Archive of Our Own

Day 1

If there is anything that Rey needs, it is rest.

A good rest.

As someone who led a simple life, although not by her own choice, she felt that the ordeals that she had to go through the last couple years completed drained her. Too much noise, too much people, too many voices. So she left, leaving the rest to her friends.

I've done all this, I've destroyed Palpatine, I’ve destroyed the First Order, and I killed the only one that meant something to me in the process.

So here she is, on Tatooine, under its twin suns, walking out of the old, crumbling house, where it all began.

Day 5

The moisture vaporators are fixed. Rey is quite happy with the result, even with some bruises and scratches it left on her.

Day 19

Rey would call it a quiet neighbourhood if there is a neighbourhood here at all. Skywalker's old ranch is now abandoned, and few seldom passes here. Yet she manages. For necessities, she goes to Mos Eisley, and she hunts. She makes a living from selling water and fixing things for people around there. It's not much, but again, she knows how to live on not much.

BB-8 is an excellent companion. Always cheerful, often cheeky, and it makes Rey laugh.

Day 33

It's been a month since Rey settled in the old moisture farm where Luke Skywalker grew up. She grew fond of the silent dunes and endless horizons, and the way the twin suns rise above the ground to return the barren colours of the land. In the whistling wind, she stands, with a cup of steaming tea in her hand, leaning against the farmstead building, watching the slow daybreak.

BB-8 is a wonderful companion, but Rey wishes someone else to be with her.

Day 39

Sometimes Rey wakes up drenched in cold sweats and with a thumping heart in her chest. Her hand clutches her lightsaber, which never leaves her side even at night. She sits on her bed, her shoulders heaving, and her eyes wide open in the dark. Then slowly, she slides her hands over the rough blanket.

To this day, she regrets not taking his shirt with her.

Day 44

Rey knows that she could connect with the dead. In this world, the dead were never silent. They chirped loudly and harrowed her days and dreams, and on the forty-third day of her life in Tatooine, Rey had enough. What she needed was a good rest, and the tweeting dead were not welcome at her farm or her head. So she distanced herself by cutting the link, to be left alone in the quiet wasteland.

But in truth, she was looking for someone. A face that she longed to see. The one who never visits her.

When she realised that he is not coming, it came crashing down on her like dark, raging waves in a stormy ocean.

Day 45

Rey is still furious.

Day 47

Perhaps it's for the best, Rey thinks, lying on the bare ground in front of the farmstead, after spending the whole morning in training. She inhales the dry, hot air and stares into the yellow sky.

Perhaps he doesn't want to. He is dead. And I'm alive. I have a world to live, and life to endure.

Rey gets up and shakes the dust off. It’s time for breakfast.

Day 59

Poe came to pick BB-8 up. He asked how Rey was, and she answered that she is fine.

“You know how to get to me, right?” Poe said. “Let me know if you need something. Anything.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Rey answered.

Day 70

Now Rey rarely thinks of him.

Day 71

Yet the same nightmare keeps coming back. So does the pain from the severed bond, like a phantom pain on a missing limb.

Day 189

It is tough to manage the farm alone. On her way back from Mos Eisley for a supply run, Rey thinks that she should hire a farmhand or an android to prepare for the harvest.

Rey approaches the farm, and she sees a man draped in a worn-down grey coat standing near a moisture vaporator. At first, she thinks that it’s a raider. It wasn't the first time she has seen them out here. They often come in a group with loud noises and blasters. Rey chased them away many times, and she came close to killing some of them. Over time they stopped coming, scared by Rey's 'magic'.

Rey draws her gun out and jumps out of the speeder. Silently, she walks towards the man, her blaster raised. He doesn't even flinch. It seems that he is looking straight at her, but somehow not realising that there is a gun pointed at him. Rey is confused, and when she is close enough to see his face, air gushes out of her lungs at once.

"Ben."

The man looks at her, not moving an inch from where he is standing. His expression is so difficult to read that it almost feels like looking at a wax mannequin. Rey lowers her gun, stands there in howling winds, and watches his eyes through his black hair blowing in the wind.

Then suddenly, it hits her head.

This can't be real.

Her hands still feel the empty feeling that she felt when Ben's body disappeared. The crushing weight of death melting into thin air. Rey saw how he grinned at the end before drawing his last breath. She felt it, so this can't be real.

So she turns on her heels, goes into the farmhouse and shuts the door behind her.

That evening, Rey pours herself several shots of bile liquor that she got from Mos Eisley.

Day 190

Rey goes out in the morning to clean dust from the moisture vaporators, and she finds no trace of the man she saw the day before.

Relieved, Rey goes on with her life.

Day 389

The first harvest comes around, and Rey is relieved that she made quite a decent sum of money. She will be able to make it until the next season. Maybe she will hire a farmhand next harvest.

The sky darkens on her way back to the farm. Rey hurries, but by the time she gets to the farmstead, the sandstorm is at her heels. She barely manages to jump through the door as the storm engulfs the valley. Rey hurridly shuts all windows, and it is only when she turns the light that she discovers a man sitting at her table.

Ben.

Rey freezes.

He is looking at her as if he is afraid of her as well. How funny, for a ghost to be afraid of a living soul. It reminded Rey of the eyes of the terrified beasts she met in Jakku's desert at night.

Rey's breathing quivers. So does his and she could feel their bond singing again.

But how?

How?

He is dead. She saw him die, and that's why she is alive and breathing now. It's something Rey would never forget until her last breath and even to the world after. He is dead, and she is alive. His ghost never came.

It's an illusion.

