben closed his eyes, forcing himself to not lean in and kiss her again.

“You’ll regret this in the morning,” he told her, his voice rough.

He opened his eyes to see her lick her lips and he swallowed, hurriedly taking a step back from her. He grabbed her again when she wavered on her feet. Her fingers rose up to tangle in his hair. “Will you?” she challenged.

His heart was beating too fast as she greedily reached for him again.

Never, he thought, even as the Force pulled her away from him once more.

Get some sleep, he sent to her through their bond, amused at Rey’s annoyance and frustration as she found herself once more on whatever Resistance base she was holed up in.

His hand rose up to touch still-tingling lips before he sighed quietly and went back inside to perform his duty.  

Notes:

And the plot thickens. Yes, I know the Force brought them together three times on the same day. What can I say? The Force works in mysterious ways. Also, I found there was a lot of good material to work with on Ben’s coronation day. Who thinks Rey is going to be embarrassed at her actions, or annoyed that she didn’t get to take it any further?

Chapter 10: Mustafar

Summary:

Rey invades an enemy stronghold to rescue a prince.

Notes:

I don’t own anything from Star Wars. Ben’s going to start addressing his Darth Vader issues soon.

The world Rey found herself on was burning hot. Molten lava burst from the ground in huge geysers and the sky was a sulfurous black. In the distance, a dark, crumbling fortress loomed menacingly over a river and waterfall made of fire.

“Ben?” she called, hesitantly, but there was no reply.

The bond had never before pulled her to a place where she could not find him right away.

One hand went to the lightsaber at her side while she looked carefully around. This was once probably an old mining outpost. She could see scattered detritus and droid parts strewn about the volcanic ash. She shivered and felt the back of her neck tingle. The Force was in turmoil here; great grief, and rage, and death hung over this place, as well as a darkness from which no light emitted.

Rey tried to shut her mind to the darkness, reaching out into the Force and searching for the familiar, and strangely comforting, presence of Ben’s Force signature.

There.

She looked where the Force told her to.

Of course. Inside the bloody fortress of evil.

She gripped the hilt of her lightsaber more firmly and headed towards it. The ash was unstable and hot under her feet, burning through the soles of her boots and drifting up into the air around her, causing her to cough.

Sparks of fire and frequent sprays of lava made the whole place extremely dangerous. As she got closer to the castle she noticed that its squat lower part and the two elongated towers which rose above it looked like a ship at rest, specifically Ben’s hug shuttle when the wings were folded up.

And suddenly Rey knew where she was.

Mustafar.

Leia had once told her that this was where Darth Vader had had his personal, private residence. The emperor had built it atop the very place where Vader was injured so badly he required his infamous suit in order to just survive.

“The Emperor wanted him to constantly relive that pain, humiliation and loss associated with Mustafar,” Leia had explained, “in order to feed the darkness and imbalance within him. That was the way of the Sith.”

That was what Rey felt as she reached the looming archway which led to the black interior of the fortress. The doors had long since been ripped away and looters had obviously been here.

Old bones, mostly disintegrated by Mustafar’s harsh climate, lay in the entranceway. Rey wondered if foul play or a more malevolent force was to blame. She ignited her lightsaber to see – as well as for the comfort it gave her – before she plunged into the darkness looking for Ben.

The silence and shadows lay thick and heavy and Rey did not call out to him again, but she went down every corridor and up every staircase observing and listening carefully.

It was seated on a winding stone staircase, far up in one of the towers and highlighted by the red light from a huge hole in one of the walls, that Rey finally found him. His black hair and black clothes looked sinister bathed in that red glow and for a moment Rey hesitated, uncertain.

She took in his familiar features – those full lips which had kissed her back – and steeled her resolve. “Ben?”

He was staring fixedly at an old silver lightsaber held loosely in both hands, but he glanced up at the sound of her voice. He looked utterly lost, dark eyes bottomless pits in a pale face. A far cry from the regally-handsome prince she had danced with days before. “You found me,” was all he said.

Rey sat next to him on the step and pulled him into her arms. “Of course I did.” It was a promise as much as it was a declaration of fact.

Sometime later, after Ben felt calmer, she asked him about the lightsaber.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi’s,” Ben said in a curiously detached voice, “my grandfather’s Master.”

There was a long pause while Ben continued to stare at the lightsaber. Rey looked at it too.

“It was in his…in his private chambers.” Ben sounded almost scandalised and Rey tried not to laugh. Ben shifted within the circle of her arms. “Where he could always look at it,” he continued, “always feel it…”

And now Rey really did laugh. The kyber crystal within the lightsaber was blinding in the Force, luminescent and golden, despite the darkness infesting this place.

“It’s not funny,” Ben said sulkily, sounding like a 5-year-old child and Rey laughed even harder.

There was a faint susurration in the Force around them, and then an elegant, lilting voice said, “Hello there.”

Notes:

Who could it be?

Chapter 11: Negotiation

Summary:

The man’s smile grew until it reached his eyes; blue-grey and intense.

“And I am Obi-Wan Kenobi."

Notes:

My favorite character has made an appearance in this story! Thank you so much for all your lovely comments and kudos. I read and appreciate every single one of them.

Rey stared at the shimmering figure of the handsome, bearded man who had just spoken and vaguely wondered if she had hit her head somewhere along the way and was actually dreaming.

The man grinned at her – a wry, whimsical smirk – and from beside her, Ben sighed in aggravation.

Guess not then.

“Hi, I’m Rey.” Well, she did try to be polite. Even to ghosts. The man’s smile grew until it reached his eyes; blue-grey and intense.

“And I am Obi-Wan Kenobi. I was just trying to have a talk with my namesake here, but he is being rather difficult.” Here the copper-haired man shot an exasperated look at Ben. “Like his grandfather.”

Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi? Rey’s eyes widened. “But aren’t you dead?” After she asked, she realized the words were probably not polite.

Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi stroked his beard as he contemplated the question. “From a certain point of view, perhaps,” he conceded, “but if you mean whether or not my consciousness has passed on, well then it becomes a bit complicated.”

Ben buried his face in his hands. “It does?” Rey asked.

“And here in this place, with young Ben holding my old lightsaber, and Snoke finally gone, I have been able to…reach you both,” the Jedi Master explained.

“Here,” Rey echoed, looking around at the dark, ominous stairwell and the flickering red light from the burning planet outside. “Mustafar.”

Mustafar. The hell where Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi dueled Anakin Skywalker for the redemption of the fallen knight’s soul.

And lost.

“I prefer to think of it as not winning at the precise moment,” the ghost offered, sounding slightly aggrieved.

Rey stared. “Can you read my mind?”

Master Kenobi looked mysterious.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps your face gave your thoughts away, young one.”

Ben groaned.

“Are you always like this?” Rey asked curiously. She remembered Master Luke and wondered if all Jedi Masters were slightly eccentric. Was it a prerequisite? Would she have to do that too? She shuddered. She was not drinking that green-ish milk.

“He’s been like this for the past hour,” Ben grumbled.

Rey liked Obi-Wan immediately, especially when the Jedi Master winked at her.

She giggled.

Ben’s head shot up and he glared at them both, furious and betrayed. “You don’t understand,” he snapped, and Rey could feel the coils of his anger beginning to burn bright in the Force.

“That may be true,” Master Obi-Wan agreed calmly, “but as I told you before, you are not alone. And this fight is not yours alone.”

A burning flash of rage coursed through Ben. “If not mine, then whose?” he demanded, voice cold. “I am the only one who can stop what is coming.”

Rey leaned a little further into his side and attempted to send peace and serenity to him through their bond.

“You have looked, but have not seen,” Obi-Wan said, voice soft but with an immovable aura of command at its core. “Others fight beside you, yet you are convinced the road you walk is the only path.”

“Cease speaking in riddles old man,” Ben demanded harshly.

The Jedi Master’s eyes narrowed and Rey elbowed Ben sharply in the side. Be polite, she ordered through their bond. He’s trying to help you.

“Do not sacrifice your soul,” Obi-Wan Kenobi said. “Not even to save the galaxy. Or you will end up losing everything, just as Anakin did.”

Ben stood up, fury an almost physical manifestation in the Force around him. Master Kenobi’s lightsaber was clenched in one hand, but Rey knew he would not listen to the man who had wielded it.

Ben’s voice was ice. “You know nothing, Jedi Master Ben Kenobi,” and his mocking words were intended to wound. “You are as archaic as the Order you served. That is why you failed, and the Jedi are gone. I know what I have to do, and I will do it.”

Ben strode away, back stiff, without looking back.

Obi-Wan sighed. “Always on the move.”

“Master Kenobi,” Rey asked, and the legendary Jedi Master looked back at her. “What should I do?” She meant about everything – about the war, and becoming a Jedi, and helping the Resistance – not just Ben.

Obi-Wan’s smile was kind and encouraging. “You already know what to do,” he reassured her. “Listen to the Force, young one, and you will find a way.”

His blue-edged image began to flicker. “There are others, Rey.”

“Others?” Rey tried to reach out to the Force to hold him in this plane even as he vanished. “What others? Other Jedi?!”

His voice came from far away, echoing. “Find them, young Jedi. You are not alone. And I will be with you both. Always.”

And he was gone.

Rey’s eyes closed, reaching out to the Force even as her hand drifted down to her lightsaber. Anakin’s lightsaber. She knew his voice; he had spoken to her the first time she had ever touched this lightsaber, back in Maz’s place. She could feel him still within the weapon – elusive, gentle – an echo of the bond between him and Anakin Skywalker.

Like the brilliant reverberation in the Force which connected her with Ben.

Rey opened her eyes. And then she ran as hard as could after Ben.

The air burned her lungs and it was too hot amid the scorched and smoking landscape, even for someone raised in the desert wastelands of Jakku.

“Ben,” she yelled, grabbing his arm and pulling him around to face her. The stark lines of his shuttle were visible in the distance.

His eyes were dark, bottomless pits and anger twisted those full lips into something almost cruel. His dark hair blew in the hot, dry air. There was no softness in him as he looked down at her.

