Work Text:
UNHINGED
Silence. Blackness. He was adrift in sea of nothing somewhere that no one would imagine.
Where was he? What had happened?
The last thing he remembered he was holding something precious. Something warm and solid. He had felt relief, joy, and hope fill him with the power of a comet streaking through his soul. And then it had vanished.
He had started off heading in one direction (or had he even moved at all?) where he felt like purpose and peace were carrying him as if he were caught up in their current. Suddenly, he was violently yanked from that plain and shoved into the one where he currently found himself stuck.
He was bodiless. Just a thought or a memory. He tried to recall who he had been before whatever happened had happened.
Dark hair. Eyes the color of tilled soil in the early morning light. Large, deft hands holding a cold, solid object that hummed in his grasp. An energy coursing through his blood, his mind, his very soul.
The Force.
Redemption.
Exogol.
Rey.
His eyes shot open at the recalling of her name. It sang to him even in his mind. And then he was falling, hard, onto an infinitely long walkway made of the Force, light, and life. Everywhere he looked he could see thousands upon thousands of circular windows sheathed in a blue haze. He got to his feet, noting how light this other worldly body felt, and moved toward the nearest one.
Slowly, as he gazed into it, the fog lifted, and he saw himself climbing up a vertical cliff face. That body seemed broken and was covered from head to toe in bloody bruises, but he persisted, nonetheless. He saw that he dragged himself across the ruined floor of an amphitheater, towards a lifeless form laying before a devilish throne.
His breath hitched in his throat and, he watched as his other self, cradled the body of a young woman in his arms.
It was the scavenger girl. Rey.
Taking a few steps closer, he watched as desperation and fear swept across his features before gently bringing Rey to his chest and settling her there. One last embrace. One final moment.
A sob escaped him, and he threw himself against the invisible barrier that separated him from this other reality. He raged against it, tears streaming down his face.
“NO! NO!”
And it was as if his other self had heard him and understood what he had to do.
Fists sliding uselessly against nothing, he gazed, unbreathing, at the man before him.
In an instant, energy was radiating from his palms. Even now, from wherever he was, he could feel the Force humming with knowledge and life.
Rey laid there in this man’s arms with his palm splayed out across her abdomen and he went deep, deep into the Force.
Color.
Breath.
Life.
This other man had revived her. Had brought her back from certain death. Something no planetary being had ever done before. And she smiled at him.
“Ben?” She breathed.
The man holding her began to shiver all over as she placed her hand gently on his cheek and in his hair. His face was a mask of disbelief and pure joy.
Ben (that was his name), slumped to the floor of this unknown world and choked back his grief. He could remember this moment now. Bright and fiercely burned behind his eyes forever. He could feel her warm, life-filled fingers against him. It was all falling into place.
And then, she kissed him. It was the greatest and most powerful thing he had ever felt. Relief, exhilaration, passion, and gratitude poured out of her and into him through her lips.
Love.
He loved this woman. Inexplicably and irrevocably, he loved her.
Ben knew what came next. He knew that, as the smile faded on the man beyond the barrier, he was leaving her behind. He had given her everything. He had given her his own life.
And as the Ben in Rey’s arms fell to the floor on Exogol, the Ben on this plain finally understood.
“I’m Ben Solo. I died. I died so that Rey could live. I gave her my life because I wouldn’t, couldn’t live without her.”
He heaved a long, steadying breath and got to his feet. Once more, he looked around into the vastness and the infinity this world laid out before him.
“I should have become one with the Force, but the Force brought me here.”
Realization hit him with the weight of a thousand stars.
“I’m in the World Between Worlds.”
Another pause as Ben Solo fisted his hands in his hair and huffed out a breath of exasperation.
“FUCK!”
**********************************************************
Time became irrelevant shortly after his arrival. Trying to keep track of how long he’d been stuck in the World Between Worlds was pointless and had started to drive him mad.
Here, there was no sleep. There were no days or nights. There weren’t mornings or afternoons. There just was and is and will remain to be.
Ben Solo found himself somewhere along his grandfather’s timeline when he first caught himself talking to the people on the other side of the hazy blue dreamscape.
“By the Force, Grandfather. Is that weird that I call you that seeing as you’re younger than me?”
He gazed into the face of a young Anakin Skywalker who was currently in a turbolift on his way up to see Padme Amidala for the first time in a decade. Obi Wan Kenobi stood beside him.
“You seem a little on edge.” The Jedi Master commented.
Ben poked his head around to sneak a peek at the two nerf herders, as if they might catch him in the act from the other side of time. He glared at them.
“Not at all.” Anakin replied while fussing over his tunic and robes.
Ben Solo huffed with disdain, startled himself, and immediately ducked back behind the window to conceal himself from detection.
“I haven’t seen you this tense since we fell into that nest of gundarks.” Master Obi Wan taunted.
“Oooooooooh!” Ben emerged completely from behind the time window and squealed like a Sand Person in heat on Tatooine. He clapped vehemently and made a chair out of thin air for to sit upon. “Do go on!” He exclaimed.
“You were the one who fell into that nightmare, Master, and I rescued you. Remember?”
A howl of laughter cascaded forth from Ben’s chest. “You’re padawan rescued you, oh Master Obi Wan?”
