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“I am no blank slate for love to write on.
My heart has walls marred with cracks,
bloodstains, and bullet holes”
-John Mark Green
The sky was falling.
She’d been here before, waking with every muscle aching, breathing in the acrid stench of ash and ozone as tumbling debris crashed around her. But this time her heart didn’t ache from betrayal. This time she was safe.
Ben - and it really was Ben this time - had come to her.
Up above, laser blasts were ripping across the sky and ships were screeching into oblivion. The fight was not over. She needed to join it… in just a moment more. She was exhausted, after channelling all the Force flowing through all the Jedi, but she could already feel her strength returning.
Just a moment more.
Just a moment more, and they could get out of here. Together.
His arm was curled around her, his hand warm on her belly. She squeezed it, reaching for his strengthening signature in the Force. But he wasn’t getting stronger.
No!
She flung off his hand, scrambled to her knees and leaned over him. He opened his eyes, and smiled. She’d never seen him smile before. Not truly, not free of the shadows that haunted him. It was a smile with no guile and no self-regard, but simply joy at being alive and together.
She felt it too.
She took his head in her hands. Her lips found his. The bond between them thrummed. But then he slumped, his smile fading.
She shook him. “Stay with me, Ben.”
He smiled again, and this time it was tinged with sadness. “It’s okay. I didn’t expect to make it out of here when I came after you. You live, Rey. That’s what’s important.”
“No! You told me I wasn’t alone! Don’t you dare leave me now!”
But he was fading, fading, and in desperation she laid her hand over his heart to return to him the life energy he’d poured into her. And then she felt another hand on hers, another faint and fading presence in the Force, too weak for words as her mentor sent the last remnants of a mother’s love across the void to save her son.
And then Leia was gone, but Ben was still with her.
Rey could barely stand as she rummaged through the cabinets in the darkened lab, searching for something recognisable and safe amid the jars of viscous fluid and powders that had fed the Emperor’s resurrection. She stumbled back to Ben with something she hoped was simple bactade, and cradled his head on her lap as she fed it to him. His eyelids fluttered; he opened his eyes. Smiled, and fell into slumber.
She sipped from the bottle as he slept and the regenerative medicine pulled him back from the edge of death. She pushed his hair from his cheek, let her fingers linger against his skin. He looked so vulnerable now - had he looked like this when Luke had almost killed him, years before? Or had the darkness in him shown on the surface in those days?
And if it had not, could she be sure it was really absent now? She couldn’t sense anything dark through their connection, but what if it was just showing her what she wanted to see?
Hours passed. The battle above quietened. They did not have much time now.
His eyes were open, she realised. Suddenly she felt self-conscious.
She lifted her hand from his hair. “Hi.”
And there was that glorious smile again, so unlike the cracked mask that had hunted her across the galaxy. “Hi,” he said.
And what could she say, after everything that had happened? Something in her glowed, knowing he had come to her. The part of her that had pitied him wanted to cry. Another part was terrified that she would lose him again. It was easier to let all that pulse between them in the Force, and focus her mind elsewhere.
“We need to get out her here,” she said. She helped him to sit up, then got to her feet.
He stood and looked around, dazed. And she was struck again by how tall he was, how broad. But he was all gentleness now.
“Rey.” He looked utterly lost. “Where will I go?”
Those four words contained so many questions, and Rey had pondered them all as she waited for him to wake. But now was not the time. “Ahch-To,” she said. “Take the X-Wing; no-one will stop you in that. You’ll find the route in the navicomputer.”
“And… you...?”
“I need to find out what’s gone on up there, and find my friends” she said. “They’ll be expecting me. But I’ll join you when I can.”
His shoulders slumped.
She placed her hand over his heart. “It’s not as if we’ll really be apart,” she said. “And it will be easier when we’re not trying to block the connection.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You mean, when you're not trying to block the connection.”
For a moment his eyes shone with the old intensity. She looked away.
“Go, Ben,” she said. “I’ll see you soon. And may the Force be with you.”