“Don’t – ” Rey began and stopped. Those aren’t the right words.

His eyebrows rose. “’Don’t?’” he asked, “Don’t what?” His voice was low and dangerous, and Rey silently cursed herself as a jolt of desire pooled deep in her stomach. Dangerous and powerful and hers.

She licked dry lips and tried again. “Don’t die,” she ordered instead. Come back to me. Don’t do anything you can’t come back from. Don’t make me have to kill you.

A flicker in those midnight eyes.

“This must be done,” he promised her, and Rey knew better than to ask what. His eyes were fixed on her, drinking her in as he had aboard Snoke’s ship, as though it might be the last time and he wanted to remember every detail about her face.

Rey reached up and dragged him down into a bruising kiss, lips hot and insistent upon his. Her hands tangled greedily in his hair as she arched her body up to press against his long length. She sighed as his arms closed around her, drawing her close, and he began kissing her back, just as frantic. Perfect.

And then he was wrenching himself away from her, all but running back to his ship.

Rey watched as the shuttle screamed for space, fists clenched and the ghost of Ben’s lips still on hers and waited for the Force to take her back home.

Notes:

Obi-Wan was being more Obi-Wan than ever. Lol. And yes, there were hints of Obi-Wan/Anakin. I see so many parallels between them and Ben/Rey and I just couldn’t help myself.

Chapter 12: The Knights of Ren

Summary:

‘…they were running out of time.’

Notes:

Ben does a bit of soul searching.

Ben ducked a blaster bolt, deflected another and then jumped out of the way of a minor explosion. The air was filled with fire, fear and the screams of the dying.

Jacen appeared from nowhere, cutting the throat of a man who was running towards Ben. He was covered in blood – other people’s – and his eyes burned as he twirled, the sword arced, and the assailant fell dead at his feet.

Jacen nodded at his emperor before they spun to put their backs together, facing outwards. Ben’s lightsaber crackled, Jacen’s breathing was eerily steady, and stormtroopers and First Order military personnel charged them both.

From somewhere just out of sigh, Ben could hear Hedala laughing as she swept through enemies.

Above them, on one of the catwalks which encircled the hangar, Ben could see the twins, Boil and Waxer Bril, as they spun and wove around each other, the short, double swords they used cleaving endlessly through bone and armor as they fought in synchronicity. Their head tails flared out around them as they moved, and they bared their sharp, filed teeth at their opponents.

“Where’s Tahiri and Lowie?” he shouted, over a brief lull in the fighting. Tahiri Veila, Aden Ren, was Tatooine-raised, like his grandfather and uncle, and Lowbacca was his Uncle Chewie’s nephew. They always fought as a unit despite the fact that Tahiri and Jacen were lovers.

Ben often thought Uncle Chewie might be angrier at him for taking Lowie into the darkness with him than for the fact that he’d killed…Han Solo.

“They’ve gone for the command center,” Jacen shouted back, ducking a blaster bolt which Ben deflected.

Although Jedi-trained and Force sensitive, the Knights of Ren didn’t use lightsabers. The Jedi had betrayed them, tried to murder one of their own, and their obsolete teachings had allowed the galaxy to fall into chaos. The knights would succeed where they had failed.

Only Ben, their leader, powered his weapon with a kyber crystal – one-half of Darth Vader’s, his grandfather; a symbol of the order which had existed under the Empire, and which they would restore once more.

But Darth Vader failed. He allowed sentiment to weaken him, Snoke whispered from the past, reminding him once more.

But ever since Snoke had died, killed at Ben’s own hand, there were other voices now as well.

Do not sacrifice your soul, Master Kenobi had said. Not even to save the galaxy. Or you will end up losing everything, just as Anakin did. Was that why his grandfather had joined the Emperor? To save the galaxy? To bring order from the chaos of the Clone Wars? How had he lost everything?

Ben uneasily wondered if the old Jedi Master could be right. Snoke had been weak, and wrong in the end; his teachings a lie.

He is using you for your power, his father had said, sounding so certain. And Ben knew, now, that he had been right.

Would he lose everything?

He had sacrificed so much for this already: his father, his mother, even Uncle Luke. His childhood. Any chance he had of a future.

But it had been necessary, he reminded himself. He was the tip of the lance, the edge of the knife, and it was his duty. His sacrifice would make sure that others did not have to. Something was coming, something they could not fight unless they were united. Unless there was order, speed in command, and clarity of purpose.

Could you sacrifice your knights? The voice whispered.

Yes. They knew the cost when they joined him.

Could you sacrifice Rey?

He was…uncertain. He remembered the sun shining off her green eyes, her arms around him after he had lost Leia, her face in that escape pod as she gave herself up to the Order to try and…save him.

There was no saving him. Not anymore. He had gone too far to turn back now.

Luke didn’t even try to save you, he reminded himself.

Luke came to Crait to save Leia. And the Resistance. And to see you one last time. It sounded like something a fool like Obi-Wan Kenobi would say.

His uncle had taunted him, mocked him…teased him, promised to never leave him, sparred with him one last time…tried to teach him one last lesson.

But Ben had no idea what that lesson had been.

Will you end up losing even that which you have sacrificed everything to obtain?

Looking around him at the chaos, the death, the constant insurrections and rebellions he and the knights were putting down month after month since his coronation and the new orders, Ben felt the first frisson of fear that maybe, maybe Jedi Master Ben Kenobi was right, and this was not the way.

Darkness pulsed around them, but order was as elusive as ever. And they were running out of time.

The hangar fell quiet. Finally, there were only the knights and dead men.

“My Lord,” Hedala said, stepping up to his side and wiping sweat off her forehead, “the base is secured.” She was magnificent and powerful, death clinging to her in the Force and shining in her dark eyes. She was victorious.

But…

But? Prompted the little voice which sounded like his mother, as she tried to get him to see someone else’s point of view in the Senate.

Hedala looked so different from the bright, warm woman he had first met on Yavin IV, the one who had mothered him and consoled him even when he hadn’t wanted it. She had made separation from his own mother bearable.

She had followed him to Snoke because she’d loved him.

There was a brittle emptiness deep in her eyes now, in Jacen’s sardonic smirk and cool blue-green gaze as he leaned on his bloody sword, in the brutal viciousness of the Bril twins as they carelessly cleaned their weapons and ignored the dead surrounding them.

All he had given them was death.

The gift of the mighty Skywalker bloodline, he couldn’t help thinking.

A sacrifice for those who come after, he insisted to himself. It had to be this way.

“Balance,” his uncle had said, “not just sacrifice of self. The Force is life, not death. It is pride and folly to believe only you can do what must be done. We are all interconnected. We all have a part to play. You are not alone.”

It had been one of his last lesson before…that night.

Ben hadn’t thought about it in years.

“We do what we can and hope it’s enough,” Leia Organa told her young son, the white of Alderaan’s senatorial robes upon her.

“Hope isn’t good enough,” five-year-old Ben had declared, with absolute certainty.

His mother had tilted his chin up gently, until his eyes met hers. “Yes,” she had promised him. “It is.”

When was the last time he had hope for anything?

Rey’s hand, reaching out to him, and that fearful, terrible, burning hope inside him that he could reach back and touch her.

Ben swallowed. “Very good,” he said, knowing his voice was too cold, too detached. A flicker from the corner of his eyes caused his head to turn.

Tan and grey. Brown hair.

“Take anyone else captive. No more killing,” Ben ordered, before heading away from them. “We need someone to run this place.”

They didn’t say anything, but Ben could feel the Bril Twins’ and Hedala’s confusion, and Jacen’s amusement.

But there was no anger or resentment or mistrust. Perhaps there was hope for them all yet. He strode out of the hangar.

Rey grabbed him as he stepped into the hallway. Hauling him into a small alcove, she shoved him back against the wall. “What in the Sith hells is going on, Ben,” she demanded.

Ben took her in, furious and fierce, lighting up the Force around her, ready to both fight him and protect him at the same time.

He smiled, pulling off his gloves and reaching for her. She looked startled, but her eyes closed, and she relaxed minutely as he brushed gentle fingers over her smooth cheek.

Her changeable eyes were confused when she opened them again. “Ben, what are you doing?”

Ben curled his other hand around her waist and pulled her close, leaning down and brushing his lips against hers. “Kissing you,” he whispered, before pulling her fully against him and claiming her completely.

Rey sighed and relaxed entirely, kissing him back, nibbling his lips until he opened his mouth and she swept her tongue inside.

Ben groaned. Force, he thought, picking her up in his arms and spinning until he could press her back against the wall.

Rey’s hands tangled in his hair and she wrapped her legs around his waist, the heat of her core brushing over him.

A jolt ran through him, heat shooting downwards, fluttering in his stomach. Rey wriggled against him, tugging his hair to tilt his head more as she deepened the kiss.

The heat of her, the sharp tug, made Ben moan into her mouth as his half-hard cock gave a vicious pulse, swelling. He was dizzy and Oh, Kriff he just needed…

He ground upwards into her and she gasped into his mouth. He did it again and they both moaned.

“Force,” Rey breathed, echoing Ben’s thoughts…

And then, without any sort of warning at all, she was gone, the Force echoing hollowly around him as he stumbled into the wall, pressing cold metal against his flushed face.

His cock was throbbing, and he could still taste her on his lips.

Kriffin’ hell, Ben thought.

Notes:

Yes, I’ve added Tahiri Veila and Lowbacca to the new canon. I’ve missed them. Also, Boil and Waxer Bril are, of course, Numa’s sons (Numa from The Clone Wars). Not sure if she’ll make an appearance yet, but Hera Syndulla definitely will. Stay tuned. Oh, and Rose is finally in the next chapter.

P.S. Rey’s had just about enough of the Force pulling her away just as she finally gets her hands on Ben.

Chapter 13: of holocrons and cockpits

Summary:

‘Trust in the Force.’

Notes:

Rose and Rey talk, Hera Syndulla has a gift for a young Jedi, and Rey decides she has had enough. Explicit sexual content.

