Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Ben, don't go!" Tai called after him.

Ben paused at the door of the bar and looked back at the destruction behind him.

Hennix was unconscious. His head had smacked against a wall when he had been thrown across the bar. Voe's right arm hung limply at her side. Even so, she tried to push past the pain and summon her lightsaber with her left hand.

Tai was physically unharmed, but he had always been so sensitive that Ben didn't doubt that he felt the others’ pain.

Their eyes met for a moment, and Ben knew that even after everything, Tai was still his friend. That wasn't enough for Ben.

As he let the bar, Ben heard Voe say to Tai, "Don't bother. He's lost to the dark side now."

Ben Solo couldn't help but laugh as he nearly tripped over his own feet. Maybe he still was a little drunk. It was suddenly and brilliantly clear to Ben how young and innocent he and the other Jedi were. Until today, none of them had been in a real fight. They lost this one spectacularly. If their foe had been a darksider, no doubt Voe would be looking for a cybernetic arm, Hennix would have died, and poor Tai might have lost his head.

Ben ran to catch up to the Togruta woman who had defeated the three Jedi who had been his friends.

"Master, please, wait!" he called after her.

She stopped and shook her head. "I'm not looking for an apprentice," she told him.

"But, please-"

She interrupted him. "I didn't say I wouldn't teach you, Skyguy. But I'm not a Jedi," she smiled, showing off the sharp canines that spoke of her species' carnivorous past. "Or a Sith for that matter."

Ben didn't know what to say. He had never seen anyone move through the Force as this woman could. She wasn't as strong as him or his uncle, but she had skill both with the Force and with her dual lightsabers. She even knew about the Sith, a secret to most of the blissfully unaware galaxy.

Yet she refused the title of Master.

"What do I call you?" he finally said.

She laughed again, and there was something surprisingly good-natured about this woman who was capable of so much violence.

"I'm Ahsoka Tano," she said, holding out her hand for him to shake.

Not wishing to offend her, he did so. "But what do I call you?" he asked, still confused.

"If you want to be formal, call me...” she considered for a moment. “Aunt Ahsoka. Now hurry up, before I have to teach your friends another lesson."

Chapter Text

Another pilot might have been worried when a TIE fighter squadron started chasing them, but Ben Solo barely batted an eye. He knew precisely what the Grimtaash could do. After all, he'd even managed to outrun the Falcon once. Of course, his father had a string of excuses as to why that race had been unfair.

This also wasn't the first time he'd had to dodge a First Order patrol while running guns for his mother.

No, the squadron hadn't worried him any more than the asteroid field into which he'd led them. One by one, the TIEs failed to dodge the asteroids and were destroyed.

All but one.

That was the ship that worried him.

He would never have believed that a First Order pilot could keep up with him, and yet he could no more seem to lose that one ship than a planet could lose its moons.

Ben had to admit that the other pilot was amazingly good. Not only could the TIE pilot fly, they could shoot as well and the Grimtaash's rear shields were close to failing.

Luckily, Ben had one more trick up his sleeve. This particular system was used for the weapon's pickup because, beyond the standard hyperspace route into the system, there was a second one about which only a select few smugglers and pirates knew.

The lane, known as the Ripple, was highly unstable, making it perfect for situations like these. Even if--by some miracle--the TIE managed to enter the Ripple, it would be impossible to follow his ship among the unstable hyperspace currents. The lane was highly unpredictable, and there was a good chance that Ben wasn't going to come out of hyperspace where he intended. But at least he'd come out in one piece.

The stars blurred around him as the Grimtaash entered hyperspace. Usually, he would relax a little at this point, but he was quickly checking the nav computer, trying to calculate a route that would take him somewhere close to where he wanted to be.

He was so engrossed in the task that he was taken entirely by surprise when his ship jerked. Then the alarms went off as his rear shields took the final hit that knocked them out.

Checking the sensors, he began to curse as he realized that the other pilot had somehow followed him. That was impossible. There was no tracking system or nav computer that could have allowed the TIE to do that. He wasn't sure he could do it even using instinctive astrogation.

