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He faded into oblivion, and for a moment it was escape, because the pain was gone. But so was she. Rey wasn’t there—just the fast-fading memory of the way she smiled at him and how soft her lips were, her hands, her skin, her eyes on his face. She was his. She was part of him, as he was of her. And she wasn’t here.
So no, this wasn’t escape. He wasn’t ready. Not at all.
Ben .
He wasn’t sure where he was, or what he was. He knew that he was no longer a body. The Force held him like water. He remembered floating in the ocean as a boy. The saltwater had a gravity to it. It surrounded, caressed, embraced, left traces of itself on his skin that lingered hours later. The Force had that gravity now. If he emerged, the traces would still be there.
But he didn’t know how. Maybe it was too late, and the only thing left to do was sink and be taken.
It’s not too late .
This time, when he heard the voice, he listened. It manifested first as a feeling rather than a sound—a strong association with the way it had felt to be hugged by his mother, so long ago he had forgotten such a thing had ever occurred at all. Here, wherever he was, it was an unbound life force, a sense of her love, and then her voice.
Ben . . .
“Mom?”
The Force was around him, and it was inside too, filling him up.
I could never give you what you needed. What you deserved. I’m so sorry.
He wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t trying to excuse herself. Just apologizing. He hadn’t realized how long he had wanted that. How it could be enough.
“I don’t . . . I can’t see you. I can’t see anything.”
I’m giving you what I can now. There’s still so much I want you to have.
“Mom, please. I’m sorry.”
Why was the feeling of her fading already? He didn’t want to be alone here. He wanted the peace of moments before. He didn’t want her to go.
I’m not leaving you. I’ll be with you the whole way. Your father and I are proud of you, Ben. These are just your first steps.
Ben felt a warmth brush his face, the most fragrant breeze—his mother’s perfume, his father’s favorite brandy, the scent left behind by an extinguished flame—and she was gone, one with the Force.
I love you.
And then he breathed again. Hard, cold stone manifested behind his back. The thick shirt he’d worn was itchy and too heavy against his skin. He was freezing and then sweltering as his body sought equilibrium.
His body.
He had a body.
Two hands gripped him strongly by the shoulders.
“Ben?” The hands squeezed tighter, then grasped his face. “Ben!”
Rey threw herself over him, her arms wound awkwardly around his neck. He expelled a hoarse gasp, struggling to find air, let alone his voice, and clumsily pulled an arm over her. Over and over, she repeated his name like a mantra. It was his new favorite sound. That name, her voice. His name.
It occurred to him then that this should have hurt a hell of a lot more. Rey hardly weighed anything, but his body was a mess of broken bones, bruises, sprains, lacerations. The intensity of her hold on him should have been agony—a far sweeter agony than crawling to her dead body had been, but agony nonetheless. He winced, waiting for the wave of pain.
It never came. He ached down to his bones. His muscles were wound tight. His limbs felt heavy and unwieldy, and he could still taste blood at the corner of his lips. But he wasn’t broken. Not anymore.
“My mother?” he managed. Hardly the first thing he wanted to say to Rey. There were so many other things. “Rey . . .”
Evidently taking his scattered half-sentences for protestations of pain, Rey stiffened over him and moved away just enough that her weight was no longer pressing down on his body. He almost pulled her back to him. Nothing felt more right than having her that close. But her face was right there, inches from his, filling his vision.
“I’m hurting you,” she said.
“No, no, it’s . . .”
“How did this happen? You were gone , I—”
“My mother.”
Her face held bewilderment even as he brushed her chin with his fingers. “Leia? What about her?”
“She waited for me. I think. She gave me something. This .”
“She brought you back.”
“Yes. I don’t understand.”
“She wanted you back. Always. She loved you.”
“I know.”
Rey wound a hand tight in his shirt, her knuckles pressed to his heart, and stared. There were tears leaking from her eyes, falling freely, though she took no notice as she wiped one of his own from his cheek. “I . . .”
A rumble like thunder shook the cavern around them, sending tiny bits of gravel skittering near his ears. He tensed. “We should leave.”
As if emerging from a trance, Rey shook her head, then nodded and linked her hand with his.
“Right. Are you able to stand?” She sat up as her eyes scanned his body, less with scrutiny than disbelief at its existence, and began to gently feel him—his chest, his abdomen, faltering over his thigh—as if she would detect each and every injury and mend it. “You fell so far. Your leg . . .”