Slowly, keeping her eyes on his shade, Rey steps backwards to the light switch and flips it off. The small farmhouse plunges into the darkness. Outside, a sandstorm is rampaging, rattling every window of the house.

Sitting at the table, Ben hears her slow footsteps that drag like a ghost's clothes, until she disappears behind the door of her bedroom.

Day 390

Rey wakes up to the silence. Bright sunlight is leaking through the slit of the tightly closed window by her bed. The room is a mess; everything covered in a thick layer of red dust. Coughing, she gets up and opens the window. Suns are high up in the sky. She overslept.

Reluctantly, she comes out of her room.

It's a quiet morning. She checks the humidity moderator first before heading out of the house to check the vaporators.

And there he is, again, sitting on a chair in the shade by the door, with a mug of Bantha milk ale in his hand, looking at the far horizon. Stunned, Rey stands by the door and looks at his ghost. It's too real, she thinks, as her eyes follow how his black hair dances in the morning wind.

This is Jakku all over again, Rey thinks in horror, before rushing to the vaporators.

This wasn't the first time she saw hallucinations. First were her parents who left her at a dingy inn full of aliens she has never seen before. They began to appear at the corner of her eyes, and always disappeared before she could catch glimpse of them. They grew ever more real. It was when Rey ran away to the desert that they stopped appearing before her.

Not again.

The ghost had not moved an inch when Rey returned. He didn't even look at her. That made her feel relieved. After all, he is a ghost, her mind playing tricks, and it was better not to meet their eyes.

A solitary life on an isolated farm is not an easy one. Rey has to work constantly. There is a house to maintain, and the ancient vaporators that keeps breaking down more often than properly working. There are things to be fixed, things to be done. Rey is thankful that her hands are full.

It's a busy life. Rey carries on and finds that the ghost is gone. Good. Feeling relieved, Rey turns her head back to the spare engine of her old speeder.

Yet she can't stop thinking of when she would see the shade again.

It doesn't take long until she sees him again. When Rey comes back from a night hunt, she finds him again at the end of the yellow headlight of the speeder. He is sitting in the chair again and winces slightly at the bright light. Rey is impressed at her own imagination. Such details, Rey. That’s good. You need it out here.

Rey takes a bunch of small rodents that she caught tonight and heads into the house. The ghost looks shocked by what she has in her hands. He follows Rey into the house and looks at her in such revulsion as she skins the dead creatures.

Day 395

The ghost still lingers. Furious at herself at first, Rey grows accustomed to seeing him around. Sometimes he is far too real that she finds herself muttering something at him, but he is always silent. Rey is disappointed at first for not hearing anything back from him, but then she is soon relieved that the ghost doesn't have a voice.

So Rey begins to talk to him.

"I hope it rains today." Says Rey, looking up at the clear sky.

Of course, it never rains here.

Day 396

Rey dreams less. The only dreams she has these days are nightmares, so it’s a good sign. Looking at the ghost wandering around the courtyard of the farm, Rey thinks that this might not be such a terrible happening for her. It could be worse. A little hallucination won’t kill her, especially when her other half of dyad is gone forever and she has severed her connection with the Force.

But that night, Rey wakes up with a piercing scream. Her hands shake and breathe quivers. And then, there is a gentle hand on her hunched back. Rey jolts and finds a familiar face looking down on her in the dark. His face is clean, a little pale, but without the scar that she left on him. It’s the same face she saw at his last moment. Then, suddenly, she wishes to see his smile once again. Just once, because the first time she saw his smile was before his last breath.

Gently, the ghost pats her back and lies her down on the bed. Rey holds his arm.

“Stay here.”

Stay.

So the ghost gently lies next to her and puts an arm around her waist. Rey feels the warmth on her back, and the gentle weight of his head on top of her own.

Day 397

Rey wakes up alone that morning and ends up spending the whole day in bed.

Day 400

“There isn’t much food left.” Rey says, checking her inventory in the storage. There is some canned and preserved food left, but that won’t be able to sustain her long when sandstorms last for days. The drier season is coming, and she had to be ready for a long hunkering.

“What about water?” Ben’s ghost says.

Startled, Rey looks over her shoulder at him. He is wearing a simple dark grey shirt and dark trousers. Rey notices that his clothes have changed, but she is too surprised to notice it properly.

He spoke. He never spoke since he appeared ten days ago. Rey’s brows are furrowed, thinking that she might be really going mad, but then again, it’s a hallucination. She might be hearing things, and it wasn’t the first time.

“I’ve got enough Bantha milk left in the fridge,” Rey answered. It can’t be too different from talking to myself, she thought, because after all, it’s all in my head.

“Then stock up some batteries.”

Rey nods and heads out. She cries a little on her speeder because his voice is just as she remembers.

Day 401

Rey stocks up food and other necessities because there is a storm forecast. She heard it on her way to Mos Eisley yesterday. The forecast predicted that the storm would last at least thirty days, so Rey buys as much as she can. She even bought a large cover for the vaporators so that the parts won’t be damaged from the fine dust particles.

Now, she is struggling to put those covers on the vaporators by herself. They are tall structures, and Rey is small.

“Why are you not using the force?” Ben’s ghost asks. He is looking at her as if she is a strange animal.

Rey winces. “I don’t want to use it.”

“Why?”

“Because,”

And Rey stops her speech there. Somehow she manages to cover them all, and not one of them fell to the ground. It’s a good sign. Rey is satisfied, but Ben’s ghost purses his lips tight.