Ben recognised the island as soon as he saw it. It hadn’t crossed his mind, when he’d pulled the image from her mind back on Starkiller, that one day she would willingly share the place with him.
But he couldn’t dwell on that, on any of it.
There was only one possible landing site; he set the old X-wing down there, beside a burnt-out shell he refused to identify. He cracked the canopy and closed his eyes, breathing in the briny air as the whine of the engines gave way to silence.
Real silence. For the first time he could remember, there were no insinuating whispers snaking through his mind. The voice he’d spent his life clinging to, respecting, resenting and fighting was gone.
He was elated that it was gone, no question of that. But it left a hole he didn’t know how to fill.
He unfolded himself from the cockpit and trudged towards the stone stairs.
The steps were steep, and Ben was still exhausted from the battle and the hours he’d spent squeezed into the rattling X-wing. It wasn’t long before he had to stop, leaning against the grassy bank that overhung the path. Something - several somethings - had burrowed into the damp soil and he could hear a quiet chirruping from within. The peaty scent of the earth mingled with the salt in the wind.
He observed this incuriously. He was too tired for thought.
He had arrived in late afternoon, and the planet’s twin suns were sinking towards the sea, turning the wisps of cloud a deep pink. He pushed on, wanting to find the stone village before the light faded.
The gap in the simple stone wall was not the entrance he’d expected. He’d explored many a Jedi temple with Luke, and getting in had usually required Luke to demonstrate his command of the Force, or for Master and Apprentice to demonstrate their bond by entering together. Here there were no stone pyramids grinding up from the ground, no mazes to navigate, no illusions to dispel. Here there was only a wall, and a desire to enter.
Perhaps traversing light years and oceans and stairs was enough evidence of one’s commitment.
The design of the stone huts themselves was more familiar, though these were huddled closer together than the one he had occupied… before. They were weathered to a dark grey, though one had some lighter patches, as if it had been taken apart and reassembled. Inside it, a fire was burning.
“Hello?”
His call was answered only by screeching birds.
Inside the hut there was a rough-woven bedroll on a low platform. He unfolded a blanket and sat with his head against the curved stone wall. If the fire and the simple bed were meant for anyone other than him he would find out soon enough. He closed his eyes and listened to the firewood spitting as it burned.
For the first time since he could remember, he was on his own. No-one was tracking him, or spying on him, or expecting him to be somewhere or someone other than he was.
But when he opened his eyes, there was someone watching him. Someone of a squat species he’d never seen before, with the feet of a bird and a fish-like head and wide, prominent eyes. She blinked and scurried off. A few minutes later she scuttled inside and placed a steaming bowl of something pungent beside the fire.
He sat up. It had been a long time since he’d needed to recall his mother’s instructions for how to show respect for a thousand and one different species. Being Ben felt like learning to walk again.
He thanked her in Basic and dredged up some gestures he hoped were polite enough. She pointed at the walls, wagged a finger at him and left.
The fishy stew was surprisingly tasty and entirely free of the synthetic aftertaste that he’d been used to from First Order kitchens. He savoured every mouthful, as he stared into the dancing flames.
Was this where Rey had sat when he had seen her with the fire glow lighting her face? When their hands had touched for the first time? When he had felt that someone had understood him for the first time in his life?
He wished she was there now. He hoped she had made it off Exegol safely. If she had, he supposed they’d all be partying now. Celebrating the defeat of the cause he’d served - he’d led - for the last few years.
He couldn’t blame her for not coming to him now. She’d said that she wanted to take his hand, Ben’s hand. But what did he have to give her? A Force connection that neither of them had chosen? On one level he knew everything about her, but on another he knew nothing. What made her laugh?
What made him laugh?
He was still watching the fire when he finally gave into his exhaustion.
It was bright when he awoke. There was no sign of his hostess from the night before, but beside the smouldering fire was a plate of fish and something that looked like bread and smelled of seaweed. He ate it all and stumbled out into the light.
