Chapter Text
She couldn’t remember dying. But she remembered coming back. She doubted she’d ever be able to forget it, that odd feeling of floating up and coming to rest in something that had once been hers but wasn’t quite anymore. And there she was, back in her familiar body. Reinhabiting it as a flush of heat appeared in her centre and spread out from there. Sensation returned before sight did, the feeling of something on her back and - something familiar resting on her chest. Driven by instinct, she reached out for it, and grasped his hand, cool - almost cold.
Her sight focused and found him almost immediately. She felt surprised and relieved and not surprised at all to see him, because of course he was there. As he always had been.
“Ben!”
His eyes searched her entire face as she grinned at him, and she reached forward to touch his cold, soft face, gently prodding at his hair, lingering there like she’d wanted but never been able to. Her hand searched a little more, but when she looked at his lips she knew that wasn’t enough. She surged forward and kissed him, feeling his lips against hers, squeezing her eyes shut as she felt his hand find her back. Her warm lips pressed against his, cool to the touch, as he leaned in, as if he’d only be waiting for her - and he had been. No, she’d been waiting for him. Or… Stop thinking. There was nothing but this. Nothing that mattered.
When they parted, he kept staring at her, like he was still searching, like he still wondered whether she meant it? She smiled at him, and he grinned back. It transformed his whole face. She had thought she knew that face, from dreams and from the Force bond and occasionally from real life. But it still had so much more to offer, like this wonderful grin. She wanted to know every expression he had to offer, every way that face could smile.
The smile faded and he fell back. She kept holding his hand. Kept grasping it like if she did, he wouldn’t -
He’s going to leave you.
No, that couldn’t be. And surely if he had brought her back, then she could -
He faded.
It was so sudden. He was there, then he wasn’t. His body was -
One with the Force.
No.
No.
It’s not meant to be like this.
No.
She stared down at the empty clothes, and then she couldn’t breathe. The pressure in her temples increased, and she felt like her nose was being pushed in by an invisible force, making it feel like her head was about to split open, like her body wanted to slip back into death if - if… She took a heaving breath and it barely made it through her nostrils, like the air itself was expanding and ready to break her apart. The breath barely made it down her throat, it got stuck on its way to her lungs. She breathed desperately again, deeply, like she could get enough air into her system to make it right again. She couldn’t.
“No,” she whispered, and her hand pressed down on the sleeve where the hand had been. She had held that hand, she had - And these clothes, these clothes were so flimsy, so insubstantial when compared to all those layers she’d seen in him, he had been - It had just been - He hadn’t had his lightsaber, hadn’t had anything. Just himself.
And now he was gone.
He left you.
No.
The world flickered around her. She felt woozy for a moment, and when she dared to open her eyes incandescent lights flickered around her, swirling through the cave which seemed to have grown dimmer in the bright lights, and she could barely see more than a few feet ahead of her.
Like she’d forgotten to breathe.
Maybe she was going to die after all.
Her hand splayed forward and hit the stone floor, cold like he was and hard and sending a shudder up her arm, the skin of her fingers and the bones suddenly remind her she could feel pain. A wave of nausea rose in her and with it a haze covering her mind - or being lifted? - or -
The warmth was gone.
What had happened?
She had gotten here to…
My memories.
They weren’t fading, not exactly. They just felt disjointed. Nothing fit. None of it made any sense.
Why had she come here? Where was this?
The ground shook around her and she raised her head but could only see faint lights, swimming around her. Maybe the sound of explosions. Maybe nothing but the haze of the air around her, thickening and swirling around her, maybe smoke or fog or ashes or -
Her head dropped. All her weight rested on one arm, then she fell on the other and the arm collapsed and it was only her elbow propping her up. And maybe dying here wasn’t the worst thing. Here. This place she didn’t understand, couldn’t place, made no sense.
You belong here, a voice whispered in her head. A ghost, she thought, maybe. Ghosts were her only companion now. If she truly came from the Sith, she should -
She should be buried with them too. Palpatine was gone - her friends, they would have won now. She had done her part. This was how her story would end.