The other pilot had to be a Force user, which meant they were almost certainly one of the Knights of Ren. In any other situation, that might have made things interesting, but right now Ben was trying to figure out what sort of crazy person fired energy weapons in hyperspace. It was dangerous enough in a stable lane.

The TIE fired again, but this time Ben was ready and dodged the blast. The energy beams tore through hyperspace past his ship, and suddenly even more alarms were going off. The Grimtaash's controls fought against him as the hyperspace tunnel collapsed, and both ships were violently thrown into real space.

There was a reason the Ripple was so unstable; it was dangerously close to a black hole. Ben clutched the controls tightly, fighting for his ship and his life as the singularity tried to suck him in. As quickly as he could, he tried to bring the normal space engines back online before it was too late.

The thrusters groaned, but they held.

Ben breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't exactly safe and sound, but at least he had a steady orbit. Hopefully, it would last long enough for him to figure a way to escape from the black hole's gravity.

Checking his sensors, he realized that the TIE wasn't so lucky. The smaller ship was clearly struggling to find its way into a stable orbit. Another few minutes and the singularity’s intense pull would tear the small fighter apart.

Without thinking, Ben activated the Grimtaash's tractor beam. It was a crazy thing to do. He wasn't sure he could spare the power, and it was possible that tethering the other ship would pull him down with it. Or that it wouldn't work at all. He'd never heard of anyone trying a tractor beam this close to a black hole.

He couldn't quite say why he did it. Maybe it was because he wanted to meet the pilot who gave him such a run for his money. Maybe it was because he knew that he probably wasn't going to escape, and he didn't want to die alone. Or maybe it was better to die with a lightsaber in hand fighting a Knight of Ren, than being slowly torn apart once his ship sank past the black hole's event horizon.

To his amazement, the tether seemed to hold, although he couldn't pull the other ship any closer. Realizing he had other options that most pilots didn't have, he concentrated and reached out to grab the other ship with the Force, trying to aid the tractor beam. Inadvertently his mind brushed the other pilot’s, and for a moment, he felt their fear before it was replaced by determination.

He'd been right, the pilot was Force-sensitive. They must have realized what Ben was doing, and began to help, trying to propel their own ship forward.

Finally, the TIE was close enough that the tractor beam alone was enough, and Ben exhaled sharply as he let go of the Force and finished the docking sequence to bring the TIE fighter aboard.

Before heading to the cargo bay, he made a quick detour to his quarters. Ben Solo was no Jedi, not anymore, but he'd kept his old lightsaber. Ben hoped he wouldn't need it, however, he'd felt the dark power radiating off the other pilot. He'd be a fool to meet them with only a blaster.

He wasn't exactly sure what he expected. He had met the Knights of Ren once when he was a boy. He remembered them as huge hulking figures armed to the teeth. They had even been rash enough to think they could take on his Uncle.

As the pilot emerged, he felt a little foolish for expecting someone bigger than him. He'd been a boy back then, it was entirely likely that he was now larger than any of the Knights he'd met that day. But this pilot hadn't been one of them.

She wasn't some hulking armored brute, but an average-sized woman. She wasn't even obviously armed, yet he had no doubt she was dangerous. She exuded a dark confident energy that told him to be wary.

Then there was the helmet. It was a jagged cruel-looking thing that appeared to have been welded together from several pieces of dark scrap metal. The ragged edges at the top almost looked like a poor man's crown, and her black robes were patched together in several places.

She looked at him, and reached into her robe, no doubt for her weapon.

"Hey now," he said, holding up his left hand peacefully--so that he could easily grab his own weapon with his right hand if he needed to. "I'm Ben Solo, and you are?"

Hopefully, introductions would diffuse the situation.

She paused, but he could now see what appeared to be the hilt of some sort of double-bladed lightsaber in her gloved hand.

"Kira Ren," she replied.

He couldn't be sure through the modulator, but that might have been a Core Worlds' accent. He still wasn’t sure what species she was.