“I can walk.” He struggled to sit, her arm supporting him. “Can you? You’re not hurt?”
“You fixed me right up.” She smiled at him, and though it was just a fleeting thing, it warmed him through. “Let’s go.”
Whatever power had brought him back hadn’t fixed every injury, but it had done a lot, and Rey was patient. Together, they beat a steady, limping path out of the dark depths of Exegol. They didn’t talk much. The place felt rotten and malevolent, like it would hear every feeling and word they shared and twist it. He sensed the guttering link of their bond though. He’d thought it was gone.
Yet it was there now, weak and quivering but still vital, and it gave him a surge of resolve as they picked their way through the horrors that remained: the shrieking forks of preternatural lightning; the devastated laboratory, which looked like a storm had rolled through it; the once-towering Sith idols, reduced to hunks of faceless stone; the bodies of his knights. He wanted to see it all burn.
“So do I,” Rey said quietly, as if she’d read his desires. She slowed, and the crackle of her anger registered as a faint sting against his palm. “It’s hateful. All of it. What it represents. We could . . .”
They could . They could blot the whole place out. Together, they had the power to do that and so much more.
“Rey. I just want to leave.”
Her eyes found his again, and she turned her back on it. “Me too.”
By the time they emerged from belowground and the ships finally came into view, Ben had made a decision. It frightened him. He knew it would hurt. Rey might hate him—though he didn’t think so—and he wasn’t sure where it would take him, but it felt like a long time in coming. He knew it was right.
“I can’t believe this thing even works!” Rey was shouting at him over the roar of the storm, breathless with readiness to be gone. She released him near his ship and indicated the decrepit X-Wing standing by. He glanced at it with distaste—at least the old TIE he’d hotwired didn’t look as if it were more mildew than metal. “But it got me here, and it’ll get me back to the base. I hope.” Her nose crinkled. “You can follow my lead. I’ll send you the coordinates too, in case we end up getting sep—”
Ben squeezed his eyes shut and forced the words out.
“I can’t go back with you.”
“What?”
She sounded like she might begin to spit fire—ridiculously, it just made his heart surge with affection. This was going to be even more difficult than he’d feared. Especially when, a moment later, her face began to crumple from surprise to frustration to sadness. It was almost the look she’d given him in Snoke’s throne room. There was so much in that look. The moment of empty victory. Her disappointment in him. He’d thought he knew so much then, but it had all been partial stories and half-lies.
His certainty was unshakable now.
She started toward him, a hand outstretched to take his roughly. “Ben, no.”
“I want to, more than anything, but I can’t,” he repeated.
“You can .”
“Not yet. There’s something I need to do first. I should have done it long ago.”
“How many times are you going to make me leave you behind?”
“Rey, please—”
“If there’s something you have to do, I’ll do it with you. You don’t have to do this alone anymore.”
It was so tempting. He couldn’t ask this of her, though.
“I’m sorry. This is something only I can do.”
“I don’t think so. Just tell me—”
“I swear, you’ll understand soon—and you’ll see me again.”
He could see the emotions at war in her face. She wanted to hit him, to hold him, to do anything that would make him stay by her side. Instead she took his face in her hands and looked into his eyes with the ferocity he’d admired even before he’d loved her.
“Promise me that. Promise me I will see you again, Ben Solo. Alive. With me. ”
Ben exhaled and tipped forward to rest his forehead against hers. The wind buffeted their bodies, bit at him through his shirt, and pushed them together. He wanted to kiss her again but was afraid to—he wouldn’t be able to stop. Neither would she. They’d perish here on this hellscape, embracing and oblivious until their bodies wasted to nothing and their ships were rusted full of holes.
“I promise.” He brushed her nose with his and cradled the back of her head as his fingers stretched into the dirt-matted mess of her hair. “Turns out you’re not as hard to find as I once thought.”
She huffed with reluctant amusement, thumbs drifting over his bruised cheekbones. “And you’re still hard to get rid of. Stay that way.”
“I’m counting on it.”
They stood like that a few moments longer, aware that they had little time to waste but determined to stretch it as far as they could. When they parted, she grabbed his wrist before he could get far.