Day 402

The storm came in the night. Rey wakes up at the rumbling of distant thunders that crackle in sand clouds like chasms of the sky. There is a faint smell of dry dust and fire in the air.

“…Ben,” Rey whispers.

It only takes a few seconds until the ghost appears at the door of her room. Rey is amazed at her own imagination because he didn’t simply appear out of thin air. He waits there as if he is waiting for her permission. “Come here,” Rey says, and he walks to her bed in barefoot and simple cotton trousers.

“Can’t sleep?”

“Can’t sleep.”

They snuggle together, and as real as it feels, Rey knows that it’s not.

The house is still rattling when Rey wakes up, and she is a little anxious because it is her first storm season in this house. She is not sure how well the house will endure. It has been abandoned for a long time before she moved in.

“It’ll hold.” The ghost said at the small dining table in the living area. He has a plate of dried jerky and dried off-world fruits. Rey thinks it’s strange because she didn’t bring them out last night. Could they be hallucination as well? Or maybe she prepared them herself but her brain purposefully forgot to add credibility in her delusion.

“What will?” Rey asks.

“The house.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“Wait, that wasn’t the right question.” Rey shakes her head, chewing a dried fruit. Ben’s ghost looks at her, confused.

“What’s not right?”

“You’re in my head. I can’t ask how you’d know. I have to ask; how do I know.”

Ben’s ghost stares at her for a while, then burst into laughter. Rey is confused at what her brain is doing, but it is good to hear his laugh, after all.

Rey spends the day fixing the speeder’s broken radar. As there is no need to tend for the vaporators, she had too much time at hand. To kill the boredom she turned the radio on, but all she could hear were white noise.

At night, Rey sat at the table with Ben’s ghost and shared dinner. He ate. Rey wondered where the food he eats would go.

“Ben,”

“Yeah?”

Rey composes herself. “I wish you were really here.” She whispers.

He looks into her eyes and says, “I am.”

Rey looks back at him. There is something in her throat that makes her choke.

Day 411

Rey discovers that the ghost limps a little when he walks around. His steps are slow and steady, like someone unsure when he will fall to the ground. She thinks it is an odd thing to conjure up in her mind. Wouldn’t she want to see him whole? In perfect shape?

But she doesn’t speak it out loud. There is no good in asking such a thing for he only exists in her mind. What would her mind tell her?

“I think the bones didn’t heal right,” Ben said.

It startled Rey. She spun around to face him, and he met her eyes, sprawled on the lounge chair, with a tattered book in his hand.

That’s right, Rey thought, her face turning as white as a ghost in horror, he fell into the pit. I died, and he climbed back up to bring me back. All bones in his body shattered, and yet-

“I’m fine.”

“…Are you?”

“Yes.”

That’s what I would like him to say.

“I am, Rey.”

Rey feels more miserable than ever, yet it’s difficult to turn away from him.

It will get better, Rey tells herself. I will get better. It might fade away in time, or might not. Either is fine.

Day 414

The storm roars outside. The whole house shakes day and night, and the winds howl like gargantuan creatures in terrible pain. It feels like the end of the world, and Rey is frightened. It might collapse on her, and no one would come for help.

“You’re scared.”

Ben speaks. It is more of a statement. Rey keeps her eyes fixed on the little project of her own, an alarm system for the farm perimeter.

“Of course I am,” Rey answers. “If the house collapses on me, what can I do? I got no one to help me here.”

“You’re a Jedi who killed the Palpatine and finished the war, and you’re scared to be caved in?”

“I’m not divine, and I’m wise enough to be afraid of things that I cannot control.”

“Like what?”

“This storm.”

“And?”

Rey looks up from the alarm and stares the ghost. Something is rising from the deep bowels of her guts. That face– that damned face. Rey’s hands shake in the sudden surge of anger.

“Why did you save me?” Rey blurted out. This is silly, she knows, because the answer she will have from the ghost is nothing but an echo of her mind. Yet she said it because she was desperate for an answer.

Why am I alive when you are dead?

Why am I the half of the whole that had to be left behind?

The ghost sits there, silent, and with a grim face as if he is in pain. It feels like her heart is being shattered in a million pieces. She wants an answer, be it a meaningless echo. She had to know.

“Because I saw you dead.” He answers after a long pause.

“…That’s it?” Rey whispers.

“You would have done the same for me.”

Rey purses her lips tight. She would have. They both would have done what he had done on Exegol, without a moment of hesitation, because they were only whole together, and the idea of being left alone without the other one is too terrifying. Trudging on with only one limb with the weight someone’s life was just another name for hell.

“And because… because you are a better person than I am.”

The last part surprises Rey. She looks at his ghost with wide eyes. Her head spins.

Am I? A better person?

Rey gets on her feet at once and goes to her room. The door slams behind her.

What good is it when something is left broken to limp around the rest of its life? That’s how Rey has been feeling since the day on Exegol. She knew when she first saw Ben that he was the reason why she was uprooted from the desert of Jakku and got flung to the other end of the galaxy. It was a steadfast certainty that settled in her like an undying light. She has seen the future, the future where Kylo Ren sheds his dark shrouds and takes her hand. Now she wishes that she had never seen it when she did. She would have done everything that she did for the resistance and her friends, and yet, she wishes that she has never said what she said to Kylo that day. Would that have kept you where you were? Would you still be alive and well?

I doubt it.

Ben said, or it might have been Rey’s mind telling herself again.

Why, because I’m a better person than you are?

Standing in the middle of her room, Rey stares at the dirt wall. She blinks. The storm is deafening outside — the dim light flickers, casting many shadows before her.