"Well, Kira, welcome to the Grimtaash. If you insist, we can fight, but right now, I don't have a way to escape the black hole you shot us into. So, another option would be working together, so we don't both die."

The mask didn't blink or have any other expression.

"Very well," she finally said, putting back her weapon. "But betray me, and I will kill you where you stand. Now show me your engines."

"Show me your engines, please," he tried to joke with her.

She didn't seem to have a sense of humor and simply walked past him into the main corridor. She stopped for a second, before heading in the direction of the engine room.

Ben could hear his aunt’s voice in his head. “Sometimes you have no choice but to make a deal with a Sith, of course, don’t ever trust them, and always have your lightsaber ready.”

Not that there were any Sith left. The Knights of Ren had a reputation, but they were not an ancient order of darksiders that tried to rule the galaxy for millennia. She was just a Knight of Ren, he reminded himself. He could handle a Knight of Ren.

Rey did her very best to ignore Ben Solo as she looked over the readings from his engine readings. She didn’t need to be introduced to him; she knew exactly who he was. Her official orders from Snoke were to kill or capture him. However, her orders from her Grandfather were to tempt him to the dark side if she could.

She had planned to ground him on the planet before he could make his escape from the system. But he’d managed to take off despite the suppressing fire from her squadron--and then destroy every ship but hers.

That's when she’d decided killing him was the best way forward.

She almost wished she had succeeded. Even though she knew what Ben Solo looked like and knew details of his family history that even he might not know, she had never heard his voice until now.

Or rather, she had never known that the voice she had heard in her dreams for years belonged to Ben Solo. In her darkest moments, when she was sure that the pain of her Grandfather's teachings would tear her in two, his voice was there, whispering to her, "Everything's going to be okay."

She'd never had an explanation for the voice, although for a while she'd thought it was her father's. Then one day she stumbled across some holo footage of her father in her Grandfather's archives and she realized his wasn't the voice that comforted her. Her father's wasn't the voice that gave her strength and told her, "Everything's going to be okay."

As it turned out, that voice belonged to Ben Solo.

Which made no sense, they'd never met before now.

Had she heard his voice all those years ago when..?

She locked down those thoughts quickly. Solo was a powerful Force-sensitive. Her mental defenses were strong, but there were certain things she couldn't risk him knowing.

Luckily, she had the engines and a problem with a black hole to distract her. She also had the beginnings of a plan. His ship's engines weren't strong enough on their own, but they had a second ship, which meant they had a second engine. It would take some creative engineering, but...

"Are you hungry?" Solo interrupted her thoughts.

Over the years, she'd found that just turning to look at someone and not saying anything while wearing a mask tended to unnerve most people. It didn't seem to have that effect on him.

"Because I had intended to eat lunch once I got my cargo on board," he continued. "But someone started shooting at me before I could do that. So what do you say, Kira, lunch?"

There was only one answer she was ever capable of giving to that question. She'd only spent about six months on Jakku before her Grandfather's people had found her. But in that six months, she'd known starvation, and its memory never left her.

"Very well," she said, trying to hide her eagerness to eat.

She followed him to the ship’s common area. There was no real kitchen, only standard space rations. But he was able to heat them up, and she wasn't picky.

Rey took off her helmet and set it on the table so she could eat. She tore into the rations only to look up and realize that Solo was staring at her.

"What?" she asked, suddenly self-conscious about everything. "Never eaten with a Princess before?"

Silently, she kicked herself. Why had she said that? No one was supposed to know who she really was, and here she was telling someone who was basically her mortal enemy by birth.

He chuckled. "I was supposed to have dinner with one tonight, actually. Thanks for saving me from that."

Right, his mother. The Princess turned General. Which meant that he had been taking the weapons directly to her. If Rey could get a look at his nav computer, and if his original flight plan was still there, maybe she could find out where the Resistance base was. Maybe her slip up had worked in her favor.

"You'd rather be stuck in a black hole than have dinner with your mother?" she couldn't help but ask.

