Chapter Text
Rey jogs to keep pace with Ben’s swift trot down the stairs. She refuses to think of him by any name other than Ben Solo, even when his clenched fists and stiff back shout Kylo Ren.
Where is he headed? Given his stony reception and what happened the first time she delivered herself to him, she wouldn’t be shocked by immediate escort to confinement or even interrogation.
So much for her fantasy that Ben would take her in his arms and whisper how much he missed her. Leia did try to caution her, but would Rey listen? No. Foolish, foolish girl. Foolish misplaced hope.
Painful bands tighten around her chest and her shoulders slump forward. Maybe this was a mistake. But if Ben doesn’t want her, then why did he offer a truce?
The stairs lead into a chamber with a vaulted ceiling and illuminated floor. The odd angles are imposing, severe, and stark white. She gapes. Is this the Supreme Leader’s personal suite? A crumpled mask stares from atop its pedestal and mars the clean, bright lines. Hairs rise at her nape. Is it a Sith artifact or an idol?
They whip past before she can ask.
Gah. What’s the kriffing hurry? Why the mad dash from the packed hall on Coruscant and through the destroyer’s echoing passages? Whether she’s chosen wrong or not, Rey belongs to the First Order now. She’s not going anywhere. She forfeited by her free will.
Not that it was a difficult choice, even with her friends’ objections. They meant well. They believed they had her best interests at heart, but in truth, it was no choice at all. Given a second chance to be with Ben, there was only one possible answer: yes.
Through how many of Ajara’s luminous nights did she lie awake on her pallet, worrying over Ben, heart sore with longing for him? How many hours did she run the course through the Ajan Kloss rainforest, practicing the few Jedi skills that Leia could recall from her training a lifetime ago? And to what end? That she might someday kill Leia’s son in battle? As if she could. What a farce.
The separation and loneliness, even her formation as a would-be Jedi, were simply filling the days until Ben changed his mind. Rey had asked him in Snoke’s throne room to call off the Order’s attack on the Resistance—and that’s what he’s done. At last.
So why isn’t Ben happier? Why is he so cold and unfeeling?
If only she could read him through the Force.
Rey follows Ben into an adjacent room—probably for training, considering the heavy padding that lines every surface. Does he mean to spar? A good bout could relieve the tension. If he refuses to talk it out, maybe they can fight it out. She wouldn’t mind matching him with quarterstaffs. Her fingers twitch in anticipation.
Ben slaps his palm to a hidden panel. A mechanism whirs and a sleek door slides forward and up, revealing not a hidden cache of weapons as she expected but a concealed port.
“Get in,” Ben growls.
Rey stoops to inspect the tight space. She straightens and folds her arms. “This is an escape pod.”
“It is.” Ben taps in a code. “You need to go. Before the Steadfast enters hyperspace. You can disappear on Coruscant. The pod holds a month’s rations and enough credits to see you through a standard year—if you’re frugal.”
He’s not making sense. Less than an hour ago, he stroked elegant letters beside his mother’s sweeping signature and guaranteed cessation of all hostilities against the Resistance, contingent on Rey’s surrender. Well, she’s here, isn’t she? Then, why would she leave?
Ridges tighten her forehead. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s the only way”—his arms drop to his sides—“to keep you safe.”
Rey swallows a scoff. No way did he agree to a ceasefire solely for her safety. What’s his secret motive? Is he trying to be rid of her? Was Poe correct that this is a political tactic? Does Ben want her to flee so that he can invalidate the treaty and blame the Resistance? Finn warned her not to trust Kylo Ren.
Except she does trust him. She wouldn’t be here otherwise. Rey narrows her eyes.
Ben tilts his head to meet her gaze. It’s the first time he’s looked at her since she swept into the grand hall beside General Organa. He couldn’t keep his eyes from her then, his stare devouring her length with such raw desire that her arms prickled beneath her wraps. She had complained that her new Jedi costume was impractical, but in that moment, she was grateful for the pristine white tabards crisscrossing her chest like a shield and falling in a graceful flutter around her calves.
