Chapter Text
The Millennium Falcon was writhing on the inside with life. The bodies of the broken, the sick, the weak and the survivors. They breathed together and with each breath the dying heart of the Resistance had new life being pumped into it. The blood that ran through its veins was thick and slow, but it was there, however weak. There was still hope. There would always be hope. There were maybe forty souls on board and Rey could almost listen to the silent, sleeping breathing of each of them. She felt their fears, their hopes tense in the air around her. She could barely breathe.
She lay awake in her bunk, staring at the ceiling of the Falcon. Never had she felt the force so strong around her, it made no sense. In every sense, it should be weak. She had just been broken and beaten down, she had seen hope burning so brightly before her and then had had it be snuffed out before she could fully grasp at it. Her heart lay shattered at the bottom of her stomach, the shards digging into her sides, making her spirit bleed.
Never before had she felt more like nothing.
She had saved all these lives, she had saved the very flame of the resistance and now she stood at the forefront of it, all of these people looking towards her for guidance, for direction and for hope. So why was it now that she felt like waves in an ocean, directionless? Crashing, moment after moment, onto the beach. She had no control, no sense of togetherness. Only a single mass, forever in motion, not entirely free. A speck of dust in the wind. And above it all, the ache. That dull throb of pain echoed from the moment she had closed the door on Kylo Ren. She could see the moment of betrayal on his face the minute she had pushed the button. That flinch. The hopelessness, he had felt it too.
No, she stopped herself. She couldn’t think of him. Not Kylo Ren, not Ben Solo. She would not let herself be drawn into that darkness. Into that deep abyss. She had to think of the future. The future of the Resistance. They would need more allies, she knew. They couldn’t wage war against the First Order with forty soldiers. There must be people out there with their allegiances towards them. The Resistance was the voice of the people, it was the breathing body of the galaxy. The soul of it. The First Order stood for power, for darkness. For control. The Resistance and the Republic, they were the light, the hand that reached out, the one that listened. This was not going to be the end of the Resistance, Rey was sure of it. This was not going to be the end of hope. Somehow, they would build up their strength. They would find allies, they would build up an army again. They would light the spark once again. Tend to the flame.
They had lost the battle, but the war was not over. Not for a long time. She could feel it. The future, only the shape of it, but it was solid, touchable to her. The future did not hold darkness and it did not hold discord and chaos. The future held light, hope and a new beginning.
And still, she found that she could not sleep.
So she stayed awake, simply staring, imagining, dreaming with her eyes open.
And then she felt it.
The silent echo that she had known so well.
She did not turn to look, she knew who lay beside her. She was not angry, he had no control over this and neither did she. She felt only sadness, a longing for a different outcome. She did not want to be aware of the sound of his breathing, at the rise and fall of his chest in the corner of her eye. She did not want to think of how close their hands were, just laying side by side. Kylo Ren did not say anything either. Two souls, impossibly far apart, lying alongside each other in silence. A part of her wanted to speak to him, to call him Ben and see him turn to look at her, she wanted to look into his eyes and see if he felt as she did. She wanted to know that she was not alone. She wanted to know if he felt like he was drifting too, in a sea of nothing. She wanted to know if the world felt so distant, untouchable to him as well. She wanted to know if the force was making him feel everything that happened around him in such vivid detail, making the movement of life around them so unbearably real, when all she wanted was to fade into obscurity.
She wanted to know.
But still, she looked away from him. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to bear looking into those eyes. Not tonight. Not while her world was slowly crumbling around her.
Her hand could not be stopped though. Sliding across the sheets of the bunk, lightly brushing against his. All she needed was to feel that he was there, all she needed was for him to not pull away and then she would know that there was still hope. Their fingers intertwined and they lay there for a while, while the force connected them.
As Rey continued to stare into the ceiling, her breathing swayed as suddenly her vision became blurred, darkened. She was still lying in her bunk in the Falcon, but before her she saw the blackness of space. They drifted in and out of reality, the force guiding them. And then they saw it.
Rey had never seen a dying star before, but she could not mistake it.
A giant mass of light, slowly falling apart before her and Kylo. There was something bittersweet and beautiful about it. The colorful clouds of gas that were erupting from it, painting a symphony of light that would last for millions of years.
There they both were, watching this display of death, the soul of the star serenading their silence. Rey felt like she was staring into the heart of the force, this was one the essences of it. A great collision of light and dark, the balance. A beginning and an end merged together in such a horrifically beautiful way. There were planets somewhere near the star probably, they would soon become obliterated as a result of this and the inevitable end would be the formation of a black hole, the ultimate symbol of the unknown, of nothingness.
This was the force.
“Rey,” was all he said.
“I see it too,” she replied.
And then it faded, and so did he. And she was alone again. In a bunk on the Millennium Falcon, surrounded by people filled with hope and relief, in her soul she was beginning to fall. Only slightly, it was there.
And in those few moments that they had had together, Rey knew that Kylo felt it too.