Chapter Text
Rose looked Rey up and down, as if taking stock of her, before they started on the long convoluted way to the special Force-suppressing room that had been built ages ago to contain a few artefacts, Jedi or Sith, and now the coffer — Rey refused to call it a coffin — that contained the (im)mortal remains of the last true Skywalker.
Rey tried to come to this place only once a month, both to clean the dust off and to cut herself off from the Force. The constant noise of Coruscant still gave her migraines.
Now, with no more hunting and killing, Rey was trying a different job, and worked at the hospital instead. Fixing humans, and fixing droids at the nearby shop, a way to express gratitude to the droids that had given Ben Solo a chance at a new life. An ordinary life.
She found that healing people, as exhausting work as it was, was full of joy.
It was almost enough. Almost. It didn’t keep her from shivering in her cold bed at night, or from falling into black moods.
A few checkpoints, and they made it to the ‘secret’ vaulted room, built almost like the chapel way above. Lining the whitewashed rounded wall were shelves of artifacts between busts, or plainly decorated urns; from the high-ceiling, a flame-shaped glow-globe that gave off a soft constant light.
Rey started the ritual of dusting off the other remains kept there — those of other fallen Jedi: a Dooku, a Voss, some names she was studying in the texts. Some were just plaques. Revan and Bastila — a couple that had a tragic history — one kept secret from the general population. Her studies led her to believe they must have been the previous incarnation of a Force-Dyad.
Studies she had returned to. The Jedi histories were full of political intrigues, and internal conflicts, but they had been in power for so long, millenia, they still enjoyed a reputation for good, generations later.
Had they learned anything from their fallen Knights? From Reva Sevander? From Quinlan Voss?
From Anakin Skywalker?
Could they — we — learn anything from Ben?
When Rey had finished her round, and lit the incense, she turned to see Rose using instruments on the control panel locking the Carbonite slab.
“Rose… what are you doing?”
“I told you: I’m tired of seeing you pine.”
…
Something squeezed his hand and he woke with a start. He was laid on a cold hard surface. It was night. He took a deep breath. It hurt. He was alive.
Alive!
He immediately threw up.
Garbled sounds broke the silence. He wasn’t alone in the dark this time. Someone was patting warm water over his face, cleaning him up. Where was he? Back on Tatooine? Had he died and been reincarnated… again?
Where were the stars? He shivered, it was deathly cold. Was he naked again? He managed to move an arm to his chest, patted his body: his frozen fingers brushed fabric over his chest; no, they had thought to leave him some dignity this time.
He hadn’t died. He was thawing out.
He managed to croak: “Where?”
“Somewhere safe. Ben, can you feel your legs?”
It took effort, but the pain that shot through him told him he could, in fact, feel his legs. His bruised ribs and face, too.
“Yes.”
He could feel his heart beat, now. Sluggish blood pumping through him and warming with every breath. “Who?”
“Someone who loves you.”
Somehow.
“Rey,” he sighed, and passed out again.
He was quickly slapped back to consciousness. ‘Oh no you don’t. You have to get up! We have to get out of here!”
Ben almost retorted I thought you said we are in a safe place, but only whispered, “Yes, dear,” and tried to get up, failed. He heard someone speak behind him, another woman.
“Yeah, he’s awake and alive. He’s pretty beaten up. Just getting his feet under him now. Still clear?”
“Yeah. You need me to help carry him?” Ben thought he recognized the distorted voice coming through a comm unit.
“Where am I? Why is it so dark?” he asked.
“Dark? How many fingers am I holding up?”
“How the fuck should I know? I can’t see shit! Oh sorry about that.”
The other voice spoke: “Yeah, he’s blind, that’s expected. And in just his basics; we’ll need that robe, and some footwear. Rey, get him up.”
He heard a soft hum, then felt Light touch him. Familiar light, the Force’s Light, and it gave him renewed strength, if not his sight back — in a very rushed way.
It hurt, in ways that can’t be described, to get up. He was hit with another bout of nausea.
“Okay, Ben, you’re just gonna have to follow me out of here. Rose, this is—”
But ‘Rose’ was still on the comms: “Yeah he’s up. ETA 5 mins.” Her next words where closer: “Here, I got him a pass. Put this on. Kriff you’re tall.”
He felt Rey — the love of his life — take his hand, and he stumbled forward. Questions rushing in his mind.
“The Guavian?”
“Dead.”
That made sense. “But you… Where? Hutts?”
“No, we got you before that.”
How long this time?
“Now shut up.”
He could feel Rey’s wonderful Life-Force holding him together. It seemed calmer — softer — than his last memory of her. They crossed a threshold and exited the space they were in, into a quiet corridor.
Suddenly he could feel the Force again. Not just Rey’s, but all of it. A huge presence of Force, nearby. A Vergence, that felt familiar.
A heavy door was shut behind them, a control panel beeped back into function. He heard a droid unplug, then roll with them. He stumbled ahead. In his darkness he could see Life-essences — even the droid’s.
“Better care for the droids,” he mumbled, remembering their help.
“Hush, I’ll brief you when we reach the ship.”
They met up with that familiar voice from the comms. “Put this on — here I’ll help.”
He was wrapped in a warm robe. A mask was slipped over his face. The robe’s hood was lifted to cover his head.
“Those are some big feet. Hopefully no one will see us.”
“Thanks, uh… I feel I should know you.”
“Yeah? You should. I’m Finn.”
“Oh.” Ben fell silent. Memory surged inside him, of a terrible year, his last as Kylo Ren. “I’m sorry I—”
The ex-stormtrooper gruffly interrupted him, “Apologies later, escape now.”