Her elbow sunk into the stone - the stones that were sinking, cracking. Her hearing splintered, she thought - none of this felt real. None of it stayed. All she had was the - the sweater, she reached for it again, with the other arm that wasn’t propping her up, reminded herself of what it felt like, the soft fabric that had been there all along. It would stop hurting, soon. Nothing had ever made sense, not even here, at the end, here least of all. It would stop hurting. Maybe she would not be alone. Or maybe she would, as she always had been, in the end. Left alone in the crumbling ruins of another falling empire. She could appreciate that, in its own way, how it all made sense, how it had all come together to bring her to her final destination. The last lucid thought she would ever have, she realised. She wished it weren’t so sad. All she had ever wanted was something just a little happier. Just a little less lonely.
“Rey.”
She almost smiled at her tired mind, giving her something to hold on to. For a moment, she hadn’t been alone. If she could go back -
“Rey!”
“I wish we could’ve done things differently,” she mumbled, her mouth opening enough to admit the salty tears on her lips.
“Never mind that. You need to go.”
What?
She looked up, instinct driving her more than anything else, and was confronted by a sight that made her heart stop and then race with renewed fervour. She could see him - Ben - crouched in front of her. Not him, not really, but a shape lit by blue light. Even crouched low over her half-kneeling figure, he still towered above her, and when he met her gaze his chin dipped like it would let him see her better, his eyes fixed on her like he was seeing her for the very first time. But then something crashed in the distance and his head whipped around.
“You have to go.”
She didn’t move and he looked back at her as she struggled to say anything. Which was weird, because she had about a million things to say. But they weren’t in the right order and they certainly weren’t enough.
“You’re -”
“Not here,” finished Ben. She realised how frightened he looked as he glanced around them again, a hand hovering close to Rey’s scraped leg while he scanned their surroundings. Almost as if he could protect her. “This place is going to go. You can feel it, can’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then go.”
Rey looked around. Everything was still hazy, still unclear, still collapsing. She still didn’t understand anything that was going on and Ben’s ghost - oh no - didn’t exactly make things better or clearer or… Well, she knew how to survive. She had that going for, at the least.
The irony of the thought made a strangled giggle escape from between her lips and Ben paused his worried scanning of their surroundings to give her a look that said are-you-insane. This more than anything finally jerked her into motion, made her spring to her feet supported by knees that groaned at the very motion. Clearly Jedi training could only get you so far. Without thinking she grabbed Ben’s clothes, and the two lightsabers, then turned into the general direction of the exit and ran.
The chains were when things really started falling apart. Very literally, given the half chain-link that almost fell on her. She got a glimpse of Ben’s face, who had been staunchly following her and now looked pale and scared and annoyed.
“Be careful,” he said, sounding like he was trying not to admonish her, which shouldn’t have been audible given everything but was. Probably because they were still connected - are you?
She didn’t have time to response, instead jumping as high as she could to hit a piece of the chain that was still in place, letting out a gasp of pain as her sore everything hit the metal and sent tremors in her knees so bad she couldn’t feel or move them for a moment, relying on her weakened, slipping fingers to keep her in place.
I’m not going to make it.
She felt her knees again and wrapped herself around the chain as best she could. Then readied herself to keep going. She wasn’t going to give up now. This wasn’t going to be the way she went. This wasn’t the end.
She fell on the ground in front of the hole, then quickly scuttled back as the hole expanded. It stopped expanding, leaving a cavity in its place where the entrance to the - to the -
Where the entrance had once been.
Ben’s clothes that had been perched on her shoulder fell off as she slumped back onto the ground, her back hitting the surface hard as the lightsabers dug into her hip. If she accidentally flipped the ignition and those things skewered her… it’d be quite a way to go.
She smiled at the black sky. Had the explosions stopped? It was weird, not seeing anything. Not even stars.
“Rey.”
Rey didn’t look around, not immediately. She’d have to steel herself, to see him again, to see him like that.
“More could collapse.”
“I’ll feel it,” muttered Rey.