He shrugged. "It's complicated." But she could sense something underneath his nonchalance. He was more worried than he let on. "So you know who I am?"

"You're the son of the most infamous terrorist in the galaxy. Of course I know who you are."

"Funny," he said. "I thought terror was your thing, Kira Ren? I've heard of you too. And the slaughter you've left behind on worlds that resist the First Order. You're Snoke's head enforcer."

"Yes," she said without hesitation. "Order must be enforced." Otherwise, you ended up with planets like Jakku, she reminded herself.

He didn't look angry or defensive; he only looked sad.

"You were just a kid, weren't you, when Snoke got in your head?"

She looked at him in confusion. Snoke would never dare look in her head; it held too many of her Grandfather's secrets. But of course, no one knew that Snoke was just the figurehead for the real power in the galaxy.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I know what's it like to-"

"You don't know anything about me," she interrupted him. "Now, why don't you hurry up and eat, so we can get out of here. I'd hate for you to miss the destruction of your precious Resistance."

He looked as if he was about to argue with her when a look of horror crossed his face. "Kriff," he said. "We're near the event horizon of a black hole."

She nodded. "So time is passing slower for us than the rest of the galaxy. But maybe you'd like to waste time. If we waste enough of it, maybe you'll never have to have dinner with your mother again."

Chapter Text

Ben let out a string of expletives as a small power surge shocked his hand. He nearly dropped the plasma torch he was using to cut through the piece of hull holding the TIE fighter's engine in place. He could have sworn he'd given the power system enough time to discharge before he'd started cutting, but evidently not.

He also felt a little guilty for cutting into the TIE without trying to dig into its computer for any information that could help the Resistance. This was the perfect opportunity to gather critical intelligence. But he was too worried about wasting time.

Ever since Kira pointed out that time was passing differently for them, he'd felt a sort of panic. He needed to get away from this black hole and soon. Ben had no idea how differently time was passing for them vs. his parents. Relativistic physics had always made his head hurt, and he hadn't been able to do the math.

He wasn't actually worried about the First Order defeating the Resistance. Sure, the First Order had a great deal of military might on their side, but the Resistance had his parents, and they'd done this before. If the Rebels could beat the Empire, he was willing to bet that his mother's new Resistance could beat the First Order.

What worried him was his parents might die of old age before he got free of this black hole. He'd never really thought much about his parents dying. It was a hard concept to grasp, especially when your parents were living legends. But now that he'd begun to think about their mortality, he realized he'd never told them that it was okay; that he'd forgiven them.

He'd held the fact that they had sent him away as a kid to over their heads for years now. One of the reasons the Grimtaash was so fast was because he kept guilting his parents into spending money to let him upgrade the ship.

Of course, those new engines were keeping him from being torn apart by a black hole right now, so it was a good investment.

Even so, he hated the idea that they might die without him ever letting them know it was okay. He still became angry when he thought about his Uncle, but he wasn't mad at his parents anymore. He loved them, and he wasn't sure if he'd ever actually said it to them, at least not since he was a little boy.

However, losing a hand to a plasma torch wasn't going to get him out of this any faster, so he slowed himself down and carefully got back to work.

Kira's plan was simple in concept but complicated in execution. His engines were strong enough to keep them from being pulled towards the center of the black hole, but not strong enough to escape its gravity.

However, her TIE fighter meant they had a second set of engines. If they could manage to patch them together, they would, in theory, create a more powerful engine that might help them break free. The problem was there was nothing inherently compatible about the two engines, and they couldn't take his engines offline while they worked. If they did, their orbit would decay, and they would be pulled deeper into the black hole.

So while Kira was adding a series of chambers and valves onto his engine so that it wouldn't lose energy when they hooked the other engine, he was busy trying to remove it from the TIE.

It wasn't easy, but after several hours he'd finally managed to safely remove the engine block and get it onto one of the cargo pallets to get it to the Grimtaash's engine room. He briefly flirted with the idea of using the Force to transport the heavy machinery, but that would just be showing off.

