Chapter Text
Ben Solo is six the first time his grandmother visits him in his childhood bedroom. It is nearing midnight, the pitter patter of rain mixing with his parents’ raised voices and dangling sleep from his reach. Granted, he’s used to not sleeping— even as a baby, he had never slept much. Something inside of him was awake, and brutally restless, though he could not figure out what. No matter how many nights he spent tossing and turning in his twin bed (which he would very soon outgrow), he couldn’t become well-acquainted with this part of him. An infinite itch he could not scratch. Ben figures tonight will be just like any other, but the rain and his parents fighting definitely didn’t help things.
He notices her in the moonlight peeking through the cracks in his curtains, a faint blue light dimly illuminating the room. Her face is fair and her brown eyes kind. The long, dark curls that spilled over her shoulders were adorned with white flowers that Ben couldn’t put a name to. She is beautiful, a blue glow radiating from her that suggests otherworldliness, and a blue gown suggesting royalty. Ben props himself up by his knobby elbows, squinting his sleepy eyes at her in fascination.
“Are you an angel?”
She had giggled at him then (although, he did not find his question very funny). “Oh, you’re so much like him.” The angel’s voice is fond, a certain nostalgia nesting in it, and she tilts her head while looking at him as though she had seen him before.
“Just like who?” Ben scrunched up his face, annoyed at the prospect of being compared to someone else.
“No one you know. Another boy that I knew, long ago,” the angel without wings answers. Ben has questions. And, as though sensing this, she begins to move closer to him, her gown shimmering like the sea with her every movement; dark blue and deep, rippling like waves.
It seems so silly to him, how out of place she looks gliding across his carpet and stepping over the many strewn, misplaced toys and clothes. When she reaches his bedside, she crouches down to level herself with him. The angel’s kind face is shrouded in moonlight, the silvery light glittering her cheekbones.
“Well, I’m not him. I’m Ben.”
“I’m Padmé. It’s very nice to meet you, Ben.”
“Should we shake hands?” he asks awkwardly. He’s seen his mom do this all the time, whenever someone came round the apartment to discuss politics and policies and a bunch of other things he didn’t really understand— she had told him, when he asked if it was something that adults did, that it was how you greeted someone you had never met before. It was the proper, polite thing to do, she had explained to him. He wasn’t quite sure if this was the right protocol for angels, though. Padmé looks amused for a beat, then extends her hand to him. He reaches hesitantly, not knowing what to expect. When their hands touch, it is like air passing. Like wind on his fingertips.
“Not a very firm handshake,” Padmé says apologetically. “I’ll need to work on that.” Ben giggles.
“I felt your distress, child. What is it that is troubling you?”
“So you are a guardian angel,” Ben says triumphantly, dodging the question. She considers this carefully for a moment.
“Of sorts.”
Ben frowns, not completely content with this answer. He knows this woman. He’s never seen her, but he knows her. There’s a familiarity there, that tugs at his heart, trying to make itself known. He knows her…
“Is it you? The voice I hear all the time, in my dreams.” Or, nightmares. He hasn’t decided which they were, but he has been having them as long as he could remember. It wasn’t a voice all the time. It was a presence. He was aware of it, and could never describe it efficiently. It was just there, and he never knew if it was good or bad, and if it were Padmé, he could stop worrying about which it was because he knew it was good, that she was good…
Padmé’s eyebrows knit together, the same look he’s seen on his mother whenever she was worrying too much, and it gives away an answer instantly.
“Dreams?”
“It’s nothing. Sometimes… there’s a voice. It’s always the same one. I think it wants to be my friend. Like it knows how alone I feel,” he whispers, a secret he holds just for her, this blue angel with flowers in her hair and a gown made of water. Her eyes grow sad as she searches his face.
“You are not alone, Ben. No matter how you feel. Remember that. You never will be.”
He believes her almost instantly.
She gently runs her fingers through his hair. Air passing. Like light wind, almost tangible. It's the last thing he remembers before falling deep into a peaceful sleep, unplagued by nightmares for the first time he can remember.
When he awoke, there was a single white flower laying on his pillow, a reminder for later. A reassurance that he did not make her up.
He tucked it away for later. For once, a secret not a burden to keep.
-
The smuggling compartment of the Falcon is a small, cramped space to meditate, but it is about the best option Rey has, or at least the only one she hasn’t tried yet. Everywhere else on the ship, she has been interrupted— usually by Threepio, whose knack for showing up at the wrong time seemingly happened more often when his anxiety was at its peak (which, Rey noted the third time he walked into the docking bay in twenty minutes, is very often for a droid). So she had to make do with this: her crossed legs knocking her knees against the metallic walls, back slightly arched so as to avoid banging her head. It was so close to being comfortable but just missed the mark, making it all the more unbearable, but she supposes she’ll suck it up.