“Wait. Take this.” He watched as Rey reached behind her and unclipped his mother’s lightsaber from her belt, then offered it to him. When he looked at her with uncertainty, she frowned. “You don’t even have a blaster.”
“Not that I need one,” he said, reaching for more bravado than he possessed in the moment.
Rey gave a derisive snort but returned his small smile. “Take it.”
He accepted the weapon his mother had once lain down, happy at least that he wouldn’t need to use it. Not yet anyway. The rest was still to be seen. He and Rey exchanged one final look, then turned and made their way to their ships, the weight of responsibility trailing them both.
✦
Rey didn’t like this, but she had accepted it. She believed Ben when he told her they would see each other again. It occurred to her, when she was still some distance from the Resistance base, that maybe she ought to have made him be more specific.
When would they see each other again? A day? A week? Months? Wait-and-see?
She hated that last possibility. It smacked of her life on Jakku. Waiting for someone to show up and prove they hadn’t forgotten her. Of course, thinking like that wasn’t fair to him—she knew that. He wouldn’t do that to her; she didn’t think he was capable of it. The bond was still a persistent thread when she let herself seek it, and he was at the other end, inaccessible for now but present. The last thing either of them could do was forget the other.
But he hadn’t been fair either. He should have told her what he was planning. She should have demanded it. Except she was pretty sure he hadn’t told her because he knew she would try again to convince him it was something he didn’t have to do alone. That she’d follow him anyway, whatever it was.
The only reason she wasn’t doing that right now was because she’d decided to respect his wishes and trust him . . . and the Resistance needed her too. She was still mulling over why this had been the right thing to do when she landed the X-Wing and disembarked to be greeted by the jubilant chaos of countless Resistance faces.
Really countless.
Last she’d known, there were far fewer faces .
Who were all these people? She’d never seen so many dissimilar ships in one place, not even on Jakku. The air held a distinct current of celebration—and why not? During her single communication en route, she’d learned of their decisive success over Exegol. The entirety of the Final Order’s fleet wiped out. Command ships lost. Generals and leadership dead or unaccounted for or imprisoned. People fighting back across the galaxy as news spread. All was in a state of turmoil, but turmoil that could turn the tide of war in the Resistance’s favor. Her relief at the news had been overwhelming. She’d led them there, after all. She didn’t think she could take knowing she’d sealed a darker fate for their desperate efforts.
Yet there was something else that was impossible to ignore. People were celebrating, and mourning their losses, and drinking to life . . . but there was confusion too. The tiniest thread of disbelief, spreading slowly in whispers.
“Rey!” Finn was on her a second later, wrapping her in a tight hug as if afraid she might float away. “Oh, it is good to see you. You’ve heard?”
“Wh— Yeah. It’s— I’m so happy you’re safe,” she said, burying her face against his shoulder and squeezing him back until he let up. “So much has happened. I need to—”
When she sought his eyes, she realized there was something he was not telling her. Something he was struggling to explain.
“Finn? What is it?”
His expression became serious, and he looked off toward where he’d come from. “Come with me. You should hear this from Poe.”
She was so tired of people not telling her things today, but she followed. Poe wasn’t far, taking in the festivities from Leia’s old quarters. He wasn’t alone, either. General Calrissian was there, sipping something from an improbably fancy cup and looking far more at his leisure than anyone had a right to.
“Ah, there she is!” Poe exclaimed as she entered on Finn’s tail. His hands were on his hips and he was regarding her with a look she couldn’t identify but didn’t like much.
“What’s this all about?”
“Is it true?” Poe asked. “Palpatine is dead?”
“I—” The question wasn’t unexpected, but it confused her anyway. There was too much she hadn’t told any of them, and now it had all come to a head. How could she ever begin? “Yes. He— It’s difficult to explain. But he’s gone. And there’s something I have to tell you, about Kylo Ren. About—”
“So you do know,” Poe interrupted.
“Know . . . know what?”
“The Supreme Leader has announced the death of the emperor and ordered a ceasefire for First Order forces in the Core and Inner Rim regions. There are reports that he wants to open peace negotiations with the Resistance. The Final— First— Whatever-the-hell Order—too many damn names. They’re calling for armistice . What the hell is going on, Rey?”
Any other time, she could easily have asked Poe why he thought she would know, but her wide-eyed reaction had already given her away. Fortunately for her, it seemed Poe didn’t expect or want an immediate answer, because he just kept talking.
