Chapter Text
Rey’s been busy. Helping the Resistance find a new base, searching for sympathizers, inciting rebellion in the First Orders enormous ranks of Stormtroopers. She even found a boy, around nine, and a girl, maybe eleven, who were strong in the Force. She’d taken on training them, conscious of her influence on them as their teacher and mentor. She did not want to repeat Luke’s mistakes. And so when she felt the Force connection tugging at her consciousness, she closed herself off. It’s not that she didn’t want to talk to him—she did, badly. But she couldn’t face him. And she couldn’t let her emotions get the best of her, not now, when the Resistance—not to mention her friends—needed her more than ever.
The last time she had seen Ben through the Force, it had been in the middle of rescuing her friends, the last of the organized Resistance. He had gazed up at her, regret and pain obvious on his face. She wanted to go to him then, but reminded herself that she had already tried that plan. No, she hated to admit it, but the choice Ben Solo had to make now was entirely his own, and Rey couldn’t do it for him. Nor could she wait for him. So with a heavy heart, she closed the bond on him.
That had been more than two months ago, and it seemed like every day she felt his presence pulling at her, begging to speak with her. She firmly shut him out every time. It felt so wrong, to keep tormenting him like this, but her friends needed her, so she stood her ground.
That is, until last night. She had a melody stuck in her head, one that resurfaced from the murky depths of her memories the previous night in her dreams. Ducking out of the mess hall tent after hurriedly finishing dinner, she walked a little ways away and found herself facing west, staring as the sun set over the ocean, humming the tune. There had been words in the song in her dream, but she didn’t remember them. It was hauntingly beautiful, and she wondered if her mother had once sung that song to her as a child. Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t notice the Force connection until it was too late.
She turned around and saw Ben behind her, looking at her as if she was the only thing he wanted to see. Rey started to break it off, pull the curtain across her mind. Knowing exactly what she was going to do, he let out a desperate plea: “Rey, please, wait!”
The desperation in his tone was palpable, and she stopped; partially out of pity and partially because of something else… Longing? Had she missed him? “I need to talk to you,” he said. She stopped resisting the Force and looked up into his face expectantly.
“… Why did you leave me?” he asked softly.
She looked at him incredulously. “Why do you think I left?”
He avoids her gaze. “Because I wasn’t enough for you.”
Is that really how he saw it? Rey wondered. “Ben, my friends were being killed. I couldn’t abandon them. And you… weren’t going to help,” Rey trailed off.
“If you had joined me, I would have done anything you asked!” he said, his tone rising.
“But joining you is not what I wanted!”
Silence.
A tear slipped out of her eye as she continued. “I don’t want to rule the galaxy. I don’t want to rule anything. I just want you to come home.”
“You’re saying that when you came to me, you weren’t going to use me to help the Resistance, to weaken the First Order?” His gaze met hers again. “You came only for me?”
Now it was her turn to be ashamed. “I mean, of course I needed your help. But I went because I cared about you.” He started to shake his head. “Ben, I do care about you. When I saw your future, you were with me, and you were so… happy. You had let go of the pain from your past. And there’s only one way you can do that—by coming home.”
“I can’t go back Rey, I’m not wanted there.”
“Leia wants you back. And I want you back. Isn’t that enough?”
“And you think anyone else would be glad to see me? To fight beside Kylo Ren? When I’ve killed their friends and family?” He spat out the words bitterly.
Rey could not counter that. She bit her lip. “Ben … I’m sorry I left. I want to be with you, but right now … right now I can’t.” She turned away and swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Rey, I …” his voice cracked, and he reached for her hand. But just as he grabbed it, she gasped and turned back to him.
“Someone’s coming, I have to go.”
“Rey, wait—just promise me you’ll talk to me again next time,” he said, latching on to her hand.
She looked into his eyes again with a pained expression. “Ben—I … ok,” she sighed.
He sighed too, in relief, and let go of her hand, disappearing from her presence.
A moment later, Finn rounds a corner of a tent, obviously looking for her. “Hey, what are you doing out here? Were you talking to someone?”
Rey knew she could trust Finn with anything, but she had not yet told anyone but Leia about the Force bond with Ben. The rest of the Resistance had accepted her story with gaping plot holes on Leia’s word, but she knew everyone had questions they had not dared to ask her yet. She owed Finn an explanation, but right then, she really didn’t want to give it. So she lied.
“No, it’s just me out here. I needed some air.”
Finn seemed skeptical, but didn’t question her. “Well, Leia is holding another counsel and she sent me to find you.”
“Oh, ok.” She turns to walk back with him. They approach the General’s tent, and Finn pauses outside the flap.
“Rey—” He turned her shoulder to him and pointedly looked into her face. “Rey, you know you can tell me anything, right?”
Rey bit her lip and found herself resisting the urge to tell him everything. “Finn, I will tell you. I promise. Just—not right now, ok?” He nodded and pulled her into an unexpected hug. Rey smiled at his affection and held on to him a little longer, before breaking apart and entering the tent.