To be fair, she drank him in with corresponding eagerness, her dreams and memories falling far short of the reality. Every cell in her body came alive at being near him, at sensing his signature in the Force. She wondered if he felt the same.
Apparently not.
Hunger doesn’t fill his eyes now. If only their bond were active and she could read his intent, but that connection slammed shut with the Falcon’s ramp and has remained mute since Crait.
“Hux was hunting you. The Knights were hunting you. I was hunting you to stay ahead of them.” His pitch drops. “You are hard to find.”
Smugness flares and Rey tamps it down. He never did find them. She was only lured out by an irresistible summons: himself.
Ben rakes thick fingers through his hair. “Publicizing the treaty will force them to leave you and the Resistance alone—or at least it will make any subterfuge far riskier.”
“I still don’t see how my escape will help.” Not that she intends to comply.
“It won’t.” He shrugs. “But they prize the air in their lungs too highly to dare question the Supreme Leader.”
She ought to be horrified by his implied threat, but the self-deprecating little snort that accompanies his shrug almost makes her smile.
Force-persuasion pummels Rey’s mind like Ahch-To’s ocean batters its islands. She staggers and grits her teeth under the assault. Stars, she forgot Ben’s strength.
“Enough talk.” He lowers his hand and the pressure ceases. “Get in.”
“That won’t work on me.” She raises her chin. Leia’s training may have been limited, but at least Rey learned to resist. “Not anymore.”
Something glints in his pupils. Temptation to meet the challenge perhaps? But the moment passes and he relents.
“Why must you make this difficult?” His shoulders bunch and he spreads open palms. “Just accept. Stay low and hide somewhere.”
Kylo Ren doesn’t back down, not from a fight, not from a challenge, and not from temptation. She blinks. Epiphany bowls over her like BB-8 careening out of control: Ben does care. He cares about her. He wants to keep her safe, just as he said. He’s never lied to her. He’s willing to do this, even if it means jeopardizing his authority. No matter how he might posture or dismiss her concern, his decision to release her will be questioned and challenged.
That means Rey was correct from the start. When she first heard his holonet broadcast calling for her surrender, her heart leapt like the Falcon for hyperspace. Hope flooded her veins with the certainty that Ben had changed. If that’s the case, then—
“Come with me,” she entreats, her tone low and soft.
“Rey.” His voice cracks like gravel underfoot, and his eyebrows pinch.
“The pod’s large enough for two.” It isn’t, but they’d manage and she wouldn’t complain.
He wets his lips. “Don’t do this.”
Didn’t she say something similar when they faced this moment before? If she presses a little harder— “We could leave it all behind.”
“I can’t.”
“We’d be together.” Her heart patters at what it would mean to disappear, the two of them, and live free from conflict and duty.
“Don’t you see? I must stay to protect you. If I desert the Order, Pryde or Hux will annul the treaty and drive the galaxy straight to chaos. Only my presence will prevent that.”
She nods. She does see, maybe not in the way that he means, but the commitment to peace implied by his answer is no less striking. He has become both Kylo Ren and Ben Solo, authority driven by compassion, and darkness wielded by light.
“Then let me stay too.” She’s not above begging. “When you asked, I—I wanted to take your hand.”
“I know.” The tenderness in his gold-brown eyes will break her, but he doesn’t extend his hand again.
Tears wet twin paths down her cheeks. “I’d rather die by your side than leave.”
“Go. Now.” His chin trembles. “Before it’s too late.”
“All these months wondering if you’re alive and how you’re doing”—she sniffles and shakes her head—“about killed me. I can’t return to living like that.”
“I’ll find you. I promise. When everything is over, I’ll find you.”
If there’s ever an end. If he survives. If she does. If he still wants her. If they can even find each other in the wide, wide galaxy. She’s drowning in ifs.
“Wait for me, Rey.” His words spark and catch in the dry tinder of her soul.