“It’s not far to your ship, you -”
“I just came back from the dead,” Rey snapped, sitting up in a hurried, painful motion and finally turning her head to glare at Ben. Then she realised what she had said, and who she had said it to. She looked away, back up at the sky, feeling the tears stinging again. And then flowing over, spilling out onto her cheek and trickling down her face as she sobbed angrily, trying to swallow it all back down but not able to. She put a hand in front of her eyes, turned her head down, trying to keep her dignity before the dead.
“Rey -”
“Stop.”
A pause.
“You shouldn’t have had to do that. It can’t be easy to come back. But you’ll find a way to move on past it. You’re strong, Rey.”
Rey looked at him again, out of disbelief more than anything. “That’s not what I’m crying about, you idiot.”
Those big dark eyes looked back at her, so lifelike and so not they made her want to puke. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” She wiped away some of the tears with a furious motion, almost punching herself with the back of her hand. At some point she had to stop feeling pain, she figured. It was just a question of getting there.
And she had to know. Rey swallowed. “You’re… a ghost?”
Ben looked down at himself, brow furrowed. “I’m not sure.”
“You look like one.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Like he was trying to clamp down on his amusement. Odd, really - that she knew what it was, even though she hadn’t seen it ever before. She watched his mouth so closely that she almost missed the words that came out of them. “What do ghosts look like?”
“Um,” she said, trying and failing to come up with a non-dumb response. “Glowing. Transparent. Eh… Blue.”
Yeah, he was definitely trying to swallow a laugh now. “I see General Organa taught you well.”
“You mean your mum.”
The smile slipped and Rey wished she hadn’t said anything in the first place. But he didn’t close himself off, not this time, merely held her gaze.
“Yeah,” he said. “Are you going to move away from the huge dangerous hole in the ground?"
“In a moment.”
His lips twitched, like he wanted to say something. He didn’t. She very nearly smiled.
Ben settled down on the ground next to her. She still couldn't quite believe how young he looked, ever since he'd come back and stood by her side and then been there when she'd…
He’ll never got to grow older.
“I'm still trying to piece it together,” he said, breaking her out of her revery.
Rey blinked a few times. “What?”
“What happened. “
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
He raised his eyebrows. “You don't have questions? About all this?”
“I was saving that for later.”
“What’s later when you’re -” murmured Ben, voice laden with irony, before cutting himself off with a guilty look at Rey. She hated that he would feel guilty, hated the reminder, wished he weren’t glowing or transparent or blue and wished he were actually here so she could hold him and kiss him and be with him.
“You are dead,” she said, like saying it would allow her to process it.
“Yeah.”
“Then you have to be a ghost, right?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen one before. Only in paintings and murals.”
Rey’s brow furrowed. “Really?”
He raised his eyebrows in turn. “Have you?”
“I saw Master Skywalker as a ghost.”
Ben’s face betrayed him, as it always did, but he made a valiant effort to look unperturbed. “Really?”
“Only recently,” she hastened to clarify. “I was on Ach-To - after we fought…”
He gave the slightest of nods, made an attempt at humour. “Knew I should've bombed that place to oblivion.”
“No, you shouldn't have. “
“Hm.”
“I spoke to him before I went to Palpatine. Just the once.”
“Did you?”
The two words were spoken in the most even of tones, yet when their implications sunk in they left her reeling. “Was it… real?”
“I don’t know,” said Ben. “I was just surprised you were facing Palpatine on your own.”
“You didn’t give me much of a choice.”
“I offered -” He stopped himself, looked past Rey to the starless sky. “I saw how you were on the Death Star. And then you find Skywalker. Who encourages you to go after Palpatine.”
Rey paused. “Why would you even think that this - some of it, wouldn’t be real?”
“Ever since I found Palpatine, even before then, something’s been…” He frowned. “It's almost like… waking up.”
“From a dream,” Rey finished softly. Yes, she knew the feeling.
