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His mother is gone and Rey is turned.
"Leia," she whispers. At once hurt pours off her as tangible as the drips of saltwater do their hair and faces. Such pain. It is their life together. There's shadows in her eyes he put there and there's scars on his skin, she left. Her mind for his flesh. Suffering—it makes them who they are.
She drops down level to where he’s fallen. She reaches a hand out and over the hole in his gut.
He needs her pain. Without it, he isn’t sure what she feels for him. But it’s not pain she gives. It’s the antidote.
“I did want to take your hand. Ben’s hand.”
***
Her grandfather is gone and Ben is turned.
He rolls her over, touching her hand first, then committing himself to look at her face and see what he already knows. What he doesn’t want to see. He looks away. He can’t un-see.
He pulls her to him, caring for her body after her mind is gone. It feels like there’s a void in his chest where his heart used to be.
He’d called her nothing. He reaches a hand out and over the emptiness in her. She cannot be not a thing. He knows what he has to do.
Life passes between them. It's who they are together.
Her smile is a cure. Her kiss.
He doubts he’s ever felt more alive than in the moments when he’s dying.