“No.” Her nails bite into the meaty flesh at the base of her thumbs, the pain a distant grounding, and she looms into his space—or tries to, given their height difference. “I waited all my life for my parents to return. I counted each day and carved them into the Hellhound’s skin. I starved. I nearly died from waiting. Literally.” She enunciates each word in sharp staccato. He had better understand. “I will not do it again. I refuse. Don’t you dare ask.”
Ben stands motionless, save for his perceptive eyes, which scan between hers. If only their bond were open that he might know the intensity bordering on desperation within her soul.
Rey lowers to her heels, unlocks her fists, and steps back. A red square on the control pad pulses like a beacon. Her fingers brush across to cancel the launch protocol. The door whirs closed and nestles back into the wall, appearing as no more than another padded panel. That knowledge might come in handy later.
“I’m staying,” she announces. “Besides, the Resistance expects me to stay. The First Order expects me to stay. Thanks to your holonet stunt in the treaty hall, the entire karking galaxy expects me to stay.”
He grunts. “I won’t go back on my word, if that’s what you fear. I won’t hunt the Resistance, even if you leave.”
“Is that what you think?” She plants her hands at her hips. “That I surrendered to save the Resistance?”
His nostrils flare. “Didn’t you?”
“The Resistance tried to dissuade me. They said you were up to no good and feared what you would do. They’d rather lose a war of attrition than hand over their ‘last Jedi.’ They might have stopped me forcibly if they thought they could. Your”—better not antagonize with the ‘mother’ label—“General Organa only conceded as signatory because I informed her in no uncertain terms—”
“That must have gone over well,” he mumbles.
“I informed her that I would surrender to you with or without her permission or support.” She arches her eyebrows in punctuation.
The black-clad planes of his chest surge with his breathing. If she rests her palm over his heart, will she find it beats as fast as hers? She ignores the urge.
“Ben.” She studies his expression, the long angles of his countenance rigid with some emotion. “Let me—” Help you teeters on her tongue, but she stops.
She offered that in the Supremacy’s lift the first time she came to him, but help was tangled with turning him back to the light. That was before. Before she tasted what it was to fight beside him, to revel in the rush of light and dark Force pulsing through their bond like an artery. Before she was compelled to live long months without him. Before the darkness in her soul confronted her with her own naivety. Before she spent fruitless hours meditating and pleading with the Jedi to be with her. Their silence revealed the truth: the only Force-user she truly desires is Ben.
“Let me be with you.” She reaches toward his face. “I want to be with you.”
Her palm hovers, cupping the camber to his jaw and asking wordless consent.
He leans into her hand, his cheek warm and stubbled. His eyelashes lower and an exhale drags from his lungs. Oh, the wonder of touching him! Her thumb traces the corner of his mouth, each pass drawing an inarticulate sound from his depths. A thrill tingles along her limbs.
Her other hand sinks into the dense locks at his nape, and she massages the back of his head. He sags a little, as if his knees have turned boneless, but not enough to lower him to her height. Bracketed as he his between her hands, if she tugs him down and stands on tiptoe, she could kiss him. She wants to kiss him. He needs the certainty that she’s here for him and him alone.
But Ben collapses backward against the training room’s cushioned wall. Maybe it’s all too much?
He slides toward the floor, long legs folding and then stretching before him. Rey straddles his thighs and follows, unwilling to let go. She drops onto her knees, pulls him forward, and tucks his head beneath her chin.
His arms close around her back, and he yields to her embrace. How long has it been since someone held or touched him with gentleness or anything approaching kindness, let alone love? The thought prompts fresh tears.
“I’m here. I’ve got you,” she croons. “You’re not alone.”
His shoulders, broad and thick though they are, shudder beneath her arm.
Her fingertips stroke along his scalp and her lips press into his crown, already damp with her quiet weeping. Rey inhales, closes her eyes, and nuzzles deeper. His scent is all Ben, her heart, her hope, her home. At last.
Happiness purer than anything she’s known radiates through her being. She revels.
Until their mute connection in the Force demands her attention like the discomfort of a limb that has gone numb. She frowns against Ben’s black mane. Even if their bond is hobbled, at least they’re together. She’ll be grateful for that much.
It has to be enough.
It has to.