“No one knows what to think. The galaxy’s already gonna be thrown enough off kilter in the wake of today’s victory. What we do next matters. Who we trust matters. None of this makes sense,” he said grimly, barely able to rein in his passion. “We won a battle today, not the war. People have hope again, they’re ready to fight back—but the First Order is still the reigning power through most of the galaxy. And now this ? They have no reason to move for peace. No reason to give up what they’ve spent years building. It can’t be true.”
“It— I think it is. It is true.” She drew a shaky breath and balled her hands into fists to keep the trembling from getting worse. “Have you been able to trace the transmissions?”
“They’re coming from one of the First Order command ships in the Outer Rim. Started . . . less than an hour ago. It’s a small fleet—mostly auxiliary ships kept in reserve over some of the mining worlds. We haven’t responded.” His face darkened. “I don’t trust this.”
“You should. You can,” she said. “Please believe me.”
Poe only looked more unsettled, though Calrissian’s eyes were boring into her with an intensity she couldn’t parse. Only Finn, still at her side, had not reacted, as if he were waiting for more from her. She appreciated it but was not certain whether to take it as a good thing or not.
“You expect me to put any sort of faith in a message like this from Kylo Ren?”
Rey bit her lip. “No. But I’m telling you that you should put faith in a message like this from Ben Solo. From Leia’s son. Han’s son.”
“I don’t care whose son he is—”
“You should,” she snapped. “Leia would have believed in this.”
“I am getting real sick of people telling me what Leia would or wouldn’t have done.”
“Please, Poe. Something’s changed. Something huge. If it weren’t for Ben Solo, there would have been no victory today. The Emperor would still live. And I’d be dead. Worse than dead.”
“What—”
“I can explain later, but—”
“No, I think you should explain right now. Now’s good. Now’s perf—”
“ Poe. ” Finn cut in so sharply and definitively that even Poe looked surprised by the fire in his voice. “Listen to her.”
“Listen to this? She’s not making any sense!”
Finn moved closer, staring right into Poe’s eyes. “She is. And you should listen. This is right . Let her do what she needs to do. And answer that damn transmission.”
“Look,” Poe said, bristling, “I’m in charge of making sure the Resistance survives , and you can’t expect me to put lives at risk because of a shady transmission claiming those warmongering monsters suddenly want—”
“If I may interrupt, General Dameron.” Calrissian spoke clear and smooth from his station near the desk, his relaxed posture unaltered. “From one general to another, I propose that we have nothing to lose by finding out more. We’re at an advantage right now and possibly stand to gain a greater one than we ever could have imagined. Let’s not waste an opportunity to avoid more bloodshed in the name of . . .”
“Pride?” Rey supplied. She ignored the way Poe glared.
Calrissian only smiled. “Caution.”
Rey swallowed and looked between the three men, stunned as she reached subtly for Finn’s hand and gave it a squeeze of gratitude. She knew something new then. Something he had been wanting to tell her and she had brushed off in her single-minded questing. Now she felt it. When he finally tore his eyes from Poe’s, she caught his gaze and gave him a small nod of understanding. They would need to talk more soon.
“I won’t take up any more of your time,” she muttered to them all, suddenly hit with the wall of exhaustion that had been dogging her for hours. She’d been flying too long, fighting too long. She needed to sleep. Just collapse. And she needed to talk to Ben and find out what in the worlds he was doing. “I swear to you, I’ll make sense of this. I just need to think.”
She turned to go, then asked tersely, “Am I dismissed?”
Poe stared hard at her, though his distrust was fading. He looked like he might even apologize. He shook his head instead and made no effort to conceal how happy he was to see her go.
“You’re dismissed. You don’t need to ask. Just—go on. For now.”
Rey nodded, released Finn’s hand, and slipped back into the fray outside, her head buzzing with information. Ceasefire. Peace talks. Armistice. None of it was any sort of thing she had any interest or expertise in. She supposed it was lucky that Ben hadn’t named terms that required her participation. Not yet. Not that she knew of.
What were the terms to begin with?
Damn it, she really needed to talk to him. She had some truly choice words for him. The moment she reached to her small quarters, she got her chance; Ben was seated at her desk. In her already-harried state, what should have been a convenient discovery took her completely off-guard, and the only choice words she had for him came in a string of obscenities.