What was he supposed to do now? He’d been the son of a Senator, the Apprentice to two opposing masters, his daily routines ever dictated by the conventions of temple and then military life. Sometimes he’d been too busy to think; always he’d had to guard his thoughts to carve out the smallest space for himself. Now all he had were his thoughts.
Perhaps that was the point of this place.
Luke had exiled himself here. Obi-Wan Kenobi had hidden away after the fall of the Jedi. Maybe he finally had something in common with his namesake.
He climbed up to the highest point of the island. Even the temple here was simple - just a rough-hewn cave, the only adornment a curious stone mosaic set into the floor. A seated figure, radiating calm, light and dark intertwined and balanced. No sign here of the shining light surrounded by wings that had adorned every other Jedi temple and artefact he’d seen.
An open doorway led to a rock perched high above the sea. He climbed onto it and closed his eyes, letting the wind blow through his hair, his mind, his heart.
The sound of wind and bird cries faded, giving way to a connection more solid than the rock he was perched on. He felt Rey’s hand on his shoulder, and his heart leapt. He leaned back. For a moment she tensed, and then her other arm slid around to embrace him from behind.
A stray hair that wasn’t his brushed his cheek.
“I can see your surroundings,” she said in wonder. “I liked to come up here too.”
Where are you?, he wanted to ask, but didn’t. He had pursued her across the galaxy with that question, and now, when there was no reason for her to fear answering, he was reluctant to remind her.
“What is this place?” he asked instead. “It doesn’t look like any Jedi temple I’ve ever seen.”
She paused before responding. “When I first came here,” she said, “Luke told me that the Jedi should end. I thought he was just trying to drive me away, but later… You saw the figure in the temple?”
“Yes.”
“When I grew up, the Jedi were just a myth. Warriors with swords of light who would swoop down and make everything better. But Luke said that they forgot about balance. Even his own master told him that fear led to the dark side, but at the same time they taught themselves to fear the dark.”
Ben scowled. “I wish he’d come to that conclusion earlier. He wouldn't even let me ask him about the dark side.”
Rey was silent for a minute. And then, “I’m not sure he ever came to terms with it. He was furious when I went down to the cave. He said I was pulled to the dark, that I should have resisted it. But the cave is part of the island.”
They were quiet then, watching the birds wheeling and diving until their screeches became louder and Rey faded away.
Ben went back and crouched beside the mosaic. The original Jedi, aware of the light and dark in him and at peace with it all. The dark cave was the balance to the bright mountain, he realised. The temple was not this room: the temple was the whole island, with the huts poised between the light and the dark.
It was time for him to visit the cave.
The party was well and truly over. Half the survivors of the attack on Exegol had already departed, reluctanct to leave their home systems undefended. Of the rest, some were remaining to secure the sector while the Sith fleet was dismantled, and another group was preparing to push towards the Core.
Rey watched her friends and allies as they finished off their evening meal. They were about to separate again, this family that was the only family she had known, and she mourned it even as she knew her own path would also lead her away from them.
"Come with us, Rey," Poe pleaded for the thousandth time. "You're one of the best pilots we have. We need you. And we need to strike the First Order now, while they’re leaderless."
“And you’re a legend,” added Finn. “You’ll inspire people to rise up.”
She had said something similar to Luke. She understood his reluctance better now. Where was the balance if she stood as a symbol of the avenging light? “Luke Skywalker was a legend,” she said. “I’m not.”
“But you are a Jedi,” said Rose. “You’re the only one who can stand against Kylo Ren if he reappears.”
The name jolted her. “He won’t,” she said.
Finn looked at her curiously. “What happened, out on that wreck?”
“I killed him.” She winced at the memory. She had felt the blow as if she had struck herself, and at that moment, the thought of losing him had been too much to bear. But she was telling the truth, she told herself. It wasn’t Kylo Ren she had healed. It wasn’t Kylo Ren who had walked away.
It wasn’t Kylo Ren who was waiting for her on Ahch-To.
She was so tired of fighting. All her life, she’d been fighting: over portions or scrap or just a safe space to sleep on Jakku; against the might of the First Order on Starkiller; against Luke’s intransigence on Ahch-To. The fight was necessary, she knew. But there was little balance in it. They needed not just to conquer but to restore.