The last thing he needed to do was show off or overthink why he wanted to show off. Because if he thought too much about that, he'd be forced to admit that he thought Kira was very pretty.

Every instinct told him she was a dangerous killer, and he believed it. Which broke his heart because she looked young. Young enough that she must have started training to be a killer as a child.

Like him.

Like Ahsoka.

Like his grandfather.

That was why he was done with the Jedi (not that the Jedi wanted anything to do with him). Children shouldn't be trained to be weapons, as he had been. For all the Jedi talked about peace and surrender, they taught war. And that war nearly turned them against each other. It was easy to blame Voe for being hot-headed, but then so was he.

He still had no idea what had destroyed the Jedi Temple all those years ago, but Voe had assumed he was responsible, and her pursuit of him nearly ended in bloodshed. If Ahsoka hadn’t been there to get in the middle of things, that day might have ended with someone dead, instead of broken bones and hurt feelings.

Ben lifted up his welding visor and wiped some sweat from his forehead. The closer he got to the engine room, the hotter it got. Usually, that wouldn't be the case, but the engines were working overtime fighting against the black hole and he'd lowered the settings on the environmental controls to help preserve more energy.

Ben stopped dead in his tracks as the doors opened. He wasn't the only one who noticed the heat. Kira was working on the engine, her back to him, without her helmet or her robe. She wore tight black leggings and an athletic top that was little more than an athletic breast band. Her shoulders were bare, and he could see freckles on her pale skin.

Dark siders should not be allowed to have freckles, he thought.

She reached out and levitated a large pipe into place to fasten it down.

"Uh, let me help you with that," he said, quickly moving to hold up the pipe for her.

She frowned at him. "You'll wear yourself out," she said, and he could tell she hadn't let go with the Force.

"No, I've got it," he assured her. "You should concentrate on attaching it correctly, not on holding it up."

"Fine," she said, releasing her mental hold on the pipe.

It was heavier than he'd expected and he almost dropped it.

"You need to hold it steady," she told him.

"Yeah, right," he said. He hadn't counted on how hard it would be to think straight while this close to her. She didn't look like a killer right now, just the prettiest mechanic he'd ever seen.

"If you can't hold it steady-"

"No, I have it," he assured her, and gave up trying to hold it the old fashioned way, and lifted it with the Force instead.

"Better," she said grudgingly, without sounding at all impressed. She reached out then, and her helmet flew into her hand.

It took him a moment to realize why she was putting her helmet on. She had to pick up her plasma torch and look at him expectantly before he realized that he needed to put his visor back down so she could proceed.

For a few minutes, there was nothing but the sound of the torch as she welded the pipe in place.

"This doesn't bother you?" she asked finally.

"Does what bother me?" he asked.

"Me messing up your fancy high priced engine. You must have paid a lot to have it installed."

Actually, his dad had, but she didn't need to know that.

"It'll be in a lot worse shape if the black hole tears it apart. What about you? That is not a standard TIE. It doesn't bother you that I just cut it apart?"

"You're right, it's not standard. It was fun to design but," she shrugged. "It always felt too shiny and new. I guess the next one will be newer, though."

"You'd rather have an old beat-up ship?" he asked, thinking that his father would love to hear that. No one could get him to see the Falcon for the death trap Ben was sure it was, and Han Solo still constantly complained about having lost the ship.

"Says the guy who had this fancy new engine put into this ship. Wouldn't it have been easier and cheaper to trade-in for a newer ship?"

"I like this ship," he told her. "I can always count on her to fail when I need her to."

She paused and looked at him for a moment. "Yeah, that's not a worrying statement when we're trying to escape a black hole."

He didn't bother to explain.

"You won't get in trouble?" he asked. "Does the First Order really have so many ships that they don't care about you losing a whole squadron?"

"They weren't good enough pilots," she shrugged. "It's not my fault they couldn't cut it. And no, I'm not going to tell you who I report to, or any other First Order secrets you may want to know."