Rey uttered a low oath as she banger her head on the underside of the Falcon’s hyperdrive coils for the fifth time in as many minutes.

“Ouch,” said a sympathetic voice, “that looked like it hurt.”

Rey pulled her head out from beneath the Falcon to find Rose hesitantly smiling down at her.

Rey smiled back. “Hey.” Rey had rarely spoken to the other woman since Crait, though she knew that Finn was very close to her. Now Rose hovered, looking like she wanted to flee but also looking like she wanted to connect with Rey.

The Jedi-in-training made up her mind. “Actually, since you’re here, could you grab that hydrospanner and come take a look at this? I could use another pair of eyes.”

Rose beamed, eyes lighting up, before she grabbed the hydrospanner and slid underneath the rather derelict freighter, scooting until she was lying on her back next to Rey. “Ok, what am I looking at?”

Rey pointed above them. The hyperdrive coils in this section looked a bit worn, but nothing was frayed, broken, out of place or burned out. She had just been going to replace the whole thing anyway, but maybe Rose could see something she could not.

“Hmm,” Rose said, mechanic hands running carefully over the coils, before she craned her neck to look for the transponders which exchanged signals between the subspace and hyperspace systems, and then examined the fuel lines and the wiring.

Rose chatted as she worked, telling Rey about the first time she’d seen the Falcon, the first time she and her sister, Paige, had met Princess Leia Organa, and eventually they got around to what Rose called ‘boy talk.’

“I just wanted to make sure that you’re alright with me being with Finn,” she said, awkwardly.

“Why wouldn’t I be alright with it?” Rey asked, genuinely surprised. Rose seemed like a wonderful person, bubbly and sweet.

Rose looked even more embarrassed. “Oh,” she stammered, turning red. “I just thought –.” She broke off rather abruptly, gave a cry of triumph. “There that little bastard is!” Then she ripped out a truly ancient, frayed and fried piece of wiring.

She passed it over to Rey. “This really needs to be replaced. I think it was put in before the Clone Wars!”

She sounded scandalized and Rey laughed. Rey Force-called new wiring to her from her toolbox, and the two young women began to replace the old one.

“So,” Rose said after a moment, voice curious, “who do you like then?”

“What?”

“Come on. If you don’t like Finn, then who is it?”

“Why does there have to be anyone?” Rey evaded.

Rose gave her a skeptical look. “You’ve been so distracted lately, even Poe has noticed. And you blushed when you saw me kiss Finn last week.”

“I’ve had Jedi business!” Rey cried, mildly annoyed that people were keeping such a close eye on her. “I’ve been busy.”

Yeah, her subconscious whispered traitorously, busy wishing Ben was kissing you the way Finn was kissing Rose.

“Uh huh,” Rose said. “So, who is he?”

Rey was suddenly very busy making sure the rest of the wiring was in proper condition. Oh, just the Emperor we’re trying to depose in order to bring back the Republic, her subconscious supplied. Enemy number one. A sexy dark prince with more issues than a Star Destroyer and more power than anyone should possess.

“No one,” she insisted, unconvincingly.

Rose laughed. “Well, if you want my advice, and if he likes you back…” Rose paused, fiddled with a bit of coiling. “Just grab him and have your way with him.”

Rey turned to look at her, eyebrow raised in surprise. The smaller woman turned red again but looked serious. “Life’s too short to live with regrets,” she explained.

“Too true,” agreed a woman with the most beautiful voice Rey had ever heard. Rey and Rose pulled themselves out from under the Falcon. A slender, middle-aged Twi’lek woman, with stunning green eyes, smiled at them and held out her hand.

“Hi, I’m – ”

“General Syndulla!” Rose’s eyes had grown wide and she looked star struck. “Hero of the Rebellion. Leader of Phoenix Squadron after Ahsoka Tano went missing in action and Commander Sato was killed at Atollon.”

“‘Hera’ will to just fine,” the woman said, shaking their hands. “I’m looking for Rey?”

“Oh yes, of course. I’ll just…go then.”

And before either Hera or Rey could protest, Rose Tico had made herself scarce.

Hera, General Syndulla, looked wry. “I never thought having a reputation meant people would run away from me.”

Rey nodded. She was beginning to notice that herself. As the only Jedi in the Resistance, she got more looks of awe and expectation and hope than she was comfortable with. “You needed to speak with me?” she asked, rubbing grease off her hands with a clean cloth.

“I needed to give you something,” the woman with the lovely voice returned. She reached into the pocket of her practical flight suit and withdrew a golden-colored box which fit in the palm of her hand. She extended the box towards Rey.

The young Jedi raised startled eyes to the other woman’s face. “Why are you giving me this? What is it?”

Hera’s lekku twitched and she couldn’t seem to take her eyes from the gold box. “This was entrusted to me by…a friend. And now I think it belongs to you. It can only be opened with the Force, you see,” she explained, “for it’s one of the last of the Jedi holocrons.”

Rey reached over and carefully picked the box up. It felt warm and comforting against her skin. “What’s a holocron?” she asked softly, wondering who had given such a thing to Hera but feeling like the question was too personal to ask. There was a deep and old sadness she could feel in the former General when she looked at the Jedi artifact.

Hera’s smile was both wistful and fond, lost in memory. “A holocron is a repository of Jedi wisdom. Different Jedi load recordings onto them of everything from Jedi history, to messages, to tips for ‘sabre training.”

“Really?” Rey clutched the box closer. The Jedi were all gone, and Master Kenobi had not re-appeared to her since Mustafar. Such a gift was priceless.

Hera nodded. “Try and see if you can open it.”

The smile on Hera’s face was radiant when the box hovered over their heads, shining with sparkling, blue light.

Later, after Hera had left, Rey stood in the Falcon’s cockpit, playing on message over and over again, wondering who had recorded this message, wondering what had happened to them, for they must have been a Jedi.

“This is Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. I regret to report that both the Jedi Order and the Republic have fallen, with the dark shadow of the Empire rising to take their place. This message is a warning and a reminder for any surviving Jedi: trust in the Force…”

“Trust in the Force,” she whispered to herself.

“Rey?”

Ben’s voice. Rey’s eyes flew open and she turned. She flashed back to the last time she had seen him.

He hovered at the entrance of the cockpit, there but not there, brought to her by the Force. His eyes flittered around at the various lights and switches and Rey knew he could see them, but she couldn’t decipher the expression on his face. Regret, maybe. Resentment and annoyance, perhaps, as well.

“Come and see,” she said, sitting back in the co-pilot’s chair and allowing him to approach the holocron.

Ben reached out long, elegant fingers to stroke the box, eventually picking it up and turning it thoughtfully over, as Rey marveled once again at the strength of the bond between them, which allowed him to be such a physical part of her world. “This is the Syndulla holocron,” he said at last.

Rey wasn’t really surprised at his knowledge. “Yes. It was a gift.”

Ben placed the holocron down and turned to face her in the cramped quarters of the Falcon’s cockpit. Amusement flashed in his dark eyes and his lips curled in an almost-smile, which sent her heart racing.

“You seem to be getting many gifts,” he commented, his deep voice and teasing tone sending a ripple of heat through Rey. “Kanan Jarrus’ holocron, Anakin’s lightsaber – ” he waved a hand around them – “my father’s ship.”

The galaxy to rule at your side, Rey finished silently, knowing he would not say it, as they both knew she had accepted every gift but his.

Ben’s smile was slightly brittle. “I’m surprised my mother and Uncle Luke didn’t give you anything.”

They did, she thought, they gave me you. Well, that was more a gift from the Force.

They gave me the responsibility of saving you, she corrected herself, reaching out and hooking her hands behind Ben’s legs, before pulling until he stumbled forward, one hand slamming to the back of the chair’s headrest to prevent himself from falling on her. It didn’t feel like saving, what she wanted to do to him.

His eyes flew to hers. Rey felt a rush of emotion flood through her. It was conflicting, at odds, intense, and she knew the feelings weren’t all hers, that half of them were Ben’s.

One hand tugged again on the back of Ben’s legs and the other rose to stroke shaking fingers down the side of his cheek. She wondered how much time the Force would give them. How much time did she need?

“Ben,” she whispered, suddenly desperate, as heat flooded through her, arousal causing a dull ache low in her stomach. “Ben, you…I want…”

For a simple moment there was clarity between them. Ben made a sound, low in his throat, and all but fell into her lap, hands braced over her head to take most of his weight. His long legs bracketed her waist and he bent to rest his forehead against hers. He was hard and hot and heavy against her, his hair tickling her skin.

“Rey…” he began, voice rasping and uneven, “I don’t know if we should – ”

He cut off into a low moan as Rey arched up, pressing herself against the hardness she felt beginning to grow there. Oh, he wanted her too. She could feel it vibrating, quivering, burning across their bond. “Ben,” she murmured against his lips, “let me touch you. Please.”

Ben shifted on her lap, all but trembling in her arms, and then he rolled his hips into hers. Rey hadn’t thought the warmth pooling between her legs, the heat that raced up her spine, could get any more intense, but she was wrong.

The first roll of his hips caused her to keen desperately as desire seared trough her. She clutched him hard as he grinded down onto her.

“Force,” Ben gasped, head falling back, dark, luscious hair fanning out and exposing his pale throat. The corded muscles here bunched and rippled as he rolled his hips again.

Rey wanted to press her lips there, biting to mark him as hers, but she also wanted, needed, to touch him.

Frantically, her hands tugged at his tunic, pulled open the waistband of his pants. She growled in frustration at how long it took and Ben half-laughed, half-moaned as her blunt nails skated over his abdomen.

His hands moved to help hers and he gasped when Rey at last curled a hand around his hard length, jerking against her even as he pulsed within her grip.

“Force,” Rey said breathlessly, “no wonder we’ve never done this before it it’s this difficulty to get under all your layers.”

“I thought we would – ” Ben groaned and arched up into her fist helplessly, losing his hold on the back of the seat, his back leaning against the front console “– plan ahead,” he gasped out.