“I’m not going to the core worlds,” she said. “What was it you said, Rose? We need to save what we love, not just fight what we hate. If I’m going to inspire people to do anything, I'd rather inspire them to build.”
“Build what?” asked Poe.
“We all know what happened to Hosnia,” said Rey. “But the First Order ruined other planets.” She looked at Rose. “Hays Minor, for example. Yes, we need to stop them wrecking more. But we need to repair the damage too.”
Finn nodded. “Yes. All my life I’ve been told I have to fight. And sometimes it’s necessary. But there were millions of us forced into the First Order, and even after being conditioned all our lives there were still some of us who rebelled. I want to help the rest of them. Give them the choice. Help them find home. Or at least a home.”
Rose took his hand, and smiled. “What about you, Rey? What will you rebuild?”
“I don’t want the Jedi to die with me,” she said.
The others nodded approval, but it didn’t really answer the question: what was she going to rebuild? She had no desire to repeat the mistakes of the Republican Jedi Order. The ancient texts were not detailed enough to recreate the Jedi Order as it had been on Ahch-To. Still, she thought as she left the canteen, she knew where she had to start.
She sat in the centre of her locked room, and let her mind become attuned with the Force. This was the first time she had actively tried to reach out to Ben, and the old books were silent on the subject of Force dyads. Was this even something they could control?
But then he was with her, firelight flickering on his face. He looked up at her and smiled and something in her melted. He was beautiful, she thought, his hair falling across his face and his eyes in shadow.
“Rey.” His voice was soft.
She half expected him to offer his hand, as he had that first time by the fire and so many times since. But he didn’t. So she moved to sit beside him. He put his arm around her and suddenly it was as if she was in the hut with him and the fire warming them both.
They sat together in silence.
“I went to the cave,” he said at last.
“And?”
He sighed. “I saw myself. Fading into smoke with nothing but ash and rubble left behind.”
She stayed silent. He wouldn’t have brought the subject up if he hadn’t wanted to talk about it.
“All my life I’ve been told I have to live up to some destiny,” he said bitterly. “And now there’s no-one telling me I have to live up to my mother or my uncle or my grandfather. I should be happy to be free of it all, but what if that’s all there was? What if I’m nobody, without all that? All I’ve ever done is wreck things.”
“That’s not true, Ben. You saved me.”
“And millions of others are dead because of me! I could live a thousand lifetimes and never make up for that.”
The fire crackled.
“If Palpatine had found me, I might have done those things,” said Rey. “Am I good and you bad because he found you instead?”
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
She found his hand and squeezed it. “Does anyone? I don’t think there’s much choice for most people. For most of my life I just had to survive. I didn’t even choose to leave Jakku - I was chased off the planet because I was with Finn. Don’t think about the rest of your life. Not yet. Think about getting through tomorrow.”
He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. She turned to him.
“Thank-you,” he said. He bent forwards to kiss her forehead. Their eyes met. And then his lips were on hers and her arms were around him and his hands were in her hair and she was shivering as he traced her spine with his finger. He smiled at her, and scooped her up and carried her to his bed.
She had never felt more alive.
She reached for him, but he rocked back on his heels and gazed at her. “Rey,” he murmured. “You are beautiful.” He leaned forward and kissed her shoulder. “Strong.” Another kiss. “Amazing.” He slid his fingers inside her wrap and pushed it aside.
He pulled off his tunic. But as his fingers left her skin they were suddenly back in her room on the Resistance base, the warm glow from the fire replaced by harsh white light. And his wondrous smile was overlain with her memory of his scowl when she’d interrupted him washing, his firelit softness hardened by echoes of the interrogation room.
What was she doing?
That wasn’t Ben, she told herself. Kylo Ren is dead.
But he’d seen her alarm, and the twist of his lips and the hurt in his eyes was all too familiar.
She needed to fix this.
She needed to get out.