“Wow.” He turned and pursed his lips. “I hoped you’d be a little happier that I kept my promise so quickly.”
She shook her head, fighting the incredulous smile threatening to compromise her determined front.
“We still can’t control this,” she reminded him, though she was beginning to wonder. The bond had been getting stronger since they’d left Exegol, almost the way it had felt in the moments when they were most united. She wondered fleetingly if they could ever learn to harness the energy that made it work. “Is it really keeping a promise if the Force is doing it?”
Ben looked as if he were trying to concoct a clever retort—he also looked as if he hadn’t washed, rested, or changed clothes since Exegol. He was just the same, right down to the holes in his shirt. Not exactly the image she’d had of him as Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. Not at all.
This was just Ben. She was still getting used to him. She was getting used to how the sight of him made her feel, without a single reservation, that she could love him. That she did love him—her equal, her partner, the answer to everything she was.
She softened. “Yes, I’m happy to see you. Of course I am. You surprised me, that’s all.”
Again and again.
“I assume you’re with the Resistance.”
“And you’re on a First Order command ship in the Outer Rim.”
“Then you understand now. What I had to do.”
“Do I? Ben, what the hell are you doing?”
“I told you. Something I should have done a long time ago, on the Supremacy . You begged me to stop the attack on the Resistance fleet then. To stop the slaughter. Do you remember?”
“I remember.” It was one of the most painful moments of her life.
“No one here knows what happened on Exegol—anyone who did aside from us is dead. All anyone knows is that after Kef Bir, I flew to the emperor’s stronghold. And I was one of the only people to make it back after a devastating loss to the Resistance.” His eyes narrowed and darted away for a moment, as if he didn’t enjoy what he said next. “I’m still the Supreme Leader.”
She heaved a sigh of reluctant understanding. “You’re the only one who can do this.”
“I have the power to end the war. Or start the end. I’m not wasting that power again.”
Rey took it in for a moment, pacing aimlessly back and forth before darting to her bed, desperate to sit and be still at last. Inside, she hadn’t stopped roiling.
“Did it occur to you that if you had told me about this plan of yours, and waited just a little bit longer instead of being all . . . nobly secretive , I could’ve prepared the people here?”
“They needed to be prepared to hear I’d ordered a ceasefire?”
“No one believes this! They think it’s some sort of trap!”
“Well, rumor here is I’ve gone mad,” he said impassively, picking at a half-scabbed abrasion on his cheekbone, “so it looks like the Resistance and the First Order are finding common ground sooner than expected.”
Rey laughed humorlessly, nonplussed. “Is this just how you are now?”
“What do you mean?”
“So . . . so bloody . . . ironic.”
“I’ve always been like this.”
“Fine, but now you’re also . . .”
She trailed, unable to decide whether detailing all the ways he was suddenly no longer off limits—not really —was a good or bad idea. He was still picking at his cheek, almost compulsively. Rey tried to ignore it.
“Also . . .?” he prompted.
Pick. Pick. Pick.
“Oh, can you stop that already?”
She swatted his hand away from this face, then crouched in front of the small table beside her bed, where she kept a store of simple medical supplies—she hated to bother Doctor Kalonia for minor training injuries when she’d had plenty of practice patching herself up all her life. When she found some bacta pads she rose and, without thinking, stepped over Ben, one leg on either side of his thighs, and began to dab at his cheek.
His eyes went wide, either from the sting or her sudden proximity, but he relaxed at her touch and let her work. And then, damn him , he started to smile.
“You know you could just heal that?”
His cheeks dimpled; his eyes crinkled . It was absolutely not fair that he should be making Rey want to kiss his brains out right now.
She raised an eyebrow, trying not to let him distract her. “Feels like cheating. For something this small.”
“Hm. Here I thought you just wanted to touch me.”
She couldn’t help it—that time, she grinned, and his smile matched hers. “I do. So hold still and let me enjoy this.”
Tentatively, she settled over his lap until she was seated comfortably enough, her butt somewhere in the vicinity of his knees, aware that she wanted to move closer but that doing so right now would be unwise. After a few moments she didn’t even have the excuse of seeing to his cuts and bruises anymore; she just didn’t want to get up. Ben looked at her and sighed, his hands resting lightly on her thighs, and seemed to sink into the beginnings of a brood.