A knock on the door.

“Rey, may I come in?” Ben’s voice asks.

Rey can’t believe it. This is getting too much. She is so angry at herself for making all these up in her head. It’s nothing but for her consolation. All so childish and naïve. He is not here, he is dead, and the weight of his life is on her shoulders now. She has to limp forward with his shade for the rest of her time.

“No, this is getting out of hand.” Rey murmurs, setting her jaws. When she reopens her eyes, they are as fierce as a falcon’s. “Begone! I will not see you anymore. You’re his shade, and you’re not real. I’m tired of talking to myself. I won’t do it anymore.”

“Rey, I’m here.” His voice says again from the other side of the door.

“No, you’re not. Begone, and never appear before my eyes.”

 Something shifts behind the door, like someone is standing behind it, anxiously shifting his position.

“Rey, I can do that if that’s what you wish.”

“It is!”

“But promise me that you will leave here once the storm is gone.”

“Begone!”

“This place is a graveyard. I gave you my life because I wanted you to live, not to bury yourself with the ghosts of the past. Rey, you have to leave here. Get out of Tatooine, go somewhere else. Go somewhere else, anywhere. Anywhere but here.”

“BEGONE!”

Day 427

The storm passes. The sky clears for a few hours before menacing clouds rush into the valley. The rain came to cleanse everything.

The ghost is gone, and Rey is left alone in the deafening silence of rain. She looks around the farmhouse, loads whatever is left in the storage to Millennium Falcon and takes off.

She doesn’t realise that one of the lightsabers she buried are gone.

Day 500

Rey visits her friends who are busy rebuilding the galaxy. It is good to see their faces, but something is not the same as before. They ask her to stay with them, but Rey leaves them with a simple goodbye.

Nothing is the same.

 Day 731

Rey can’t decide whether landing in Batuu in its summer season or leading a life of bounty hunter is a more foolish idea. She had no immunity against the suffocating humidity and heat. Panting, Rey steps into a cantina. The air is a little stuffy here as well, but at least it’s cooler. Tang of unwashed bodies and sour ales sting her nose. Rey sits down at the bar and orders a cold drink.

The bartender serves her a drink and goes back to her business. Rey looks around the cantina. It’s a usual scene, rogues and smugglers lurking around with dark eyes and questionable attitudes. Some are conducting business in corner tables, murmuring in languages that Rey doesn’t understand.

People rarely recognise her. A small human girl is often overlooked, and Rey is thankful for that.

Rey sits in the corner and sips her drink. And her comlink comes online.

“Hey Rey, you’re still in Batuu, right?” Rose asks over the comlink.

“Yes, I’m in a cantina.”

“In a cantina?”

“A girl gotta have a drink once in a while, Rose.”

“Well, I wasn’t trying to say- alright, listen, we’ve got intelligence on a remaining First Order base on that planet.”

“A First Order base?”

“Yes, and it seems like they found some sort of artefact.”

“For what?”

“We don’t know yet, but it just can’t be a good thing for us. Can you get in there and take the artefact to our base?”

“I can, but-,”

“The base is approximately 20 km northeast of the outpost. We don’t know the specifics about the artefact, but we suspect it will look very ancient.”

“Okay, but Rose-,”

“I know, you are a bounty hunter, not a treasure hunter, but you can do it, right?”

At this point, Rey knows that she can’t say no.

That’s when someone begins to brawl in the tavern. Comlink goes silent, and Rey spins her head around and sees a man in dark hood being punched around by a group of Quarren smugglers like a sandbag. He managed to land a few blows on them, taking a couple of them down on the ground, but there were too many of them. The Quarrens encircled the man and took him down on the ground, straining him. One of them got up and took a blaster out.

No, that’s too much. Rey was ready to sneak out of the cantina because she couldn’t afford to break every single brawl she sees in a cantina, but murder was a different story. That man might not be an innocent soul, but it still irked her conscience. Rey got onto her feet to take the blaster away using her force.

And then, one of the Quarren took the man’s hood off.

Rey’s heart skipped.

“Ben?” She cried.

The Quarrens’ head spun to Rey. Then it was Ben who saw her. “Rey?”

The one with the blaster points it towards Rey. That instant, Rey stretches her arms and pushes the Quarren over, sending him crashing into the tables behind him. Mayhem ensues. The other Quarrens gets up to attack her, and Ben leaps onto his feet and runs towards her.

“We have to get out of here!” He yells, grabbing her wrist, and both of them starts to run.

They stop only when the outpost is out of their sight, and the sounds of the jungle are thick around them. Both are a heaving mess by the time they hide in the lush greens.

Rey sits under a wide-leaved bush, panting, and tries to make sense of things. She looks at the man sitting next to her, his chest heaving and face flushed. Then she pinches herself hard on her arm, only to yelp at the pain. Ben gives her a shot of a strange look.

This is not a dream. Or her mind playing tricks.

“Who are you?” Rey asks, her voice confused and scared.

Ben runs a hand over his face and snaps at her. “I think you know the answer, Rey.”

“But you’re dead!”

“I was.”

“Look, mister, that’s not how death works.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Ben hissed through his gritted teeth.

Looking around to make sure that no one is still following them, he got up and offered a hand to her. Still perplex, Rey took his hand and got up. Ben looks very annoyed.

“I told you to get out of Tatooine, but Batuu? Why did you have to come here out of all places in the galaxy?”

“What?” Rey answers, thunderstruck.

Then it clicks. Rey stands there, her eyes shaking.

He was there, he was real. He was on Tatooine, in flesh and blood, with her. At the farm.