“Ben, I-”
But the defensive instinct that had always kept her safe slammed the connection shut and she was left lying on her bedroom floor with tears rolling down her cheeks.
We need to repair the damage, too.
Ben was damaged. But so was she. He wasn’t her responsibility - the choices he had made were not her fault. But he was her twin in the Force.
She tried to reach out again, but there was no trace of him.
What had even happened? Even after their first encounters she had had to scrub her thoughts of his dark eyes and thick hair and full lips. She could admit her attraction to him now, but the enormity of it, of all that he was, of all that they were, terrified her.
Was any of it real, or was it just part of their bond?
Did it matter?
She knew what she needed to do. She just needed to find the strength to do it.
He wished he hadn’t thrown away his lightsaber. Right now, he wanted to destroy something.
She had rejected him. Again. After everything. What more did she want? He would never be good enough for her. Never be good enough for anything. She should have left him to die.
He stomped along the shoreline, picking out the biggest rocks and hurling them into the sea.
The vision in the cave was right. He was nothing. Worse than nothing.
“You're letting your anger rule you,” a voice said behind him.
He spun round to face the blue-tinged figure of his uncle. “Another projection?” he snarled. “Or are you really finally dead and come back to haunt me?”
The figure just looked at him with the same infuriatingly calm expression it had used to humiliate him in front of his entire army.
“I’m sorry Ben,” he said. “I failed you.”
“Is that supposed to make everything better?”
“No. But it needed to be said.”
Ben looked away. “Well, you’ve said it. Now go away.”
“Girl trouble?”
“I said Go Away. Unless you can tell me something useful about Force dyads.”
Luke came closer, his feet not crunching the shingle.
“I think perhaps you know more about that than I do. What did you want to know?”
“How to break it!” Ben flung a rock at the cliff; it rattled down into the sea. “I’m linked in some sort of bond with a woman who hates me!”
“Does she? She fought me over you, you know. That didn’t seem like the action of someone who hates you.”
“Well, she doesn’t want me. She says she does, and then every time-”
Ben clamped his lips shut. His voice was quavering and he would not break down in front of his uncle.
“And if she’d seen you a minute ago,” asked Luke, in a voice that made Ben wish it was possible to punch a ghost, “would she have thought that you liked her?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” snapped Ben. “Who are you to lecture me, anyway?”
“I’m the one who failed his loved ones and then spent six years sitting on a rock contemplating his failure. I don’t recommend it.”
Ben laughed, bitterly. “Do you have any alternative suggestions?”
“No,” said Luke. “You need to work that out for yourself. My father died to save me. You have to live with what you did. It is by far the harder path.”
And with that, he was finally, finally gone.
Ben climbed up to the huts, his anger fading. What had he been angry about, anyway? The Knights of Ren had taught him to bottle up anger and unleash it in a fury of destruction. Once, it had felt powerful. Now it felt rotten.
He could never hate Rey. He wanted her, desperately. But no, he couldn’t blame her for being wary of him. He could certainly hate himself for that, but what was the point? At least they understood each other. And they had their bond: nothing and no one could come between that. It had to be enough.
It wasn’t enough. But on Ahch-To he had all the time in the world to come to terms with that.
He could feel her now, and he flinched. He felt too raw to face her, terrified that he’d ask too much and drive her away again. For the first time, he tried to block the connection.
And realised he couldn’t, because she was here. Actually, physically, here.
He could hear the unmistakable whine of the Falcon swooping in over the ocean. It froze him in place. What if she'd come to say she wanted nothing to do with him? He should wait here, postpone the moment of reckoning, keep it in the privacy of the hut. But what if she thought he didn’t care? What if she just left him here?
By the time he realised he’d come to a decision, he was already halfway to the shore.
Rey had left the island in anger. She was returning in hope.
Ben was waiting at the bottom of the stone steps, his hair whipping around his face in the Falcon’s downdraft. She ran to meet him and he enfolded her in his arms.
“You came,” he said.
“I said I would.”
“I thought you were afraid of me.”