A wave of images not her own swamped Rey then; of gauzy curtains and cool evening air, ad Ben buried deep inside her, looking up at her as he let go completely, her hands on his bare chest, his in her hair, as they moved together, pleasure mirrored between them in a never-ending reverberation.

Rey groaned, Ben’s blissed-out face, the feel of him inside her, caused tingles to race up and down her spine.

“Didn’t mean to show you that,” Ben said, apologetically, breathlessly, hips rolling against hers again.

Rey leaned forward and pressed her lips against Ben’s sweat-coated throat, feeling his hammering pulse point and tasting the salty tang of him. Her tongue softly reached out and she licked a bead of sweat.

Ben moaned again, rolling his hips up into Rey’s fist. “Rey,” he gasped, almost whining, “I can’t…”

Rey swore, other hand tight around Ben’s waist as the cockpit canopy began to fog around them. She pulled him closer, her fist sliding up and down over Ben’s length, but kept her grip light without any oil. Ben watched her, eyes dark, face pink and flushed, those full lips parted. Rey had watched enough of the spacers in Niima Outpost fumbling with one another after a few drinks to know what to do.

Her thumb pulled back his heavy sack, and she rolled his balls between her fingers before she concentrated on the wet head again, smearing the warm pre-cum around before she gripped him a little tighter.

With their minds so open, it wasn’t a surprise when they both slipped into one of Rey’s memories. Again, she saw Ben as she’d stood in the rain on Ach-To, dark, wavy hair surrounding pale skin, and dark eyes so intense and honest and filled with longing that Rey almost drowned in them.

“I know everything I need to know about you,” she’d spat.

“Do you?” He stepped closer. “Oh, you do.” That voice, those eyes. Rey had felt a sudden, shocking desire burst through her, wanted to step forward and card her fingers through that beautiful hair, see him helplessly melt at her touch.

She had been shocked silent at her own wants.

Now Ben moaned again as he felt her past desire for him, breaths coming in sharp gasps as he moved his hips in lazy circles. “Oh.” He spread his legs as far as he could, leaned back until his head all but touched the console. Rey ran her fingertips up that white throat, pressed her thumb into that parted mouth and felt him suck on the digit.

He looked…he looked…

“Stars, you’re beautiful,” she breathed, awed, wanting to put her mouth all over him, wanting to take his weeping length into her mouth and suck until his burst apart, wanting him buried deep inside her, thrusting with those powerful hips and as those huge hands crushed her to him, lips pressed in her hair, wanted to feel his tongue, warm and wet, darting inside her, licking that aching, throbbing spot she could feel within.

Ben made an indescribable sound as his motions stuttered. “Force,” he said again, and Rey imagined Ben bending her over that console, pressed naked and hot along her spine, as he thrust deep, filling her completely. Sweat rolled down her back. The feeling of Ben filling her at the same time as his fingers stroked her and her mouth was filled with his cock was overwhelming.

Her breathing came in gasps.

Ben closed his eyes, tears glittering on his eyelashes as his head fell forward to rest against hers.

“Rey,” he pleaded, voice ruined and hoarse. “I won’t be able to – Please.”

She looked down and pressed her finger against the flared red tip of his cock, before rolling the top between her fingers again.

“Kriff, I can’t believe I get to watch you like this,” she whispered, so wet and throbbing she thought she would burst.

Ben moaned, broken and messy, the shared sensations almost too much to bear as he breathed, “Rey,” and came all over her hand.

He slumped, boneless, against her, cheek pressed against hers as his mind settled to a quiet hum and his breathing slowed.

Rey ran a soothing hand down the length of his spine, felt their heartbeats attempt to stead together.

A sticky puddle had formed between them and Rey shuddered at the rolling, un-satiated waves of her own arousal. Ignoring it, she wiped her hand on her tunic and then ran both of them up Ben’s neck, tilting his head up with his eyes met hers.

“Wow,” she said, quietly.

He looked exhausted, eyelids fluttering and hair hopelessly mussed, but his lips quirked and then he bent forward, fitted his lips against her and kissed her, deep and slow, until her toes curl and she arched up against him again.

His fingers moved to her waist. “Let me,” he murmured against her lips –

A sudden draft told Rey she was alone once more.

Rey groaned, kept her eyes closed, and arched in her seat, one hand moving beneath the waistband of her pants as she felt the after tingles from Ben’s lips, tasted the salt of his skin still on her tongue. Her fingers found that spot instantly, rolled it once, and she was there, bliss filling her mind completely as she whispered, “Ben.”

Notes:

I basically used the sex scene between Obi-Wan and Anakin from “CT-Skywalker” by Selcier in this chapter. It was one of the hottest ones I’ve ever read and made use of the Force Bond between Obi-Wan/Anakin and afterwards I was like…I wonder how this would look between Ben and Rey. And this is what I came up with. Also, you should go read that story. It’s a WIP and Mulan AU and is completely epic and wonderfully written.

Chapter 14: Calligraphy

Summary:

Ben and Rey continue to deepen their relationship, the Force ghosts wait for the opportune moment, and Ben practices his calligraphy.

Notes:

Sorry for the long wait. I had an idea where this story was going, but then kind of lost inspiration for it. So now I’m going to go in a different direction and see if that sparks something interesting.

Ben woke to darkness, a different kind of darkness than what he was used to.

This darkness was warm and peaceful. He felt strangely lethargic and unwilling to move, lying there. His chambers smelled musky – a not unpleasant mixture of sex and the desert smells he always associated with Rey; sun and heat and clean sweat. The sheets on his bed were cool against his bare, flushed skin and Rey was a warm, heavy weight draped across him. Her legs were spread every which way, her arms clamped his torso like a vice and her hair – which smelled of summer – covered his face.

Ben turned and breathed in the scent of her skin, fingers rising to skim along her back, tracing the arch of her spine until he came to the swell of her buttocks.

Rey shifted against him in her sleep, making those contented little noises he loved so much – almost like a Loth-cat – as she shifted against him, her firm thigh pressing firmly against his usual morning erection.

Ben sighed in amusement and attempted to discreetly shift away from her, not wanting to disturb her rest, however she made a little mewling noise of discontent and shift again, face pressed into the side of his neck and her hips moving until she was settled directly between his legs, her warm core pressed firmly over the bulge in his sleep clothes.

Ben swore. Loudly. Against his neck, Rey laughed breathlessly, tongue darting out to lick her dry lips and sweeping briefly over his skin. “I’ve never heard you curse before,” she murmured, wriggling against him delightedly. His hips helplessly bucked up into her, craving friction, and Rey wasn’t laughing any longer.

With a happy little sigh of relief, she swept her lips across his, claiming him deeply, hands twisting in his hair as she ground down onto him. They both moaned at the contact and Ben reached down, pulling her thighs up and rocking them together.

When he eventually flipped them over and entered her slowly they both spent a heartbeat unmoving, staring at one another, heat and wetness and the mingling of their Force presences until neither could tell where they ended and the other began. It was bliss.

Afterward, sweaty and sated, Ben spent a long time learning her body all over again with his lips and the smooth pads of his fingers, finding the places which made her laugh and those which made her sigh and those which made her press against him and beg for more.

When she fell asleep in his arms again, tired and content, Ben could feel his heart pounding with an unfamiliar feeling. As he lay in the darkness, Rey’s even breathing soothing his racing mind and her powerful Force presence ebbing and flowing around him like rippling waves on the shore, he suspected gloomily that this feeling might be happiness. He knew it couldn’t last.

When sleep eluded him as it usually did, he got up, pulled on his trousers and softly padded over to his desk in the corner of the room. Low lighting flickered on at his approach, not bright enough to disturb the woman asleep in his bed. He glanced back at her again, long, bronze limbs tangled in the sheets, brown hair a halo around her face, long lashes over lightly-freckled cheeks.

She was adorable and beautiful at the same time, woman and child, enemy and lover, powerful Force user and raw beginner, someone to protect with his last breath and someone who had stormed Snoke’s star destroyer to set him free. The fierce brightness of her spirit sometimes felt like it was too much to bear, but Ben knew that her power, her very dichotomy, were what made her irresistible to him.

Force, he wanted her again. He could never get enough of her. It was only when they were joined, their very bodies finally a mirror of the Force Bond between them, that it finally felt like they were close enough.

But it never lasted.

Why wouldn’t it last?

Ben turned back to his desk, willing his heartrate to slow in time to Rey’s even breaths. He organized the parchment, the pens with their sharpened nubs, the small glass containers of black ink. Carefully, deliberately, he dipped the nub of one pen into the inkwell and hovered over the crisp, slightly-crackling parchment. A bead of midnight-colored ink moved to weightlessly float at the tip.

Before it dropped and marred the page, Ben decisively brought his pen down and began to float it across the parchment, hand moving steadily as he traced ancient Sith and Jedi symbols, totems of good luck from the Guardians of the Whills, shapes to transfer power from the witches of Dathomir, pictures from the Aing-Tii, figures from the Dagoyan Masters and even images from ancient temples which depicted The Ones.

As he sketched the Daughter, he felt a presence – warmth like a spicy cup of tea or sunlight reflecting over sand dunes – hovering over his shoulder.

She was quite an attractive anthropomorphic representation of the Light, Obi-Wan Kenobi mused, refined voice holding what Ben suspected was a teasing note.

Ben didn’t dignify the long-dead Jedi Master with a response. It was bad enough he had had to go around with Snoke’s voice in his head since before he could talk to explain something was wrong. Now he had to have family members whispering things to him through the Force as well.

A scent of snow came to him then, a flash memory that wasn’t his of snowflakes falling upon the dark curls of a solemn-faced little boy, and then the snow-capped mountains surrounding Aldera.

His mother was here.

Ben couldn’t turn around, couldn’t face her. Eventually, he thought he heard a quiet sigh and the presence – like sunlight on new snow – faded. As did Obi-Wan’s.

When Ben finally turned around, Rey was gone as well.