He was there.

Rey’s face turns bright red in rage.

He was there with me for a whole month, and he never tried to convince her that he was really him.

“You-!”

“Yeah, that was me, not a ghost that you conjured up with your mind.”

“How dare you-!”

“’How dare me’ what? Do you think I wasn’t confused?”

“You should have told me!”

“Rey, it was you who treated me like a damned ghost.”

“BECAUSE I SAW YOU DEAD!”

Rey doesn’t even realise that she is crying. She thinks Ben is suddenly nervous at her.

For a while, Ben glares at her and then turns around to walk into the deeper jungle. Startled, Rey raises her head and yells at his back. “Where are you going?”

“Come, we can’t stay here.”

“I said, where are you going?”

“Somewhere safer than here.”

Rey wipes her tears off with her sleeve. “Then you’d better follow me, idiot.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve parked the Falcon nearby.”

Ben’s face twitches, but Rey ignores it.

They sit by a small bonfire set in front of the Falcon. Rey parked it in a clearing just a few kilometres out of the city. It’s a quiet night, with few stars dotting the sky. Ben looks into the dancing flames. His face glows in the warm light. Rey watches the way his black eyes reflect the fire and hands him a mug of ale.

“Explain,” Rey demands.

“You kissed me, I died, and I woke up again at the farm,” Ben says without pausing. It’s like he has prepared this a million times in his head.

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“But there gotta be a reason-,”

“Rey,” Ben says, quietly, looking into her eyes. “I’m just as confused as you are.”

They both fall silent. Rey couldn’t answer that herself.

Then, she sees the lightsaber on his belt.

“…So you were real.”

“I still am.”

“Was that you standing by the vaporator when I first saw you on the speeder?”

“Yes.”

I probably saw you first. Ben mumbles, smiling, but he doesn’t talk about how he felt at that time, standing in the endlessly stretched wasteland, watching her slowly approaching him on a speeder. He still remembers the way her hair blew behind her like the tail of a comet. A proof that he was still orbiting around her.

My sun and stars.

He will keep everything to himself, he decides. Even the long hours that he spent sitting by the door of the house, sipping on the sour milk ale, watching the twin sunset, or how the bone-chilling shrills that Rey woke up with at countless nights pierced his hearts like a thousand blades. He saw the way she limped around the house like someone who has buried herself alive before her time.

“…You shouldn’t have done that.” Rey says softly, and they both know what it meant.

Ben carefully rolls the words on his tongue. Every one of them tastes bitter. When he left the farmhouse, he felt that he has been wronged. He was bitter and angry and wished that he would be swept away by the sandstorm. It took him weeks to find his way off Tatooine.

“I couldn’t bear the thought.”

“What, the thought of being left alone?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think I would have taken it any easier than you?”

“That’s what I’ve hoped for.”

“Well, I didn’t.” Rey snapped.

Ben waves his hand in the air dismissively. This is unjust. “I’m not going to apologise for saving your life, Rey.”

Rey gets on her feet and opens her mouth wide to bring up some kind of argument, but she doesn’t finish what she has to say. A group of shadows jump out of the jungle and charge at them. Ben jumps up and reaches for his lightsaber.

“Ben!”

Rey cries, but she is knocked off unconscious.

Rey wakes up with a splitting headache. She whimpers and realises that she is not alone.

“You alright?” Ben asks.

They are in a small, dark room, only lit with pale blue lights in the corners. It’s quiet but spacious, clean and almost luxurious compared to the dingy places that Rey had to sleep in the past few weeks or the personal quarters in the Falcon.

“Where are we?” Rey groans.

“At a rebel base.”

“What?”

“The remaining First Order troops. Seems like they have been holed up here for a while.”

Rey remembers that Rose has asked her to infiltrate an imperial camp on Batuu. Then she begins to wonder why Ben is on Batuu as well. She recalls what he was wearing before he got changed into his current attire. He was in a simple shirt and trousers and wearing a belt with many small pouches and holsters for blasters and his lightsaber. If she didn’t know him already, she would have thought him a smuggler of some sort.

“Okay, but what’s with this room?”

“Some don’t know that I died,” Ben answers quietly. He is wearing new clothes, all in black, like something he would have worn before. Rey feels a pang of anxiety but decides to swallow it.

Then, a question comes into her mind. It’s something that she should have asked at their first meeting in the cantina.

“Ben, why are you on Batuu?”

“I don’t think this is an appropriate place or time to have this conversation.”

“Just answer me.”

With a sigh, Ben leans against the wall. “I’ve been travelling around to check the First Order bases that I could remember. If they were still garrisoned there, I reported to your friends through anonymous channels.”

Rey was confused. “You are providing them intel.”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“I had to do something with my time since you have kicked me out.” He glances at her as if to check her reaction. And Rey can read the unspoken words between his words and gaze. Redemption. “What about you?”

“This is not the right time-,” Rey retorts, only to meet Ben’s raised brows. She clears her throat and murmurs. “I’ve been bounty hunting.”

“Bounty hunting.”

“Yeah.”

Ben laughs. It is such a clear sound that it surprises Rey. Then she realises that she had never heard his laugh, except for that one time when she mistook him as a ghost of her mind on Tatooine.

“So Rey the Last Jedi is a full-time bounty hunter.”

“Hey, you don’t get to say that, Mr Spy. Honestly, do you think you even qualify as a spy? With that height? Everyone’s going to recognise you everywhere.”

“Well, at least I’m no Jedi.”