They stumbled to another door. A staircase. The droid left them to find another way. They were definitely ‘escaping’ from this place, so Ben focused on marching as quietly as possible, barefoot as he was. Up and up, round and round, multiple flights, until he felt dizzy. Finally they stopped at another door. The other woman — Rose — spoke into the comms again. “Poe?”
“Yeah, just a minute. Some lost tourists. No wait. A guard. Radio Silence.”
They waited.
From habit, Ben extended his senses as far as he could within the stairwell. It was like listening for a pin drop, over his companions’ rushed breathing and that huge presence he now remembered visiting, once. A pilgrimage with Uncle Luke. The Jedi Temple.
Something above.
“Shit,” he whispered, pointing up. Everyone held their breath. Rose made two short, muted, beeps on the comms. People were definitely descending. Ben wanted to sneeze.
A door opened on the landing just above them. Ben’s eyes watered. Then it closed. A new beep from the comm. Then a voice: “Clear. Meet you at the exit on level ‘27.”
Now Ben sneezed, and wiped snot on his sleeve while someone giggled. “Sorry.” They pat his back and he felt a tension in the air soften.
The crew passed the door, into another corridor; long, curved, if he remembered how they circled around the old sacred Spire. It smelled of plastoid and paint and his escorts guided him through an obstacle course of renovations, piles of material, tools left on the floors, though no workers were around.
“Why are we escaping?” he suddenly wondered, after he tripped and almost fell. Why the rush?
“We’re not escaping… we’re ‘removing you to a secret location’,” Rose said with some snark.
“Trust me,” Rey said. He squeezed her hand in his. Ben knew, so long as he was with Rey, he was on the right path. His feet picked up plaster and the occasional sharp piece of debris, but he forged on. Blindly, he followed her through to the end of that long gauntlet of inefficiency, to a door.
Outside, Poe Dameron.
“There he is, the second best pilot in the galaxy.”
“Poe! But I’m a droid tech now.”
“So I heard. I’ll pilot the shuttle then. We just have to walk you across the plaza like we’re a bunch of tourists. Here, put these on.”
He recognized them instantly. “My boots! How?”
But Poe closed the door again and Ben struggled to keep his balance so his ‘accomplices’ held him up. Rey kneeled before him to brush the dirt from his feet before slipping each boot on. He stamped them in place, strength returning, but then winced, sheepish: the Mighty Kylo Ren was long gone.
As soon as the boots were fastened, they opened the door again and stepped out.
“Ah there goes BB-8, he made it out.” Poe remarked, moving them forward. “Straigthen up, Ben. Look impressed with all the wonderful architecture.”
Fresh air. He stopped to breathe it in, deeply. The sky was above him. The sun — the SUN — shone upon him, and it was all he could do to resist taking off the mask and just basking in it. He realized some of the darkness was brightening, light coming through his traumatized eyes.
He squeezed her hand. Rey’s hand.
“Rey, I- I—”
“I know. Hush.”
A lone pair of guards challenged them on their way to the shuttle, quickly redirected by Rey, and he heard Poe whisper: ‘I’ll never get used to that.’
Finn: “I’m hoping to learn it.”
Poe: “Freak.”
Finn: “Flyboy.”
Rose: “Get together already. Kriff.” And Ben almost stumbled at that.
And then sudden darkness in a small space told him they had reached the shuttle and he was allowed to sit and take his mask off. Blurred shapes moved before him, he felt more than he saw the two women hug.
“You could have told me this was your plan!” Rey.
“It wasn’t much of a plan, honestly,” Rose said. “I’m amazed we got this far. Alright. I’ll finish up, check a few boxes in a few dataforms, cover our tracks. I’ll see you on Ahch-To.”
“Ahch-To!”
“Best prison for the ex-Supreme Leader, wouldn’t you say?”
Rey had to agree. “Right. Love you.”
“Love you too, now go.”
“Me too,” said Finn. “I’ll come in about a month, bring those kids.”
“What kids?” finally asked Ben, starting to divine the purpose of this covert operation.
The hatch closed. The shuttle lifted. Poe was piloting, warning someone of their imminent arrival. The reply was a series of grunts and barks, a voice he knew well.
Coloured lights flickered. “I’m starting to see again, Rey.”
“Good. We got your tools and your stuff back from the Droids. They said they’d visit. I can see someone packed my own bags while I was visiting the shrine?” She yelled that at the cockpit.
“Just a change of basics, Rey.”
“You went through my drawers?”
“I figured it was the only chance I’d get.”
“Poe!” But Rey laughed, and Ben tamped down a spike of jealousy.
“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”
Rey sat with him on the bench. After a confused start, Rey finally explained to him the past couple years as best as she could, glossing over her rage, but excitedly recounting the rescue from Junkfort Station. Then the trial.
Ben listened, watching her beautiful features emerge from the fog of Carbonite hibernation. In her excitement, he could barely understand her, the convoluted tale making little sense to him, but she was glowing with renewed Life-Force, even radiant. His growing smile finally gave her pause.
“Ben…” She reached a hand to his cheek, caressed one big ear she’d never seen before, when it was hidden under those dark princely locks. They gave him now a boyish look that made her grin in turn.
“Kiss me,” he blurted, face flushing hot. He breathed deep, repeated: “Kiss me again.”
She scooched closer, her warmth pressed against his chest; he scooped an arm around her to bring her in; did their hearts speed up to beat in unison, finally together?
Rey straightened her back and upturned her face, closed her eyes, still smiling, waiting, and Ben leaned in to close the gap, until their lips touched.
Soft, sweet lips, full of promise, full of…
Of joy.