She rested her head on his chest. She had to be honest, she’d decided. She could no more walk away from him than she could walk away from herself, but denying her doubts and fears left a shadow between them. She had said it herself: there was no balance in focusing only on the light, and fearing the dark led nowhere good.
“I am,” she told him. He tried to pull away, but she held him fast. “Listen,” she said. “I’m afraid of me. I lost control and killed a shipful of people. And I’ve seen what you can do. Of course I’m afraid. But it’s got nothing to do with- with what you were.”
They held each other silently, listening to the waves and the wind and their fast-beating hearts.
“Please don’t be afraid of me,” Ben said at last. “I’ve- I know I’m not a good person. But I would never hurt you.”
“I meant what I said on Kef Bir,” said Rey. “I wanted- I want to be with you. But I’ve been on my own all my life. I don’t know how to be anything else. And this connection between us...”
“Exists,” he said firmly. “You’ve been wondering whether what we feel is only because of our force connection,” he went on. “Whether it’s ‘real’. I know I have. But I don’t care. The connection is real. What I feel is real.”
She smiled up at him. “What I feel is real.”
His answering smile was a sunrise to chase away shadows, and when their lips met there was no room left for doubt or fear or anything except the need to be closer.
Ben woke the next morning feeling more peaceful than he could ever remember. There was no voice in his head, and no hole where it had been. Just Rey - Rey! - soft and warm in his arms, and a warm vibration in the Force. It was their bond, he realised: no longer tormenting him with desperate need but basking in their closeness, the Force flowing cleanly between them rather than arcing painfully across the gaps.
She stirred, and stretched. He slid his hand to her waist and down across her belly. She gasped and rolled over, her eyes bright. And then she was sitting astride him, her face framed by her dark hair as she lowered her head to his and they reaffirmed their bond.
Once, he had offered her the galaxy. If only he had been able to see then that it was worthless without also offering himself.
He held her close as they lay together. He would have to let go soon, he knew, but not yet.
But he had to know. "What will you do now?" he asked her.
She shrugged. "Have breakfast? I'm hungry even if you're not."
"Not what I meant."
She stilled. "I know."
He could feel the old fear rising: she was going to leave him, like everyone in his life had left him. Even with the bond, she-
He lay back, blinking away tears. Even with Snoke dead, with Palpatine destroyed, their poisonous words were etched deeply in his mind. "Just tell me," he said. He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice. His ghosts were not her fault.
But their bond was open, and she turned to him, wide-eyed. "Ben, I-" She looked down. "I'm sorry. It just feels so stupid."
"Tell me. Please?"
"Well, I want to see if I can find out about... my parents."
A wave of shame rolled over him. "I'm sorry I said what I said. On Snoke's ship." Compared to his other crimes, that one might have seemed trivial. But not to him.
"What? Oh. That's not your fault."
"I never meant to lie to you."
"I know." She lay down beside him. "I'm not sure we could lie to each other anyhow."
He took her hand, and immediately her reticence became clear. "Rey," he said. "Just because I didn't get on with my parents, that doesn't mean I think you should forget about yours. At least they cared enough to try to save you."
"So did yours," said Rey. "Your mother gave up her Jedi training because she thought you'd die if she didn't."
He'd heard that story before. It didn't make the loss any easier. "I wish she hadn't. Maybe she'd have understood me then. Maybe she'd have been able to show me how to shut out Snoke." But that was Snoke's bitter poison again; he needed to think about something else. "I'll help you, if you like," he said. "There must be a record somewhere in the old archives. I spent a lot of time searching them for the map to this place. If there's something there, I'll find it for you."
It would be a tiny reparation for a tiny wrong. But it was a place to start.
The sun sparkled on the waves, but grey clouds loomed in the distance. It was time to move on.
Rey hesitated as they entered the Falcon's cockpit. "You should take the pilot's seat," she said to Ben. "It's your ship, really."
"Your ship," he said. "They left it to you."
She smiled. "Our ship?" She held out her hand.
He took it. "Our ship."
Their ship.
In it, they would face the galaxy together.