“Oh. Yes.” Obi Wan then chuckled and Ben’s face fell into something resembling irritation bordering on boredom.
He straightened up in the Force chair (which was really nothing more than air), got up to circle around it and gripped the back as he continued to peer at them with a crazed scrutiny.
“You’re sweating. Relax. Take a deep breath.” The older Jedi spoke in a calming manner.
Ben cackled once again and proceeded to throw said Force chair (the air) at the time window with a vexation so deep he felt he might truly break through the barrier.
“PLOT TWIST: He’s going to cut off your legs and arms and leave you to burn like a crispy porg over an open fire during Boonta Eve!” He began to pace; his arms crossed over his broad chest.
“Ani? My goodness, you’ve grown.” Came the gentle voice of Padme Amidala.
Pausing, Ben glared back at the window, and waited.
“So, have you. Grown more beautiful, I mean.”
Ben Solo rolled his eyes and feigned vomiting.
“Well, for a Senator, I mean.”
Walking straight up to the window, Solo’s hands flew up in exasperation.
“Are you KRIFFING kidding me?” The mocked amazement poured from his mouth like a fountain of incredulity. He turned to Padme and pointed towards his young grandfather.
“THIS is what you destroyed the galaxy for? THIS is the other end of the galaxy’s most infamous love story?” She ignored him.
“Oh, FINE. I listen to you all you want but when it comes time for me to air my grievances, you pretend you can’t see me!”
Padme turned to walk away as the window went all foggy and blue. The scene began anew with the two Jedi in the turbolift speaking candidly with one another. Ben let his hands drop to his hips.
“I’ve seen this episode. It’s a repeat.” He turned on his heel and shot off like a TIE fighter in pursuit of its enemy down the timeline once more.
*************************************************************
Porgs. There were porgs everywhere he looked.
It had started out with one tiny, little fucker as his constant and unwelcomed companion. Just one.
Ben knew this was a gift from Rey’s memory. It had to be as he had never encountered them in life. For a while, he allowed the creature to follow him mostly out of a feeling of obligation towards Rey. But in the resulting months, the little feather bag had… multiplied. Exponentially.
Ben had become particularly dissatisfied with a window involving his uncle and a squat little creature he understood to be Master Yoda. He had turned, picked up the creature, and chucked it hard at the barrier.
It wasn’t so surprising that the flightless bird had bounced off it with a shriek and smacked him in his own face. No. It was the fact that that shriek instantly produced dozens of new porgs at his feet. Startled. Ben dropped the bird which issued another high-pitched wail, and, in turn, produced more porgs.
There was shuffling all around his feet as he stood there, frozen to the spot. A moment passed when nothing and no one moved. Then, a porg pecked at Ben’s ankle. Another one took a peck at his calf muscle. Inadvertently, he smacked it away, initiating another loud squawk of protest and another dozen or so porgs poofed into existence.
Ben was surrounded.
He glared down at them. They glared back.
And then, he took off, sprinting away towards a porg free stretch of the timeline as fast as his long legs would take him.
That was eons ago. Or maybe it was just a few days? Either way, Ben Solo was now in porg Hell.
They were everywhere he looked. As far as the eye could see, porgs decorated the World Between Worlds.
At one point, Ben had said “Fuck it” and took to running at the birds with his arms splayed out in a threatening manner and yelling profanities at the top of his lungs.
It had been a poor attempt at scaring them away like the children used to do in Chandrilla city square when he was a boy. Except, the shrieks of contempt from the creatures had just created more kriffing porgs.
After a period, he succumbed to their new reign over this world and began to name them.
“You all behind me, your names are Phasma. You’re all bad bitches but good at your job.”
He turned to the grouping of porgs to his right.
“You all are Palpatine. You’ve all already reached the peak of you power about 30 years ago, but you won’t stay dead. You also want me to kill your granddaughter who you apparently need alive to allow the Sith to be reborn but, I don’t ask questions or worry about plot holes.”
“This grouping to my left, you all are named Hux. You absolutely despise me and want me dead. Secretly, though, you keep a wig of my hair in your chambers and pretend to be me as Kylo Ren at night when no one is watching.”
“You there, are FN-2187. Your character arc is so flawed and backwards, I just don’t particularly care to see you develop anymore.”
“And finally,” he looked at a single porg, the closest one to him, “you will be Rey. My soulmate. My dyad.” He took this porg and held it up to his face, gazing at it reverently.
“I know.” Ben whispered. He looked down as if he had been chastised by his love.
“I know we didn’t have a lot of time together in the living world.” He stroked the porgs feathers gently, and it purred in response.
“But I promise that I will spend the rest of eternity making it up to you, here.” Nuzzling the creature, he began to smother it with dozens of light little kisses.
That is when he heard her.
“Ben?”
His eyes shot wide open. Frowning, Ben held the porg up to the light (though there was none) as if to examine it more thoroughly.
“Ben, it’s me.”
He shook his head in confusion, then shook the bird, then held it up to his ear like a seashell from a long-forgotten shore.
A soft, yet firm hand came to rest on his forearm.
“I’m right here. No one else. Just us.”
Suddenly, all sound evaporated, and his blood ran hot where her hand laid upon him. The porg in his hands vanished, as did the million others that had plagued him for what felt like decades. Slowly, he turned to face her.
“Rey.” He breathed.