Now that she’s alone, she’s not quite sure how to begin. What’s she supposed to do here, now that she’s finally gotten this far? She shuts her eyes and tries to reach out, to “feel the Force” like Luke taught her to. The memory of their first lesson together crosses her mind, and she smiles at the thought of her physically reaching out rather than with her mind. She was so eager and excited then, and it seems like years ago when the weight of becoming a Jedi didn’t hang quite so heavily onto her shoulders. At least then, she knew she wasn’t alone on this path. She had Luke to teach her what she needed to know.
But now, she’s the last of the Jedi (if she could even call herself that).
And utterly, completely, alone.
You’re not alone, a voice insists, deep and pleading and prodding at her head. He’s not actually there, but the audible memory of Kylo’s voice that night by the fire makes her shiver— with anger, with sadness, with regret. This was all him that did this to her, ever since he took her on Takodana. He’s the one who invaded her mind. He’s the one who caused all of this. If he wasn’t so obsessed with that map. If she hadn’t seen the map. If she hadn’t met Finn, or BB-8.
If she had only stayed on Jakku. The thought is snarky and she pushes it away. No. She knew the Force had started to write her fate, knew she had some control over it no matter how limited, but no matter what, this connection would have formed. She can’t sit here and regret what brought her here. That would just be ungrateful.
Rey tucks her hair behind her ear before trying again, attempting to calm down enough to meditate properly. She can almost hear Luke’s voice: What do you see?
Her eyebrows knit in frustration when she sees nothing. She can feel the Force buzzing around her, but it doesn’t care to show her anything. Maybe she wasn’t reaching far enough. Yes, that’s it. She strains, struggling to extend her grasp with an imaginary fist, coming up with nothing but air through the spaces of her fingers.
“You are thinking too much,” a voice says softly, and Rey jumps (“Oy!”), banging her head against the wall behind her. She winces, touching the back of her head tenderly. Was she so lost in meditation that she didn’t realize she had a guest? There is a man facing her, sharing her posture, his eyes still shut, as though joining her in meditation. He is so close that she can make out the scar running down his face that, for a split, inane second, she thinks it is Ben— Kylo— and her heart stutters. The same long, unruly hair, the same sardonic half-smile that splits his face when he hears her bang her head, the same black robes— she could kick herself for automatically being reminded of him.
“Who are you?” Whoever he was, he was not human or alive or possibly here. There was a blue tinge surrounding him, and she notices that their knees should be overlapping, but she feels nothing. “Or, what are you?” He keeps his eyes closed, much to her frustration. He is silent for a beat as though she’s the one interrupting him and she nearly asks him to speak, for kriffs sake.
“I’m sure you’ve read those ancient Jedi texts enough times to take a guess or two,” he replies, making Rey take a nervous side glance at her bag, the dusty books spilling out from the admitted carelessness with which she dropped them down. She vaguely recalls a page about ghosts, living beyond death, becoming one with the Force, immortalized between its energy.
“You’re a Jedi, then? Sorry—were a Jedi?”
“Was, yes, that’s a way of putting it,” he chuckles. “At first. At the end, not quite.” She doesn’t have a chance to ask what he means by this because suddenly, his eyes are open and staring right through her.
“You stole them from Ahch-To.” It’s not accusatory by any means; if anything, he sounds curious and amused, but it catches her off guard and turns her face red.
“I scavenged them. There’s a difference.” It comes out defensive— because, in part, she did feel guilty for taking them from the island. She hadn’t intended to, but her anger at Luke was still simmering and fresh, and she had acted impulsively. What else was there to do, after all? Let them stay collecting dust in the hollows of an old tree, unused and unseen? It seemed wasteful, for her to leave them there, and with Luke now gone, it was as if she had known when she took them that it’d be the best option.
“Oh?” The ghost smirks with a smugness that she recognizes all too well from Kylo.
“There is,” she insists indignantly, cheeks still burning. She quickly breaks away eye contact with him, attempting to stuff the texts back into her bag while continuing. “Stealing is taking things just for the sake of it. Scavenging is saving something old and making it usable again— oh, kriff, won’t you just fit already?” He chuckles, watching her fumble with the bag.
“If you say so, scavenger.” Rey’s head snaps up almost instantly, that word sinking in her stomach. You, a scavenger.
“Rey. My name is Rey. Not scavenger,” she snaps, hotly. Instead of looking embarrassed, he looks at her with sympathy, head tilting slightly as he considers her. She hates it. She hates him, she hates that she’s the one shifting awkwardly under his gaze rather than the other way around. Maybe when you’re dead, unfortunate social situations don’t seem the bother you as much as they would the living. Or, maybe he was just an ass.
“Anakin,” he says finally. “Nice to meet you, Rey.”
She nods, jaw slightly relaxing and unclenching itself.
“Where are you from?”
Her mouth falls open and history repeats itself all over again.
“Nowhere.”