“Oh, I beg of your pardon, Supreme Leader.” Rey sneers and sits up. She waves her bound wrists at him, and Ben unlocks the cuff. “Alright, we need to get out of here and get the artefact.”

Ben tilts his head. “Artefact? What artefact?”

“Obviously the Republic operatives received intelligence about some sort of artefact here. The remaining First Order force in this base is trying to use it.”

Ben looks mildly puzzled. “That’s not what I have told them.”

“I suppose you can’t be the only spy they have,” Rey answers, massaging her wrists. “My weapons?”

Ben hands her blaster and lightsaber and stops Rey before she kicks the door down and bursts out.

“Wait,”

“What?”

“I don’t suppose you know how to get around the base.”

Rey turns on her heels and cringes at him. “So?”

“I’ve got an idea.”

Whatever he has in mind, Rey has a bad feeling about it.

There is no kriffing doubt that Ben has Solo’s blood in his veins, Rey thinks.

The base is nestled in a small valley nearby the outpost, snugly hidden in the waving trees. It has all the features of the once-glorious First Order scale, but since the annihilation of the Empire, evidently, its inhabitants have been struggling to maintain the facilities. The quarter they gave to Ben is clean and well-kept, but the rest of the base is not.

“Please forgive me, Supreme Leader,” an officer says in shaking voice. “The way my subordinates treated you-,”

“I will ask your accountability at a later time, captain,” Ben grumbles.

He looks so perfectly like the Kylo Ren that Rey had seen before that if she didn’t know his change, she would have been fooled just like the poor captain who is currently getting drenched in his own sweat.

“I need a full report on your activities including the artefact,” Ben says.

The captain’s face is instantly riddled with puzzlement, but regardless, he gives him a briefing.

It was one of the operational outposts in the outer rim. Since the fall of the Empire, the Resistance forces settled on the planet, and most of the First Order forces were apprehended. The remaining First Order officers and troops gathered in the last base and have been trying to lay low until they received contact from other remaining forces in the galaxy. And while trying to communicate with the other troops, they found something deep within the jungle. It was an ancient thing, resembling a small wheel carved out of dark green stone. No one knew what it was, but the soldiers who recovered it from its original place have since been in a state of complete catatonia. Anyone who touches it with bare hands ended up in the same state as well.

“It’s in here, sir. We have kept it in isolation to prevent further accidents.” The officer leads him to a dark room where at the centre of the room is a simple glass. On top of it is a small, round thing with a glossy surface. It looks like a wheel carved out of dark green stone, with so many inscriptions that Ben has never seen before.

Ben steps into the room and the door slams shut.

Instantly he turns around, but the door is locked. This can’t be good. Ben’s stomach drops, but he manages to continue his act.

“What is the meaning of this, captain?”

“You think you have fooled us, spy?” The captain laughs behind the door. “We know you are a Resistance spy, scum. I don’t know how you got that appearance, but no matter. You will pay for what you’ve done.”

Then he walks away. Hearing the footstep moves away from the door, Ben is utterly astounded that he has been fooled by that half-witted officer. He curses under his breath and summons the bond.

…Rey.

Ben calls. And after a short pause, her voice echoes.

You’ve been caught.

Well, it seems like it.

Right. Don’t worry. I’ve got it.

Before Ben could ask how the door burst open with a loud bang, and Rey is standing there, in an officer’s uniform. Ben peaks out and sees that officer lying on the floor.

“I told you to stay hidden,” Ben hisses.

“Well, you’re welcome.” Rey rolls her eyes and points the artefact with her chin. The alarms start to blare with loud sirens, and Ben quickly wraps the object with his jacket and shoves it into a satchel that Rey has brought with her. And just as they are out of the chamber, stormtroopers begin to pour out of one end of the corridor.

“Go, go!”

 They run and somehow get to Millennium Falcon which is parked just in the yard of the base, with its loading door wide open. A couple of First Order soldiers hurriedly jump out of the ship, but Rey just swings them out with her Force. Ben follows her in, and as soon as she disappears into the cockpit, he stays behind and covers her. Blaster bullets rain on him, and he stretches his arm, grits his teeth, and musters all his strength to stop them mid-air. Blaster rays freeze before they hit the Falcon. The loading doors close as the ship begins to take off.

While the stormtroopers stand there dazed, the Falcon soars up and disappears into the night sky.

Rey comes out of the cockpit once they are out of orbit. Ben is huffing and puffing on the floor of the loading bay, with the satchel carelessly lumped beside. Laughing, Rey flops down next to him. When Ben sees her, her face is flushed red in excitement. She smiles, and so does he. They sit together in the cargo bay and start to giggle like a bunch of teenagers.

"So, what now?" Ben asks.

"I've got to take that to Rose."

"And hand me in as well?"

Frowning, Rey’s face turns serious. "I don't think so."

Ben is silent for a moment. It has been almost a year since he has left Tatooine. Nearly a year and a half since he came back to life. He tried to look for the reason at first, thinking that it is some sort of punishment for all his wrongdoings.

I had done my part, he wailed, why am I here?

No one answered. So he had to find the answer himself, but the only thing he discovered, in the end, was that it is pointless to seek for a reason. He was here, and he was alive, so he went back to her.

Then he ran away again because there were only two options for him; to exist as her ghost or a monster. He couldn’t bear to be either.

"I pretended to be a ghost because I was afraid, Rey.” Softly, he confessed. “I was afraid because I knew that when I'm myself again, a human with flesh and bone, I will have to pay the price for what I've done in the past-."

"You gave me your life,"

"Because I wanted to run away."