A fat, black drop of ink fell to the page, smudging the careful words and symbols and pictures he had made. In a fit of rage, Ben tore the parchment in two and through the pages away.

He grabbed his lightsaber and left the room. Perhaps Jacen was up for a bit of sparring. Or even Tahiri. She could be quite vicious when the mood took her.

Notes:

Rey finds Ben in the library of the Imperial Palace and learns that this place of evil had once housed the greatest collection of knowledge – and in particular Jedi history – in the galaxy.

Chapter 15: Battle

Summary:

Rey hasn’t seen Ben in months. Now, on the war-ravaged Togrutan homeworld of Shili she meets him face to face across the battlefield.

Notes:

Anyone still interested in this story?

The Millennium Falcon breached the upper atmosphere of Shili at latitude 20 degrees south and longitude 37.4175 degrees west, per standard Republic units. The sun was shining under a verdant blue sky, the rolling, grass plains rippled in a strong wind and Rey thought that she might like this planet.

If there wasn’t a battle that raged below. First Order and Republic ships alike falling from the air, blaster bolts and cannons causing destruction in red, blue and green bursts of light, and the rupture in the Force caused by so many deaths.

Chewie roared and Artoo twittered nervously as a blast shook the Falcon.

“Just get me as close as you can!” Rey shouted towards the cockpit. She was trying to center her mind in preparation for what lay ahead and found it almost impossible.

Somewhere out there was Ben.

She hadn’t seen him in months. She had no idea if the Force was keeping them apart for some reason, or if Ben had found a way to block her. She had no idea why he would though, and the nagging doubt caused by her lack of contact with him was further exacerbated by the First Order’s aggressive retaking of several systems thought to be secure.

The only thing that hindered their forward momentum was the fact that so many systems had elected not to re-join the Republic after the fall of the Empire and had subsequently built their own planetary defense organizations.

And the fact that until today, the young Emperor had refrained from stepping onto the battlefield, alongside the now-legendary Knights of Ren. Today they would all be deployed together.

Rey’s tangle of emotions at learning he would be here – a shifting, nauseous mix of anger, relief, trepidation, and a desire to both punch him in the face and snog him senseless – annoyed her enough that she found meditation to be impossible. So, she stood by the Millennium Falcon’s ramp with a squad of Spec Ops soldiers and fingered her lightsaber, Luke’s lightsaber, Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber, in a restless motion.

“You’re not very centered,” the ghostly shade of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker said reprovingly.

“No shit,” she returned, but quietly. The last time she had talked to Luke, she’d found out the hard way that only those who were quite Force sensitive could see Force ghosts. Cato from Ghost Company was still giving her strange looks. In fact, he was eyeing her suspiciously right this minute. Leia would have given him a stern and haughty look, fiercely putting him in his place.

Rey was made of weaker stuff, apparently. She merely tried to look not-crazy.

Luke sniggered.

“Ignore him you should, young Rey,” advised the ghost of diminutive Master Yoda. “Focusing on the present has never been young Skywalker’s strength either.” He sounded smug and Master Luke stopped laughing and began grumbling.

Rey sighed again. On the one hand, she was glad they hadn’t left her alone to figure out this Force stuff on her own. On the other hand…they never left her alone.

“Rey,” came the gentle voice of Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. “Let go. Trust in the Force.”

And Rey remembered that it was the Force which had brought her and Ben together. Not Snoke. She took a deep breath, released it slowly, and felt some of her tension leach away with it. She had no idea how someone so calm and wise could be Ben’s namesake. 

“I’ll never understand how he does it,” muttered Luke.

“Obi-Wan’s a master,” came the proud, slightly smug, and teasing voice of Anakin Skywalker. “My master. You will never be his equal. Just remember that, my son. And you too, Rey.” Rey hadn’t seen Anakin yet, but his voice was interjecting itself more and more into her training sessions. She wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this cocky, possessive Jedi-turned-Sith-turned-Jedi again. He seemed very different from Ben – except for the fiery temper they both shared with Leia.

Rey wasn’t entirely certain, given that the Force ghosts were mostly blue, but she thought she saw Master Obi-Wan blush.

Chewie roared again. Thirty seconds until they reached the drop zone. Rey tuned out the voices of the dead Jedi and readied herself for battle. There was only her own breath, the feel of sweat on her hand from where she gripped her lightsaber, and the sound of Ghost and Echo Companies readying their weapons.

The Falcon shuddered a bit as Chewie set her down on Shili. He roared again.

“May the Force be with us,” Rey said and the men and women around her pounded on their weapons in agreement.

The ramp lowered, Rey ran down it to meet the warm, dry Shili air, igniting her lightsaber, twirling it around and up on both sides of her body in her – originally Ben’s – traditional opening move. The sounds of battle hit her in a tidal wave of noise. Ghost Company took position on her left, Echo Company on her right, and Rey advanced. 

The Battle of Shili was a Republic slaughter, as High Command had feared since hearing that the Knights of Ren would be deployed there as a single unit. As more and more systems stood up the First Order, as Kuat and Corellia, Mon Cala and New Alderaan, turned out more warships capable of going head to head with a Star Destroyer, the battles between the Order and the Republic were almost evenly matched. Not today.

The Knights of Ren cleaved through Republic troops, tanks and turret emplacements, as well as through Togrutan resistance fighters, like a lightsaber through Separatist battle droids.

The Knights all fought with lightsabers now – red and purple and gold – and had forgone the masks and heavy armor they’d worn under Snoke. Now, lightly armored, dressed all in simple black tunics, there was an almost elegant and haunting aspect to their ruthless quest to install order in a galaxy overrun by decades of war and strife.

Luke Skywalker’s Lost Apprentices.

And there was Ben.

Ben Solo Organa looked every inch the young royal he was, dark curls whipping across pale skin, eyes lit by battle lust and the black tunic he wore leaving little to the imagination. He fought in sync with Jacen Syndulla, whose green hair glinted under the Shili sun and who wielded a purple lightsaber almost the color of his eyes.

Rey moved towards them steadily, protecting her troops from blaster fire before both Companies split off from her in preparation for a flanking maneuver. Rey and Poe had spent the past several months going through Captain Rex of the 501^st Clone Battalion’s old instruction manuals for the training of elite troops to be deployed under a Jedi General. Echo and Ghost Companies had now been trained to kill Jedi.

Or rather, Dark Side Force users.

Rey could never look at the Knights of Ren though, without seeing Jedi. She knew them now. She liked them. And somehow, someway, she was going to save them.

Ben saw her first. Of course he did.

He stalked toward her, looking more like a Dark Side Emperor and less like her Ben than he had since those first few days back on Ach-Too. He jumped, clearing the last Republic troops surrounding Rey and landed with his lightsaber first.

Rey’s lightsaber met his in a crackling of blades. Rey kept her blade steady in a high block as he bore down on her. She looked up and met his bright eyes, caught the small upwards quirk of his lips.

“Hello again,” he murmured, barely audible over the firefight going on around them, and she heard the relief, the joy, he tried to hide.

Rey was lost to him once more. “Hi,” she said, breathlessly, and then cursed herself for such a reaction. Enemy. He was an enemy right now. Don’t end up dead. Focus.

Somewhere in the netherworld of the Force, Master Skywalker was laughing at her.

Ben loved a good fight as much as she did, and both of their skill levels had increased dramatically in their months apart. They exchanged a flurry of blows, fast and furious and intent. It was all Rey could do to keep Ben from landing a strike. He was vastly more skilled than her, with years of training under his belt, and now apparently without the conflict between dark and light which consumed him. She couldn’t tell yet which side he came down on in this moment, but he was magnificent.

Rey rolled under the sputtering blade of his lightsaber, got to her feet and barely blocked his next strike in time. Despite herself, she admired how fast and elegantly he moved. “You’ve been practicing without me!” she accused, mock offended.

His eyes flickered up to hers, uncertain, and he missed his next stroke.

Rey’s eyes widened, and she tried to halt her momentum towards his unprotected face –

And then Jacen’s violet blade interposed itself between her and Ben, stopping her blade in its track.

“Mind in the moment, Solo,” he chided, with a grin for Rey. “Nice moves today, little Jedi.” He winked.

Ben frowned, and she could feel his sudden anger swell in the Force. “Stay out of this, Syndulla,” he snarled and for a moment Rey thought he would lash out at the other man’s unprotected side. She disengaged her lightsaber and watched Jacen turn to face Ben, his own blade left lit. The young Emperor was horribly off balance once more, his Force presence warring between opposing desires.

Rey clipped her lightsaber to her belt and Force pushed Hedala away from a Togrutan resistance member. She noticed that her people were almost in position. Finally. She pressed the short-range transmitter on her wrist.

Jacen stepped back from Ben, switched his lightsaber off and raised his hands placatingly. “Easy there, Your Exaltedness. My only intent was to save your life.”

“Ben,” Rey said hesitantly, reaching out to place a hand on his arm.

He flinched back from her, swinging his lightsaber around once more. Jacen stepped out of reach of his Emperor, shaking his head in resignation, Rey ignited her own blade again in turn, and their dance began again.

All she needed to do was distract him long enough…

The roar of a low-flying starship whipped the air around them. Dust flew, Rey staggered, Ben cursed, and General Syndulla’s ship, the Ghost, raced over the horizon.

It was the signal Echo and Ghost Companies had been waiting for. During the chaos, while Rey distracted Ben, they had completely encircled the Knights of Ren, leaving the circle wide enough that known of the Knights had noticed their positions amid the battle. Now Sergeant Raventhorn gave the command and, as one, they fired their weapons – the blasts barely heard over the roar of the ship and the blaster fire keeping the Knights pinned down – half of them shooting long, plasti-ropes and the other half discharging electrical shocks, temporarily stunning the Knights.

Ben, Jacen and Hedala managed to jump clear of the first wave, but as they landed, turning towards Rey with near-identical expressions of betrayal on their faces, the second wave fired. Jacen keened as he fell to the ground and Hedala yelled, fighting, until another blast sent her unconscious next to her comrade in arms.