"How about things that aren't so secret?" he asked. "They say they take children to train as Stormtroopers. Is that how you ended up in the First Order? You were Force-sensitive so they took you out of the Stormtrooper program?"

She put down the plasma torch, having finished her welding. Ben couldn't read her expression through the helmet.

"I'm Kira Ren, that's all you need to know."

"I know it's not much," Solo told her, showing her the passenger cabin. "But you do have your own 'fresher, so there's that."

"It's fine," was all she said. And it was. She didn't really need luxury. Exegol was hardly a decadent place, even if it had seemed that way after Jakku. Rey had never required much. "So you should go rest," she told him, when he didn't seem about to leave. "It's a cabin, I think I can figure it out."

"Right, yes," he said, making his exit.

Rey breathed a sigh of relief and wondered if he was worried about her sabotaging the ship. They had gotten to the point where they were both tired enough that they were starting to get sloppy. Even so, it had taken a lot for her to convince him that they should get some dinner and then go to bed.

Ben Solo was exhausting, and she was a little glad to finally have some time alone. She couldn't quite figure him out, and more importantly, she couldn't let him figure her out. He seemed to have created a narrative about her background and she supposed that was good. He was nowhere close to guessing the truth.

She wondered if she should have lied to him more, let him think she had been taken out of the Stormtrooper program. It wasn't that she was a bad liar; in fact, her entire existence within the First Order was basically a complex set of lies. But lying to people like Hux was one thing; lying to a Force-sensitive was another.

She worried that even her silences might give away too much of the truth, and no one could know that her grandfather was still alive.

He was clearly trying to get information from her, and just because his interrogation techniques were friendly didn't mean she was going to fall for them.

It was also a reminder that she should be trying to get information out of him. Or tempt him to the dark side, not that she was sure how to do that. Although there had been a few times when he'd looked at her, and she thought she might be able to tempt him in other ways.

It was a silly thought. Although technically she was a princess, there was nothing pretty or glamorous about her. She had been raised to command and intimidate; it was all she knew. Besides, working on the engines all day had left her a sweaty, greasy mess. Tomorrow wasn't looking like it would be any different.

But as soon as she closed her eyes, she heard Ben's voice in her head. "Everything's going to be okay."

She could almost imagine him behind her, whispering in her ear as he put his arms around her.

She wished she did know how to be a temptress. It might be nice to not have him as an enemy, even if he was close to driving her insane.

Chapter Text

"You can't really believe that the First Order intends to help people?" Ben said in exasperation as they continued to work on the engines.

Kira was an enigma. Not just because she refused to tell him anything about herself, but also because she somehow seemed to think that she was on the moral side of this war.

"Someone has to help the Outer Rim," she told him. "And the Senate is never going to do so. The Senate has never done anything."

"The Senate can be slow at times," he admitted. "But democracy is necessary to make sure all sentients are treated fairly. You can never trust a tyrant to do that."

"To make sure that no one starts a war that isn't in the best interests of the people?" Kira asked.

Ben could sense a trap, but he couldn't quite see its shape. Political arguments weren't really his strong suit. But everyone knew that democracy was the just and good system. "That could be one example, depending on the circumstance," he said cautiously.

"Because if a war needs to be fought, the Senate would surely vote to fight it?" she continued.

Now he could see the trap. "Look, yes, it would be ideal if the Senate voted to fight the First Order. But--"

"But since they didn't, it's fine for a rogue Senator to raise her own private military and drag the Republic into a war whether they want to fight it or not?"

He sighed. There was a lot he didn't like about how his mother chose to deal with the First Order. He'd even tried to stay out of her war for a while, but in the end, she was his mother and he couldn't leave her to fight on her own. Especially when the enemy was Snoke.

"Look, I don't like it, okay? You have to understand though, she grew up in a time when the Senate was a puppet and the government exploited the people. She has a hard time trusting the government to do the right thing."

"Even the government she helped build?" Kira asked.

"Okay, yes, my mother's methods may not be the most democratic, but she wouldn't have to resort to them if the First Order weren't an existential threat to the New Republic and its citizens."