"And yet, here you are."

Rey's eyes soften, and it makes Ben’s shoulders to slump down. All tension melts away.

"…And yet here I am." He softly whispers.

"So you're coming with me."

"I don't think I deserve this-,"

Rey stands up on her feet. Her head blocks the pale light of the cargo bay, casting her shadow on Ben, and he thinks it’s her halo.

"Perhaps you're right, Ben. You messed up so many things, destroyed so many lives and created so much pain, so maybe you don’t deserve this." Rey says sternly. Then she extends her hand to him. "But I say I deserve this, and that means you're coming with me. Do you understand? You're coming with me."

It's a small hand, ridiculously small compared to his. Be looks at her again and find himself unable to break his gaze.

“And you’ll stab me with your lightsaber to make a hole in my belly if I get out of line?”

“Yes. And then I’ll drag your sorry ass back to me.”

“And make another one if I muck up again?”

“Must I keep repeating myself? This is getting old.”

With a nervous laugh, Ben takes her hand.

Epilogue

Death was like sleep, and Ben couldn’t recall when it was the last time he slept in peace. Ever since Luke robbed of him his sleep, his rest scattered like hollow stars. So when he felt Rey’s kiss on his lips, he was relieved, and let death overtake him.

He shifted in the Force like a brittle leaf on a current. The power gently carried him forward and backward at the same time. Finally, he thought, some rest.

Then he began to hear some voices. They were familiar, and yet he couldn’t lift his eyelids.

“Are you going to get up anytime soon, kid?” Luke asked.

Groaning in irritation, Ben stirred in his sleep. It was just like the early days of his training when Luke had to come to his quarters to wake him up every morning.

“Get lost,” Ben murmured, “I’m trying to catch up on my sleep.”

“Look at your son, Leia, this sleepyhead hasn’t changed a bit.” Luke huffed.

“As I said, Luke, I don’t know where his genes came from.” Leia’s voice answered on the other side.

Ben tossed and turned, annoyed by their voices. “Get out, let me rest.”

Both of them laughed.

“Oh, no, young man. You haven’t done anything yet.”

“Destroying countless lives qualifies as ‘not doing anything’?”

“It doesn’t, but we’re not talking about that. You got things to do, kid, so get your lazy ass out there.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ben turns his head to shut them up, but all he can see is a barren wasteland.

Dry winds whip through his hair. The twin suns are setting. One of them is just about to disappear under the horizon, and someone is coming from the dying light of the orange suns. At first, it’s a black dot, but as the rider gets closer to him, he slowly recognises her face.

Rey.

He wants to call out her name, but it’s stuck like a small pebble in his throat.

She slows her speeder. It seems like she has seen him. She draws a blaster out, and slowly approaches him while pointing it at him. Ben holds his breath.

“…Ben?”

Rey whispers. Ben stares at her like a ghost.

This can’t be real, a voice tells him. You are dead and she is alive. You left her and chose to slumber.

It feels like an eternity. But soon, fear blooms in Rey’s expression, and bit by bit, she walks towards the farmhouse and disappears into it.

Ben is left alone in the blowing wind. He stands there for a long while before he walks away.

At first, he believed that it is some sort of limbo that he is condemned to for a short lifetime of violence and anger. He can accept it, and it has been more than kind to let him see Rey. But then, as he trudges through the scorching wasteland, something begins to vex him.

The Force is no god with vengeful intention. It’s the way things are, not something that purposely punishes or rewards sentient beings. He died. He chose to lose his conscience in it, to exist as an unidentifiable particle in its current. Then why is he seeing these?

Hours later, Ben reaches a settlement. It’s Mos Eisley. He sees people walking and talking and vividly alive. There are speeders racing up and down the streets and ships flying above his head.

He narrows his eyes.

Was I always this creative?

It takes him a couple more weeks to realise that he actually is alive. Ben feels hunger and lethargy, which he has almost forgotten. He heard the news of the new Republican government and the stories of the heroic Resistance forces. He heard people singing and praising Rey the Last Jedi, the one who saved the galaxy. It was real.

He was alive.

When the realisation crashes down on him, he immediately thinks of Rey, Rey who looked withered and lonely in that graveyard of the old farmhouse where Luke lived, and it scares him to death. He leaves Tatooine on a freight ship, working his way to the nearest system, and then a month later he comes back to the bleak planet like a tide pulled by the moon.

He had to drink a considerable amount of liquor to bring himself to Rey’s farmhouse. Luckily she was not there when he arrived, and the door was open. Carefully he entered, walked around the house, and sat by the table.

By the afternoon, a sandstorm engulfed the farm. He shut the door and came back in. The silence was petrifying, so he began to drink. When he was out of the liquor, he just sat there in silence, terrified to no end.

And Rey came in.

He knew the way Rey saw him. She saw him as a ghost, a shade that doesn’t exist here. Without uttering a word, she slowly walked backwards, her eyes still fixed on him, as if she was afraid to see him disappear. Then she flicked the light off. Everything went dark.

The next morning, he wakes up with one of the worst hangovers in his life. He walks out of the house and sits on the chair next to the door. The dawn breaks. He goes back into the house to go through the pantry for food. He finds flatbreads and that disgusting Bantha milk ale. He takes them and goes outside again. He sits in the chair, and wait for Rey to come out, still not knowing what to say or do to her when she sees him again.

It takes a while for Rey to come out. She sees him, and her eyes widen again in bewilderment, but she composes herself and checks the vaporators. She stays there for a long while. It is more than obvious that she is trying not to see him. Ben walks away with the mug of ale in his hand, and walks to the other side of the house, and begins to walk.