“If you had waited,” she said in an undertone, “I could have told Poe—tried to, at least. I’m convinced that man doesn’t hear anything he doesn’t want to.”
His lips twitched again—not with a smile this time, but more of a sneer. “Dameron’s in charge now?”
“Yes.”
He gave a grunt of distaste. At the moment, she was inclined to agree with the implied sentiment.
“I didn’t want to waste any time,” he said, as if he was just now realizing the well-intentioned rashness of his decision.
“I wouldn’t have either.” She was absently touching his face, enjoying the long lines of it, the texture of his skin, the faint rasp of stubble over his upper lip. “Have you thought about what this means, though?”
She already was—and she didn’t like the position it left him in. Not at all.
“It means the war will end.” He closed his eyes as his hands drifted over her legs, back and forth, like he was trying to soothe himself as much as her. “Not easily, but more smoothly than it would have if I’d left a bunch of bureaucrats and zealots to pick up the pieces with no one at the helm. That’s how the First Order began. No more.”
“Your people aren’t just going to take it.”
“They’re not my people.”
“You know what I mean. Hell, the only people here who believe in it are me and Finn. And General Calrissian.”
Ben’s eyebrows rose with mild surprise. “Lando? Huh. Good to know.”
“It’s not safe for you there.”
“Probably not. But people here still fear me. I’m not proud of that, but it’s useful.” It was so clear how much he begrudged it now—his power, his position, his ability to direct people’s actions and decisions through the mere implication of threat—but knew it was also one of his greatest assets in a time of transition. In a way, she was grateful for it too. “And there are some who respond to more than fear. Reason. Justice. Compromise. I'm going to find out who those people are and keep them close. Theirs are likely the voices that’ve been silenced too long.”
She almost didn’t know what to make of him—this version of him that was a little roguish, seemingly at ease in his confidence, clear-thinking and emptied of his doubts and wrath but still rattling with unpredictable energy.
“Then . . . what now?”
“Assuming your general responds to my call for armistice? Peace talks. I plan to propose sending delegations from each side to a neutral territory. Batuu has had a Resistance and First Order presence for years, so it may serve. Or else somewhere more remote, less populated.” His lips quirked. “Maybe a barren junk planet.”
Rey snorted. “Yes, a marvelous place to end a war and give everyone a case of sand fleas to boot.”
“I’m going to cooperate, Rey. If the Resistance is willing, we’ll negotiate terms that prevent the imbalance and unrest that led to the First Order’s rise. And then I’ll step down.” He placed his hands over hers and brought them from his face to her lap. “This is my final order. Ending it. Nothing is ever going to be right in the galaxy if I don’t.”
“If we don’t,” she corrected him. “It’s not only you. I’m going to do whatever I can to get the Resistance on board to work toward this—it’s what we all want, isn’t it? An end to the fighting . . .” Her thoughts drifted to an uncertain future. “I don’t know politics, but I know about bargaining. There must be things you can leverage. Resources to fix what the First Order has broken.”
“Resources the First Order gleaned from the suffering of dozens of disenfranchised worlds.”
“So this is the time to make reparations. Surely you can set some terms. Right?”
“I have a few ideas.” He slumped forward until his forehead touched hers the way it had on Exegol in the last moments before they parted. It was a sweet, surprising gesture, and even though he was the one supporting her, he felt heavy and tired. It was so easy to forget he wasn’t really here; the bond had never given them this much time before. “I don’t expect to get out of this unscathed. I’ve spent too long doing terrible things in service of a cause I thought was right.”
Rey knew that what he said was true and wouldn’t be ignored—but she felt a defensive flare of justice anyway. She couldn’t fathom why the Force would bring them together as it had, why it would lead them to make peace with themselves and their old lives, why it would give him back to her, only for him to end up exiled to some prison world or incarcerated on a detention station while she . . . what? Waited again, pretending not to feel the absence of him and his ability to be a force for good? That couldn’t be all there was for them. She wouldn’t allow it.
“You turned away. What happened at Exegol wouldn’t have been possible without you, and the Resistance’s victory would’ve meant nothing. I’m going to make sure everyone knows it. I’ll never stop. It has to count for something.”