Ben was the only one powerful enough to fight his way through the pulses of energy running through his body. He turned, hand raised out to sweep those incapacitating his Knights away, but it was too late. Rey engaged him in combat once more, the blue of her blade barely missing his outstretch right hand.

“You betrayed me,” he cried, face twisted in confusion, hair wild, and she saw the genuine hurt in his eyes. “You set this up to capture me. You used yourself to lure me here!”

He was screaming at her now, and it hurt to know that she had such power to unbalance him. But then, he had the power to unbalance her as well. Rey shook her head, their blades held up en garde even as they paused to stare at once another.

The Ghost was barely a hundred meters and closing fast.

“No,” she said. “Not you.”

The Ghost slowed slightly but didn’t stop, coming in hot barely twenty meters above the ground. The ramp lowered and an aged Lasat warrior balanced on the very edge, holding out a huge, clawed hand. Rey reached out her hand and then flung it upwards, and Jacen Syndulla was thrown straight up into the air.

The Lasat caught the unconscious young man effortlessly, hositing him over his shoulder and stalking back up the ramp.

Rey turned back to Ben, delighting in his flummoxed expression. “His mom wanted him home,” she explained. “We didn’t come for you.” You’re mine, she didn’t say, but more certain of it than she had ever been before. One day you’ll come to me.

She closed her lightsaber down, flicked out two fingers towards him in a mocking salute – something she had learned from old holos of Anakin Skywalker – and jumped straight onto the Ghost’s ascending ramp. Come and get me, she thought.

“All units, after that ship!” Ben roared over his commlink, audible even over Hera’s ship’s sublight engines.

That’s my boy, she thought. As the ramp closed and Hera peeled for space, she saw Echo and Ghost Companies blend back into the other Republic forces. It was mission accomplished. General Syndulla had her son back, the Knights of Ren had been brought down by one and would, moreover, be distracted for the rest of the battle, and Ben would be too unbalanced by her and her actions and would undoubtedly send far too many men and ships in pursuit.

Her heart pounded from more than just adrenaline. It had been the first time they’d seen each other outside of a vision since Snoke’s throne room. And it had been months since she’d touched him, felt him inside her, brushed her lips over his and ran her hands through her hair.

He was still her Ben. She could see it. Moreover, she could feel it in the Force.

“Alright,” she muttered, “time for step two.”

And at the top of the ramp, the ghostly form of Master Obi-Wan winked at her.

 

 

***

 

Notes:

Rey knows that Ben can’t be made to come back to the light. She has to let him come to her in his own time. Chipping away at the Knights of Ren is a good strategic move towards disrupting his power base though, and in more ways than one.

Chapter 16: Throne

Summary:

The price of ruling. Leia Organa has one last lesson to impart to her son.

Ben Solo Organa had always known that his mother was a powerful and influential person. The last princess of Alderaan, the last scion of the ancient houses of Antilles and Organa – adopted or not – and a Skywalker by birth, she had risen to the ranks of Senator, General and queen of New Alderaan on her own merits.

“You are my heir,” Leia told him, while still a small boy, “but only if you want to be,” she had said seriously, bending down before her son and smoothing Ben’s dark hair back from his face. “Alderaan is gone and New Alderaan is still so new, so small. A ruling Council makes decisions in my name,” she said, “and I think it might be time that we elect our leaders democratically, like the Naboo do.” She frowned in thought, kneeling before him, a vision in white, her perfect skin and hair ready for a vote in the New Republic Senate.

Princess Leia Organa was a priceless jewel, beautiful and perfect like a diamond. Ben had never tired of looking at her, of feeling her clear, purposeful presence in the Force. When all was chaos, his mother had always known the right thing to do. “Many things are changing, and many more will in the future, but we are still Alderaan,” she said softly, “and what matters is that we hold on to the good.”

Ben had fidgeted in her grip, not understanding what she was saying. “So, I’m a prince?” he asked, just to clarify things.  Han always called him, “my little prince,” like he called Leia “princess,” sometimes, but that might just be a father thing. Or a Han thing. Even at six and several months, Ben knew that Han didn’t always tell the exact truth. 

Leia laughed, the ringing of clear bells, and Ben watched her awe, feeling her gentle amusement in the Force. He never felt anyone else as clearly as he felt his mother, not even the presence of his grandfather, who visited him sometimes in his dreams and told him to keep it a secret from his parents.

“Yes, you are a prince,” Leia said, still amused. “And one day you could be king, or governor, or any number of other things.” She kissed his forehead gently. “You could even be a Jedi, like you Uncle Luke or like General Kenobi. Your father and I named you after him, you know. He was a great man.” She got to her feet and held out her hand for his.

Ben slipped his hand in her larger one and they walked together out of the apartment complex on Chandrila his mother owned a suite in. Chandrila was the New Republic’s capital, but his mother said that next year the capital would be moved to Cato Neimoidia. Ben didn’t understand how the capital of the galaxy could move, but he trusted his mother was right.

Leia’s security detail, including several Noghri, met them at the door and escorted them to the armored landspeeder that would take them to the Senate building in the government sector. Leia sometimes took Ben with her to these events. “Training,” she said, lightly, but Ben knew that she was afraid to leave him alone all the time, especially with Han gone most of the time.

“They don’t trust you,” his grandfather told him, in the darkness of the night, when Ben felt the loneliness pressing upon him most keenly. “They know how much power you have inside you, and they are afraid of you. That’s why your father doesn’t stay.”

Now, however, in the light of day, Ben couldn’t really believe it. His mother seemed happy he was coming with her, and he tightened his hold around her hand just in case. She wasn’t afraid of him; he had never felt fear from her, just love.

He reached out to her in the Force and she automatically reached back, looking down at him and smiling. The gentle Chandrilan sun turned her dark hair glossy and she looked even more beautiful than usual in the simple, white dress she used in service as New Alderaan’s senator.

“Are you ready little one?” she asked. Ben nodded.

As they drove through the streets of Hanna City, Chandrila’s capital, Ben watched the square-shaped silver buildings, the numerous parks and green spaces, the happy people all around him, and the rolling green hills in the distance. Chandrila was a mild planet, his mother said, and rarely experienced dangerous or severe weather conditions. In fact, Ben could only remember one time that it snowed.

His father had bundled him up and held him as his mother taught him to taste snowflakes on his tongue. It was a treasured memory, before the darkness and the loneliness, the other children in his school being afraid of him, his father leaving, and a sadness growing in his mother’s eyes.

“There is a price to ruling, Ben,” Leia said suddenly, and Ben turned to see her staring out of the other window towards several families who appeared to be having picnics in on of Hanna City’s many parks.

“A price, mother?” he asked. “You have to pay Republic credits to be queen of New Alderaan?”

Leia turned back to him, lips smiling but a troubled expression in her brown eyes. “No, dear one,” she explained. “I simply mean that when you are a ruler…there are some things that will always separate you from other people. Should you choose to follow my path…you will be in service to our people, which is an honorable calling, but you will forever be apart from them. The lives of others will be…different from yours.” Leia seemed to be struggling to explain. At last she settled on, “Your joys and fears will be different as well.”

“Oh,” Ben said, understanding at last. He turned away from his mother. He already knew this one. Grandfather had explained that Ben’s destiny was special, that he was special, and that no one would trust him, or love him for him, but only for his power. They would fear and respect him in equal measure, grandfather said. But you will change the galaxy. Forever, his grandfather promised. Ben wasn’t so sure he wanted this destiny his grandfather promised, but he didn’t see what choice he had.

“The Force provides,” he said quietly, something grandfather said, and his mother looked over to him quickly, seeming surprised.

“Where did you hear that?” she asked. Her dark eyes were assessing, suddenly probing, as though she could see to the very corners of his soul and into the darkness that was there. Ben wouldn’t let his beautiful, light-filled mother tainted like that. Grandfather would help him get through this. He was helping him already.

Ben hunched his shoulders, refusing to meet her eyes. “Around, I guess,” he muttered, and didn’t say another word for the rest of the trip.

He had thought he understood what ruling was, what it truly entailed. He had watched his mother do it all his life, he had watched Uncle Luke lead the Jedi, he had watched Snoke lead the First Order.

But it was only today, staring down into the eyes of several Toydarians, who had been brave enough to come to him and claim justice for their murdered king, that Ben truly understood what ruling required. Toydaria was a smaller world, less valuable to the First Order in terms of resources and manpower, but it had always been loyal to the Emperor. “In honor of your mother,” the king had said, when he’d come to Ben’s coronation and laid a present at the young emperor’s feet.

Now the regional governor of the R-11 quadrant in Hutt Space had apparently decided upon an expansion of the role’s traditional powers and murdered the king when the Toydarians failed to pay him a protection fee.

“We humbly ask for justice,” the Toydarian king’s daughter, Princess K’lara said, lowering her eyes respectfully, her small wings fluttering furiously as she hovered before Ben’s throne.

The problem with it all was that the regional governor of R-11 was former Imperial Admiral Osvald Teshik’s son. Krendel Teshik had been one of Ben’s staunchest supporters, even during the uncertain time after Snoke’s death, when many in the First Order’s military and high command supported Admiral Hux.

Krendel Teshik had never been anything but loyal to Ben, and now a planet that provided no true value to the First Order demanded his death.

Ben looked at Princess K’lara. Despite the differences in their species, he saw his mother in her, in the tilt of her chin, the fire in her eyes, the elegance and fierce desire for justice that seemed an innate part of her. He knew he looked imposing, he knew his reputation was that of a monster. He sat forward on the uncomfortable throne and studied the young princess intently. “Why come to me?” he asked simply. “My reputation precedes me, I’m sure. What makes you think that I would grant your request when I have no incentive to do so?”

“Because you are Princess Leia’s son and you are a son of Alderaan,” K’lara returned instantly. “My grandfather knew yours, long ago during the Clone Wars.”