“So I don’t know. Dying feels like waking up from a dream. And even when Palpatine was gone it was like…”
“… something fell back into place,” Rey finished his thought again. And she knew what she meant, she did. It was the same thing, she thought, as the haze of everything after. Like the place had never made any sense and she hadn’t even realised.
Ben would know. He would know way better than her. Because he had always been accompanied by that voice, by other voices - she had felt it, hissing at the edges of their bond, had never really understood it until the same thing had happened to… to her.
“Do you want to move away from the pit now?”
“Just one more minute.”
“You need to leave, Rey.”
“I will,” she said sharply, scowling in his direction. He barely reacted, except for pursing his lips in a manner vaguely reminiscent of his mother.
“It’s still dangerous here. You have to keep moving.”
“I’ve been moving enough,” she muttered. “Don’t you want to figure out what was up with this place before we leave?”
“I don’t think we will.”
“How much of it wasn’t real?”
“It might be easier when time’s passed.”
“Palpatine,” said Rey, ignoring Ben’s words. “You said he was my grandfather.”
Ben looked back at her and she knew the truth had hit him before it had her. “I did.”
“He told you?”
He nodded.
“So he…”
A pause. “I think you know,” said Ben.
“It wasn't real,” whispered Rey, and inexplicably she felt a sense of loss. Loss at what? She knew tears were pooling in her eyes, and when she looked at Ben he was looking right back at her, mouth ajar and a sorrowful expression on his face. “He was never…”
Ben shook his head.
“And I’m not…”
Ben inclined his head a little, encouraging her to go on.
“A Palpatine,” she said, then let out an involuntary chuckle at the phrase.
Ben smiled back, dimples in full display. She loved his smile, she wished she'd known how - The tears trickling down her face told her that she wasn't feeling what she should be at this moment. No relief. No escape.
She looked at Ben in desperation, mouthing silent words, wanting to ask him why she felt this way but not being able to find the right way to say it. He waited silently, hands resting loosely in his lap. How free he looked in death. She very nearly envied him.
“My parents.” Did they abandon me? she wanted to ask, but couldn't.
Ben understood. “I don't know.”
She sniffled deeply and coughed, almost choking on the accumulated mucus. “I just want something to be real. Just one thing that isn't a lie.”
His big eyes stared back at her. He started - “I’m” - started reaching forwards, then stopped himself, looking down at the translucent blue as a flash of pain and regret passed his features. The first hint of regret she’d seen, she realised, and it was all for her sake. That in itself threatened to make her scream. Start screaming and never stop.
“I'm here,” he said instead. He reached forward again and the palm of his hand hovered millimetres away from the back of hers. “I'm here.”
You’re not, she wanted to yell. She didn’t.
“You need to go,” he said. “Come on. Please.”
Her head throbbed as a few tears she was pretty sure were new trickled down her face. “I don’t want to.”
“Why?” His eyes narrowed the way they did when he was trying to figure her out. He always succeeded, in the end. “You think I might fade.”
She scrunched up her mouth, helpless.
“You need to leave, Rey,” he said, gently shaking his head. “I’m not coming back.”
“You weren’t supposed to leave me,” she whispered.
His smile was equally gentle. “We don’t know what I am. Maybe I’m coming with you, Rey. But there’s nothing here, for either of us. Leave this place.”
Rey hesitated, then nodded firmly and clambered up. Then she grabbed his clothes, again. She noticed him staring at her and the clothes in unconcealed surprise and she tried to stop herself from blushing.
“Don't want to let anything go to waste,” She muttered, which was less embarrassing than ‘it’s something of you’ or ‘I need to feel something you had’ or worst of all ‘it smells like you’.
He didn't answer, just looked dubious.
Rey turned away from the pit. It hadn’t gotten any bigger. It would’ve been so easy just to wait there, eventually letting it swallow her.
Instead, she had to find her ship. And then get off this planet, with two lightsabers and some spare clothes and a ghost-or-possibly-not-a-ghost for company.
You have to keep moving, Ben had told her. She glanced at him and he nodded in encouragement. It was hard to see anywhere to go from here, but it could hardly be worse than where she’d ended up.