“Maybe. I hope so. What I did there was for you. This is for the rest of the galaxy. For myself. I want the war over. It’s ruined too many lives.”
“Yours included,” she insisted. “I don’t even know the half of it, but I know. You deserve a chance to live in the light. To sow some good in place of the bad. And there’s still so much we could learn about the Force—that has to matter.”
“You and I have a very different idea of what I deserve.” She frowned at that, but he didn’t elaborate. She could imagine too easily what Ben believed was his due and wished she could obliterate each and every lie. “But that’s what I’m trying to accomplish. Some good.” His grip on her hands tightened. “And I can take whatever comes if I know you’re with me.”
“I am, Ben. Always.”
Another shaky sigh left him. “Can you say that again?”
“I’m with you.”
“No. My name. Please.”
She hadn’t heard his voice quaver like that since he implored her to join him in the burning wreckage of Snoke’s throne room. His face was pressed against hers, cheek to cheek, skin too warm and tacky with sweat. Why was he shivering?
Shifting closer, Rey drew a hand up the back of his neck and into his hair, which was still clumped with dried sweat, and murmured his name against his temple. The word felt so good on her tongue; a warm, sturdy, simple name. A name that lacked artifice and made her feel hopeful. She’d have said it again, as many times as he wanted, but he tensed suddenly. Just froze, every muscle in his body suspended and taut. She couldn’t see his face, but she felt the change—for a stretch of moments he was somewhere else. Ben seemed to collapse in on himself, every emotion and thought sucked into a blank, dark space of such density there was no escape.
It reminded her of the moment of airless silence before a blast, and it lasted just long enough for her to begin to worry before he surged back. His lips found hers, and her next utterance was only a hum against his mouth, and then they were kissing. He clutched her to him with a desperation that suggested she was going to be pulled away. The bond was a tricky thing. She kept expecting it to end, too. Maybe that was all it was. His ferocity was anticipation of the moment they were parted.
She knew something was wrong when his mouth twisted against hers, lips pulled back over teeth as if with pain, and he ducked his head abruptly to bury it in her chest. He was breathing far too heavily. His whole body quaked. She felt a break, and tears soaking into her shirt, and his breath hot between her breasts as he let out the most wretched sound she had ever heard: a muffled, devastating wail that vibrated in her ribcage as if it had been wrenched from her body instead of his.
Her first instinct was to fix it. Make it stop. Tell him not to cry; that was always what she’d been told. But he had every right and reason to do so. He needed it. This wasn’t a thing for her to fix.
Rey wound her arms tighter around him and drew her knees up to brace his torso with her legs, and she let him rock her with each wracking sob until his breath stopped coming in guttering gulps and gasps. The Force was bright and roaring around him, but he began to still. Though he said nothing, she understood—this was release a lifetime in coming and not the first time he’d fall apart with her. The bond slipped closed as she was peppering kisses over a bruise below his ear. She was left in solitude but not truly alone, her shirt soaked through with tears and her body aching with spent emotion.
After a few minutes, her heart stopped racing. She got up, put on a set of fresh clothing, and went out to find the generals.
✦
As Ben disembarked the sleek First Order transport, flanked by his delegates and preoccupied with how badly he needed this to go well, he tried not to read anything into the seemingly idyllic scene that greeted him. The morning was temperate, even up in the mountains; though dawn had just broken, the air was warm and calm, scented lightly with native flowers and the cool, watery fragrance of the nearby lakes. He tried not to read anything into the almost fateful fittingness of the planet chosen to commence the real work of ending the war. Naboo held some familial significance not just to himself but to Rey as well, regardless of whether either of them had any right or desire to own the connections anymore. He was trying to read nothing into these things—but it was less easy to ignore the deep sense of rightness he perceived in the Force from the moment his transport entered atmosphere and began its descent.
The Resistance ship had already arrived. He spied it at the other end of the hangar: a somewhat shabby but well-maintained cruiser. The other delegation waited, milling around the nose, expectant and on edge. He recognized General Dameron, who still carried himself more like a hotshot pilot than a military leader. Lando was conspicuous in an eyesore of a silk shirt and capelet, though his familiarity was a balm and, hopefully, an advantage. The former stormtrooper FN-2187—Finn now, apparently—was speaking in low tones with a tall, dark-skinned woman called Jannah. They would be negotiating treatment of the First Order’s conscripted soldiers in the wake of regime change, and last Ben had checked, the creation of a family-recovery programme was going to take up a big chunk of proceedings in the next few days. There were others, commanders and advisors and representatives, who he had never seen before but whose names and faces he’d soon need to know as well as those of his own.