He had to sober up; that was his excuse for the ridiculously long walk. When he gets back Rey is not there again, and her speeder is gone.

She comes back later at night, and Ben is waiting for her just outside of the door. He is relieved to see the yellow lights of the speeder but soon is horrified to see a bunch of dead rodents hanging by the vehicle. Rey walks past him and begins to gut the things inside the workshop. He watches her in repulsion.

Ben doesn't need to use his Force to know that Rey is in a foul mood because of his unannounced appearance. He still hasn't spoken a word to her. Somehow he forgot how to talk or to make any sounds.

It takes a few days for Rey to speak to him. It's more like she is talking to herself, not to him. Regardless, it feels like rain in the desert to him.

"I hope it rains today," says Rey, looking up at the clear night sky.

Ben wishes he could make rain.

Sometimes he comes into her room at night and watches her sleeping. He just sits there in the dark, because he hears her terrified screams at night.

And again that night, she wakes up with a painful cry.

Rey bolts upright, and her black eyes darts around. Her hands frantically fumble on the blanket as if she is trying to find something. Immediately, Ben stands up and reaches for her. He covers her cold, sweaty nape with the palm of his hand. She jolts. Ben faces her fearful eyes. Slowly she relaxes, and he puts her back to bed. Her body is pliant.

"Stay here."

Rey holds Ben's arm. He holds his breath. His heart skips a beat, and he feels their bond singing. His heart sings.

Stay.

Carefully, he lies next to her and puts an arm around her waist. She's too thin, too thin, he thinks, and it makes him almost sob. He puts cheek on her crown. And they sleep.

He couldn’t sleep at all that night. When the storm began to pass in the morning, he slipped out of bed and took another long walk.

Rey doesn't come out of her room all day.

A couple of days later, Rey seems to be okay again. She keeps herself busy all day, and Ben just follows her around like her dutiful shadow.

"There isn't much food left," Rey says.

What made him speak he doesn't know to this day. But he did say, "What about water?"

Rey's head turns. She just looks at him before she says, "I've got enough Bantha milk left in the fridge."

The second time is much easier. "Then stock up some batteries."

Rey nods and leaves the house.

Ben waits for her in an empty house, hoping that he didn't scare her away for good.

Thank Stars, she is back by that evening.

The next day, Ben watches Rey as she struggles to put covers on the tall vaporators while trying not to tip them over. He wants to go over to her and help her out because her figure is so small.

He was sleeping on the lounge chair when Rey called him.

"...Ben,"

His eyes fly open at the whisper of his name. He gets up, and in barefoot, he quietly walks to her room. The door is ajar. Rey is sitting against the headboard, waiting for him. Her hair is flowing down on her bare shoulders, and Ben is speechless.

It takes a while for him to speak.

"Can't sleep?" He finally manages.

There is a faint smile on her lips. "Can't sleep." She answers.

"Ben,"

"Yeah?"

Patiently, Ben waits for her. Rey's face is full of pain. "I wish you were really here."

"I am." He answers softly.

Ben realises that Rey is looking at his legs intently. He is aware that somehow his legs are not the same as before. It felt like every part of his body is broken in some way, like an android that has been neglected for a very long time. Perhaps he had aged a thousand years before coming back to this realm. Or his could be a natural result of healing which would have followed his fatal fall should he survived at that time.

"I think the bones didn't heal right," He says, lying on the lounge chair. He tried his best to make it sound light, but Rey's face turns as white as a sheet. "I'm fine." He quickly adds.

"...Are you?" Rey asks, her voice faltering.

"Yes." Ben answers, "I am, Rey."

That's the truth. He is fine. Everything is fine. She is alive, and that's the only thing that matters. It's the only true thing in his universe like stars burning bright, and planets orbiting around them.

"What did you save me?"

That's why Ben doesn't expect to hear such contempt in her voice when she asks him the question. He has no other but one logical reason that could explain his action.

"Because I saw you dead." He answers.

Rey's face crumbles. "...That's it?"

"You would have done the same for me."

Wouldn't you? That's the truth, and Ben knows that Rey knows it as well. They fall into silence, and Ben watches Rey falling deeper into despair.

Something clots in his belly.

"And because... because you are a better person than I am."

And somehow, that just tips her over.

Rey marches into her room, her face as red as the desert, and the door slams shut.

"Begone, and never appear before my eyes."

Rey wails.

Ben fists his hand on the door and leans his forehead against it. He swallows thick and manages to not choke on his words.

"Rey, I can do that if that's what you really wish."

"It is!"

"But promise me that you will leave here once the storm is gone."

"Begone!"

Rey's desperate cry dashes through the wooden door and pierces his heart. The ground collapses beneath his feet, or at least it feels like it. He wants to leave and throw himself into the raging sandstorm outside. But his feet are rooted there, just before her door.

"This place is a graveyard. I gave you my life because I wanted you to live, not to bury yourself with the ghosts of the past. Rey, you have to leave here. Get out of Tatooine, go somewhere else. Go somewhere else, anywhere. Anywhere but here."

"BEGONE!"

And with her sobbing cry on his back, he flies, hopelessly blinded in heartbreak, not caring which direction he takes.

The next day, it rains in that barren wasteland. It's a miracle that he finds his way off Tatooine.

He wanders the outer rim, and he never counts the passing of each day.

"Ben?"

He doesn't believe what his ears hear in a dingy little cantina on Batuu. But when he turned his head around, there she is, dressed like a damned bounty hunter.

"Rey?"