Ben must have shown the surprise he felt for she shook her head, long blue earrings tinkling as she did so. “Not Darth Vader,” she corrected, “Bail Organa. It was your grandfather who brought mine back into the Republic, convinced him of unity in a time of chaos, promised him that respect for all systems, whether powerful or forgotten, could be achieved.”

She flew slowly closer to him, keeping an eye on the Knights of Ren who stood behind Ben’s chair, one short now that Jacen had been taken from them.

“And your mother, Princess Leia, she is a hero to the galaxy. “She fought for all of us her entire life. She kept the Empire from utterly destroying her people and way of life. She saved Alderaan.” K’lara looked at him earnestly. “I don’t believe that Princess Leia’s son would hear my plea and be unmoved, and if I’m wrong…well then there is no hope for my people anyway.”

Ben sat back and closed his eyes, but he already knew what he was going to do. K’lara was his mother, but she was also Rey, who looked at him as though he was her savior, as though he was a hero and not a monster with blood upon his hands. “I promised order and stability with my reign,” he said, raising his voice so that all in the Hall could hear him clearly. “I promised the rule of law and I promised the end to the factionalism that existed under the Republic and the chaos that was the hallmark of the New Republic. I keep my word. Regional Governor Teshik no longer represents the First Order’s interests, and his resignation will be accepted immediately.”

Ben waved the Toydarian princess away, not hearing her protestations of thanks, already seeing the uproar in the Hall. He watched as Hedala decided to go with K’lara. Fardi wouldn’t take no for an answer, and she would bring Ben Teshik’s head – metaphorically or not – before forty-eight hours passed.

The Hall emptied quickly after that, Coruscant’s political machine shaken at the fall of such a powerful and influential man, a loyalist, but Ben stayed and watched unmoving from his throne as the red-gold rays of the sun sank beneath the horizon and the room descended into darkness. There was a N’Omis flower clutched in his gloved hand; a gift from the princess.

It was dark when she came.

“Artoo brought me,” she said apologetically, closing the main doors behind her with a muted “boom” sound, “and Tahiri let me in.” Artoo followed after her, beeping quietly as he headed towards Ben. The young emperor watched the lights on the little droid, glowing in the darkness of the throne room. It had been many years since he’d seen his old friend – not since that night when Uncle Luke tried to kill him.

The old astromech, who had once belonged to Grandma Padmé, had been Ben’s only friend at the Academy. Jacen had grown close to him after that fateful night, but Ben had been alone during his entire time on Yavin. He’d been waiting outside Ben’s hut, whistling worriedly, after Ben managed to dig himself out of the debris. “Hello Artoo,” he said quietly. The droid had always been more loyal to Uncle Luke than to Ben, but it was good to see him all the same.

Artoo beeped and came closer. 

“He has a message for you,” Rey said. Her voice was like cool water in the hot furnace of Ben’s emotions. He couldn’t see her in the darkness, but he could feel her; powerful and controlled and brilliantly bright. Whoever was teaching her – a Jedi holocron, a Force Ghost or someone Ben didn’t even know about – they were doing an amazing job. She burned in the Force as brightly as Uncle Luke and Mother ever had. 

“Very well,” Ben said, waving a hand towards Artoo. Rey came up the steps of the dais and stood beside him, reaching down and taking his hand as Artoo whirred and a ghostly figure of a young Leia appeared before him. 

General Kenobi, years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you for help in his struggle against the Empire…

Leia’s image flickered, replaced after a moment by her face as Ben remembered her last, still beautiful but distinguished by time.

“Ben, my son,” she said, and there was grief and pride and hope in her voice. “If Artoo brings you this message, then I am gone, and he believes that you need me still.” General Organa took a deep breath. “Know that I love you, Ben, that I will always love you. And know that you are my hope for the future. I know that you will make this galaxy a better place, that you will succeed where I have failed. I believe that. Our family’s past does not determine your destiny, Ben. Choose, and choose again if you fail. Trust in the Force. Be strong and be brave. May the Force be with you, always.”

And then she was gone.

Ben didn’t speak but he held onto Rey’s hand like a lifeline, squishing until he was sure she would protest. She did not. After a while she climbed into his lap, straddling him on that cold, painful throne and kissed him until his lips tingled and the numbness had been replaced by heat and desire and love.

“Wherever you go, I go to,” she whispered against his lips, a promise, before she left. “Just come to me. We can make our own destiny.”

Her words lingered long after she departed. Ben stood before the transparisteel windows, hands clasped beside his back, Artoo beside him, and stared out at the twinkling lights of Coruscant. It felt, in a way, like his mother had set him free. Bound by duty her whole life, she had still told him to choose his own path.

Trust in the Force, she had said, and Ben had done so with K’lara. He wasn’t sure that was the best way to rule, but for the first time since he’d left Luke’s Academy, he wondered if that was his destiny after all.  

 

***

Notes:

Poor Ben. Leia is truly epic, right? Even from beyond death, she is guiding her son. And I loved the parallel of Leia’s first moment in the saga as a hologram telling Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi that he is her only hope, and her last moment in the saga being a hologram and telling Ben that he is her hope for the future.

Next chapter will be some lighthearted fun between Ben and Rey. And a picnic!

Chapter 17: Ghosts of the Past

Summary:

Rey and Ben meet months later in the ruins of the Death Star. Ben has walked dark paths since their Bond went silent and Rey is not sure where to go from here.

Maybe Anakin Skywalker does.

Notes:

So The Rise of Skywalker final trailers have changed the direction of this story yet again, lol, just because they were so awesome. As always, thank you so much for reading and let me know what you think!

Ghosts of the Past

 

The roar of the ocean was a distant hum, its thunderous, turbulent waves of water and salt-spray only hinted at from here.

This far inside the ruins of the Second Death Star, the only sounds were the moaning of the wind and the creaking of the decades old structure as it slowly fell apart and sank into the sea. 

And, of course, the pounding of her own heart. 

Rey stood before the Emperor’s throne, her blue-bladed lightsaber ignited, and faced the man across from her. It had been months since the Force had brought them together; dark months, in which she continued to hear of the atrocities of the First Order, the unstoppable menace of the young Emperor, Kylo Ren, as more and more star systems fell to the order he was imposing across the galaxy.   

She didn’t know why the Force had torn them apart again, she didn’t know why the man across from her was falling further into darkness again, but she did know that she had to be here, now, in this place with him.

“What do you want?” She demanded of him, across the howling of the wind. There was something empty and lonely about this place, yet as the sun came through the shattered windows, illuminating the angled planes of Ben’s face, she thought there might be something hopeful about it as well. 

He had fought her outside the Death Star, with the sea surging all around them – as if it was the only way he knew how to connect with her after all these months. As if, with his mask gone, with all that stood between them, he needed something familiar to anchor himself.

She’d fought him as fiercely as he fought her, her blood pounding, exhilaration in her veins. She was always holding herself back, always slowing down, always trying to dim herself these days. The more she trained, the closer she reached to becoming a Jedi Knight, the more she stood apart from the people around her.

The Force was a gift, but it was also – it could be – a lonely path to walk. 

She didn’t feel lonely with Ben. He crossed blades with her, eyes burning and pale face utterly intent, and she didn’t have to hold herself back any longer. She gave him everything; all the training she’d acquired, all the lessons she’d learned, all the tricks she’d come up with – but she also gave him her rage, her fear, her longing and loneliness and pain. And he took it and gave his own right back to her.

She gave him her compassion as well. The torment she could feel in him, the Force pulling at him, the cold loneliness of the dark paths he now walked, she reached out and tried to share the light she’d found these past months with him. She didn’t tease him as Obi-Wan Kenobi had done with his dark side opponents. She didn’t try to influence him either, as Master Yoda would have done. Nor did she try to appeal to his goodness, as Luke Skywalker had done with Vader. Ben had spent his entire life with people trying to influence him. 

She simply let herself be with him: I’m here if you need me. I’m here if you want me. I’m standing right here before you – come with me. 

They fought their way into the Death Star, Rey retreating and retreating. She’d seen them standing before the Emperor’s throne. She’d seen it in the Force, in her dreams for months now.

She didn’t trust her dreams, but she’d meditated, and she’d talk with the Jedi Masters, and they were all in agreement that the Force was leading her to the Second Death Star for a reason; that there were answers there.

That Ben waited for her here as well did not surprise her. He had always been the answer. He had always been the question.

He was hers and she was his. The Force had willed it so. 

Once she might had resented such a thing, but that was until they’d touched hands across time and space, and she had seen into his very soul to the lost, little boy within. Ben would redeem himself one day; she had complete faith in him. Someone with that much light and compassion in his soul could not be lost to darkness forever. 

She could feel Leia’s diamond-bright presence beside her as she stood in the light. Ben was soaked, his dark tunic and cape made even darker by the salt-spray. His eyes were dark as well, and tired. 

“The Force sent me,” he said to her now, his deep voice sounding as exhausted as he looked. It as an answer such as a Jedi would give. The dark side demanded answers of the Universe while a Jedi waited for his path to be revealed to him.

That was one of the teachings she’d found among the Guardians of the Whills. 

“I couldn’t find you,” he said, after several seconds passed. He was frowning, as though unsure whether he should have said that.

Rey took a step towards him, her blade still ignited. “Yes,” she told him. Only that. She wondered if the dark paths he had chosen to walk had caused their bond to be closed. “But I’m here now.” She closed her blade down. “What are you looking for, Ben?” Her voice was softer, more heard through the Force than through the ear.

“Answers,” he said. A reason, the Force echoed. His eyes flickered back behind her, to where Rey could still feel Leia.

He’s not here said a voice to one side of them. Ben and Rey turned to see the ghost of Anakin Skywalker standing there. The young man was tow-headed, with intense blue eyes and a scar across his right eye that mirrored Ben’s own in a strange, disturbing way. He wasn’t looking at either of them, instead staring at the throne with an expression on his face that Rey could not decipher.