He had forced himself not to seek Rey first, and when he finally let his eyes settle on her, where she lingered near the back of the group, he remembered why. As usual, it was difficult to stop looking at her once he started. She was dressed in dark leggings and a loose gray shirt belted at the waist, and the smoke-colored jacket she wore made her shoulders look squared and powerful. Yet her hair was unbound, and she had cut it short since the last time he’d seen her. Her hand kept brushing her lightsaber, which was partially hidden beneath her jacket. She looked radiant and happy and healthy, if solemn.
Their eyes met, and she held his gaze long enough to brighten with a quick smile. Probably it was just meant to be encouraging, though he also couldn’t help feeling vindicated in his efforts to look good today. He’d told himself it was to impress upon those present that this was a sincere motion to direct things toward lasting peaceful resolution—but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t just as much for her. He wanted her to see him as he was now. He wanted her to approve.
So yes, he felt comfortable and self-satisfied with the way she took in the sight of him in the simple but well-cut black shirt and trousers, his long coat open and stripped of insignias. That was black too. Black felt right, though it was still novel that he should feel right at all.
Rey knew that. She experienced the same. The bond had let them connect a few times since Exegol, giving them long enough to confide fears or anxieties about what they were trying to do, the nightmares and memories that continued to haunt them, their hopes for the possibility of any sort of future together. They even seemed to be gaining a modicum of control over it—he was almost certain that, a few days ago, she’d made it open through meditation. Sometimes the barrier between them felt so thin. Last time, it hadn’t closed until she’d fallen asleep beside him, in her bed or his, after an unexpectedly heated encounter had resolved into simply lying together, all quiet words and careful touches.
I like the coat, Supreme Leader Solo.
Ben’s eyes darted back to Rey, still across the hangar, just in time to catch the flash of a puckish grin fading from her face. He hated the title and found it more offensive by the day. Soon it wouldn’t matter. He’d have no title, no home, just a name. Yet he couldn’t stop the shiver of pleasure at the way she infused it with wry humor even through the Force.
He imagined them meeting later, sneaking a few minutes to walk along a ridge or a lakeshore as the moons reached their zenith, putting the coat around her shoulders and enjoying a shared silence. Not that Ben expected them to have much time alone. It would be best if they didn’t—though neither of them was any good at heeding imperatives of what they should and shouldn’t do.
I like the hair, scavenger , he returned, just managing to keep a straight face.
Felt like a change. She didn’t smile, though the connection between them seemed to burble with satisfaction as she reached up to touch the blunt ends of her hair where it brushed her jaw. For an instant, he could feel its softness against his own fingertips. This is it, isn’t it?
He dipped his chin in a subtle nod. Yeah. The end.
Oh? I’d have said the beginning.
That too. A memory bloomed, buried and overlooked for so long. A phrase he’d read once, though he couldn’t recall where or with whom. ‘That which rises must fall. That which falls must rise.’
What’s that?
Old wisdom. I’d forgotten.
Rey turned to gaze out over the mountains. Sounds like it’s worth remembering.
Since that day on the Death Star, when he had stood at the edge of the wreckage—soaked and aching and so alone—and confronted himself for past misdeeds by replaying the greatest one of all, he’d plumbed the depths of his shadow-riddled soul and found things he’d always known and, despite all his efforts, never forgotten. Who he was. Where he had come from. What he needed to do to. Who he was meant to be.
His hand drifted to the lightsaber fixed to his belt, heavy at his hip. Soon, he supposed he would make a new one for himself, if he was allowed the freedom to do so. Leia’s was never going to be his, not really, though it responded to something in him anyway. Whatever there was of his mother in him. Maybe there was more than he’d once thought.
This was important work. The cause was important—not the cause of the Resistance, or the First Order, or those of flawed systems long gone. Something new. He’d been given a chance to transform the destructive forces in his life and make them productive, restorative, better . It was the sort of thing his mother had stood for, the spirit that survived her.
He’d keep this piece of her with him until he finished her journey, and then he would begin his own, where the Force willed. Today, he began to make things right.