He was tall, but not as tall as Ben. He was handsome, but not as handsome as his grandson. There was a restless energy to him, a recklessness that Rey could feel in the Force. Ben, for all his anger, was strangely restful beneath it all – a contemplative, watchful aspect to him that this young man did not seem to possess. It was the first time she’d ever been able to see the differences between them, for all that Ben tried so hard to play up their similarities.

“Who’s not here?” she asked him. Ben was staring at his grandfather with a face gone bone white. He looked almost sick as he stared at the ghost of the young man who had returned to the light in this very spot.

Anakin Skywalker’s eyes met hers for the same time. She tightened her grip on her lightsaber. There was still a part of her that feared the legacy of this man, for all that she wielded his lightsaber, for all that she loved his daughter and son, and grandson. She raised her chin and refused to flinch under his gaze.

The former Jedi Knight’s expression softened, and he looked between her and Ben with something that looked like amusement. The reason, he said.

And he faded back into the Force.

Notes:

Next up, Ben and Rey on Pasaana.

Chapter 18: Come Fly with Me

Summary:

Rey follows Ben to Pasaana, where a new Quest awaits.

Come Fly with Me

 

The air was hot and dry, and the sun shone fiercely down from above. The sand shimmered in the too-bright sunlight, mirages flickering on the horizon. Rey had forgotten – how had she forgotten already? – the harsh, inhospitable nature of a desert planet. She was sweaty and tired, her muscles ached, and it felt like she’d run for miles across this flat, sandy plain when she knew it had only been three-quarters of an hour at most. She could feel the Force flowing through her, giving her added strength and stamina and urging her onwards, ever onwards.

The First Order was not far behind her.

She’d been separated from Finn and Poe, Chewie and Threepio and BB-8 during all the commotion. Poe had had a contact on Pasaana among the Aki-Aki species. Located even beyond the Outer Rim, skirting the edges of Wild Space and the Unknown Regions, Pasaana was so remote and strategically useless that they had been quietly hopeful the First Order would not track them here.

But Kylo Ren’s new Empire had already infiltrated this place and Poe’s contact had betrayed them to the local garrison commander. A platoon of First Order shock troopers, complete with Jedi-fighting weapons, had been lying in wait for them. In the resulting ambush and firefight which followed, Rey drew off the heaviest pursuit, allowing her friends time to make for the landspeeders and hopefully enabling them to get back to the Falcon. Rey had headed out over the desert. She’d grown up in a desert, this place was more like home than any other she’d found in the galaxy so far and loathe though she was to think of Jakku as home in any way, shape or form, she could not deny that it had shaped her.

It had been a hard, unforgiving and lonely training ground but she sometime thought that without it, she would have not survived her Jedi training. She had learned so much in so short a time. Master Kenobi said that she had a natural aptitude for self-denial.

Anakin had popped in then to say: And Obi-Wan would know all about that. For which he’d gotten a stern lecture which seemed to do absolutely nothing to dampen his enthusiastic teasing of the older man. Rey might have even called it flirting, but she wasn’t entirely sure she’d recognize flirting if she saw it; there had been little enough of it on Jakku, where relationships were based on necessity and mutual convenience, not passion and want and attraction. 

Rey sometimes thought that Obi-Wan and Anakin were two sides of the same coin. They seemed to be inseparable, even in death, and there was a balance to them – to their relationship – that brought peace with it. For all that Anakin Skywalker was not a very peaceful person – death hadn’t apparently changed him – there was peace in him when he was with Obi-Wan Kenobi.

She thought that was special, somehow beautiful, and she knew the Force felt the same: it seemed to sing in their presence. She also couldn’t help but notice the parallels to her own relationship with Ben Solo. 

They were two sides of a whole as well – the final legacy of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa. She fought with Anakin’s lightsaber and he fought with Vader’s. They were equally strong in the Force. He was the face of the First Order and she was – with Princess Leia’s passing – the face of the Resistance and the last hope for a new Republic.

When she fell, he caught her, and when he fell - -

Well, she was still working out the best way to save him. She trusted the Force to show her the way, but it had been so strangely silent of late that she was beginning to think it might want her to take matters into her own hands.

He had left her on the Second Death Star, Finn’s shouts for her echoing through empty, ruined passageways where water dripped, and the structure slowly collapsed around them. She had reached out for him not sure what she wanted from him except to get him to stay with her, but he’d still turned away. He had vanished into the darkness after one, long look, as though he might have been saying good-bye, and she hadn’t heard from him since.

General Syndulla stopped by the Falcon one day to inform her that Kylo Ren had supposedly vanished from the First Order – that no one knew where he was – and that General Hux had taken over. “That’s good news for us,” she’d said grimly. She was worn and tired from a constant watch over her son, who was being held in a maximum-security cell on Dantooine, in the old Jedi temple there, and was so far resistant to any attempts at reaching him. 

“Will you ask Jacen for me?” Rey asked his mother. Jacen was loyal to Ben and no one else; he had known him for decades. If Ben was on some sort of quest, Jacen would know why. 

The aged Twi’lek General, hero of the Rebellion, lover of a Jedi, hesitated.

“Please, Hera,” Rey asked her. “It’s important. And I don’t know what happened on Yavin all those years ago – but I doubt very much that either Ben or Jacen started it.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And whatever happened after – was more a tragedy than a willing descent into darkness.”

Hera was watching her, green eyes sharp and intent and hopeful despite everything. After a moment, a slow smile began to curl first one side of her mouth and then the other. “Is the Force telling you that?” she asked softly. Then, offering Rey her precious memories in a way that showed how generous her spirit truly was, added: “Kanan used to do that; used to look beyond the surface and see something unexpected underneath. I had wondered if it was a Jedi thing or just a Kanan thing. Until I worked with Ahsoka for a while and then Ezra.” She smiled even wider. “All different, but all of you leading down unexpected paths.”

She reached out and placed a hand on Rey’s shoulder. “I will ask my son,” she promised. “You truly are a Jedi, Rey.”

Jacen seemed to bear Rey no ill-will. It was his information that led Rey to Pasaana, tagging along with Poe and Finn who were on a mission of their own for the Resistance.

She wondered what Ben was doing here. Wondered if he was even here at all or long-since gone. She wondered why there were so many desert planets in the galaxy, and why the Jedi’s destiny seemed bound with them: Anakin Skywalker came from Tatooine. As did Luke. Obi-Wan Kenobi, one of the last Jedi Masters to survive the Purge, exiled himself to a desert. Rey was raised on the desert world of Jakku. Jedha, desolate and desert-like as well, was considered by many to be the birthplace of the Jedi Order.

She stopped running.

The First Order was a distant spot of darkness at the edge of her Force awareness, but there was something much closer. Something very familiar.

She would know him anywhere.

Rey turned and slowly drew her lightsaber: she did not know if he came to fight or to help her. It could go either way with Ben.

She’d never tell him this, but after a lifetime spent in monotonous, lonely boredom on Jakku, Ben’s unpredictable nature was like a summer rainstorm after a hot day; refreshing and wonderful.

He came in low over the cliffs, his TIE-silencer screaming over the sands. She reached out to him through the Force, trying to gauge his intent. She could feel that he was hurt and tired and annoyed, that low, simmering anger always present in him was slightly more tumultuous than usual.

He meant her no ill will. In fact, he reached back towards her instantly, a question through the Force.

Rey thought about being stubborn, about drawing her lightsaber and cutting through his TIE’s wing and leaving him as stranded in the desert as she was.

Instead, pushing aside such childish anger and a desire to hurt where she had been hurt, she turned and readied herself.

Instantly, the TIE behind her began to accelerate, its twin ion engines screaming, picking up sand in a cloud of dry, chocking dust. Rey turned to give him a stern look, one which was echoed through the Force.

He wasn’t mocking her or laughing at her. He was testing her though. Are you ready? He seemed to be saying.

Rey started running.

She could feel him coming up behind her, could feel the Force flowing through her. Wait, wait, wait, it seemed to be saying in his voice, even as the sands rose around her and the TIE-fighter’s noise seemed to fill the entire universe. Her heart was pounding, her lungs were screaming, and it felt like she would be run over by the ship at any moment.

Now! cried Ben: whispered the Force.

Rey jumped.

She backflipped through the air, the Force timing her jump, and landed perfectly atop Kylo Ren’s starfighter. She crouched low, feeling Ben’s approbation mixing with her own triumph.

Good, he said in her mind.

I could have jumped higher, said Anakin Skywalker, who sat lounging on the side of the starfighter, the ghostly-blue outline of his Force presence almost gone in the brilliance of Pasaana’s sun.

A Togrutan woman, sitting cross-legged beside him, rolled her eyes, while Master Kenobi looked stern, lips twitching, as he reproved his former Padawan: Yes, but we all know who holds the high ground, Anakin.

It seemed to be an old, well-worn joke, for the laughter was more for the familiarity of it than for the humor.

It’s like a party out here, she thought, bemused, even as the ghosts faded away again and all that remained was the faint warmth of their presence in the Force, the howling winds of Pasaana whipping by as the TIE barreled over the wasteland towards their destination, and the turbulent, familiar presence of Ben Solo – the first person who had ever touched her with the Force.

Ahsoka had told her once that the first person to reach out to you in the Force established a lasting connection with you. For her, that had been Jedi Master Plo Koon. For Master Skywalker and General Organa, that had been Obi-Wan Kenobi. For her that was Ben Solo.

She was glad that she had found him, or he had found her. She was glad that he was going to be with her, really with her this time, on the quest that lay before them.

And she just knew it was a quest, like the Jedi had gone on of old; she could feel it in her bones and hear it being hummed, a strange, haunting melody, in the Force.

Ten seconds, Ben said in her mind, and she readied herself for a fight.

Notes:

Next Chapter: It ends where it all began - with a monster waiting in the darkness. Ben has known this voice all his life, heard it whispering in his dreams before he could remember anything else. Now, at last, he has the chance to confront the man who, more than anyone else, tried to destroy the Skywalkers.

Emperor Palpatine, Darth Sidious, offers Ben Solo of House Organa a choice. But it's really no choice at all.