"The First Order isn't a threat to the citizens, it's a threat to the power structure that has allowed the Core Worlds to exploit the Outer Rim for generations. Most Outer Rim worlds don't even have senators to represent them. When it's convenient the New Republic annexes a world, but if it's too costly, it leaves it out there as a protectorate so they won't actually have to spend money to feed hungry children or enforce law and order."

"Oh yes, law and order," he sighed. "By which you mean--" He paused as he checked the pressure gauges one more time to make sure everything was working. "I think we're good here," he said. "How is it on your end?"

"Everything looks like it's holding. I think we're done," she said, sounding almost amazed.

He understood. They'd been heads down working on the engines for the last few days. As frustrating as the amount of time it had taken to get the engines connected was, it had also gone remarkably fast. The truth was they worked well together. Once they got into a rhythm, they seemed to know what needed to be done, and when the other needed help.

He actually enjoyed working with Kira, especially because of arguments like the one they just had. Too many people venerated his family; not enough people were willing to challenge them. And that was the sort of thing that led Skywalkers to think they were the only ones who knew right from wrong.

Kira was wrong, of course, but it was still enjoyable debating her. It was too bad that those debates would likely turn violent once they were free of the black hole.

"One final round of checks before we turn everything on?" she asked.

"Yeah," he nodded. The last thing they needed was to blow themselves up with their crazy cobbled together engine.

He was almost disappointed when everything checked out. As much as he knew they needed to escape, he was going to miss this. It had been a strange break from the weight of everything that was happening in the rest of the galaxy.

Sure their lives were threatened, but it was by one easy to define entity: a black hole. Gravity wanted to rip them to pieces, but it was a problem that could easily be broken down and dealt with. Not like the political mess in the rest of the galaxy.

Because once they were back in the rest of the galaxy, that feeling would return. The feeling that Ben was shirking his duty by staying away from the Jedi. The feeling that he should be doing more, that it was all on his shoulders.

However, the longer they put off the escape attempt, the more power the engines would lose, and the harder it would be to escape the black hole’s gravity. One by one, every system checked out. Now there was nothing to do but go to the bridge and see what happened.

"Why are you in the pilot's chair?" Kira asked as he took up his customary seat.

"Because it's my ship. No one knows her like I do."

"I'd say at this point she's our ship, and no one knows her at all."

"It's your engine design, right?" he asked. She nodded. "So, you should be the one monitoring the engines and letting me know if I push her too hard."

She glared at him but took a seat behind him so she could monitor everything.

"Alright then," he said, taking a deep breath. "Three, two-"

"Do you always do countdowns when you fly your ship?" Kira interrupted.

"I was trying to help you be ready," he said, annoyed.

"Ready for what? To blow up? Either we die catastrophically, or we slowly move out of orbit. Either way, it's not as if I have a big red button to push."

"Fine," he said, and without further ado, he started increasing power to the engines.

Ben let out a breath as he realized they were not blowing up. That was good. And Kira was right, there was nothing dramatic about the moment. Their calculations showed they wouldn't be able to force their way out with one big afterburner burst. This was a slow push into a higher and higher orbit, until the crushing gravity let go enough that they could escape.

"Kriff," Kira cursed behind him. Then she was up out of her seat and running deeper into the ship.

He assumed she was heading back down towards the engine room, but looking at the readouts, he didn't know why.

He realized they should have set up a comm system between them. Luckily they had something else.

What is it? he asked, using the Force.

Can't you feel the vibrations? she asked. Something is coming loose.

He felt foolish that she noticed the change in his ship that he missed, but he could feel it now.

Tell me what to do, he asked her. Should I ease up?

No! It's not a pressure issue, she told him. One of the floor plates isn't as strong as we thought and it's coming loose. Just keep going.

Usually, he loved flying, but at the moment, it felt more like sitting there doing nothing. However, he knew Kira was right; he needed to keep them on course and make any needed adjustments as they rose further and further out of the black hole's sphere of influence.

Then out of the corner of his eye, he saw it: the engine’s internal heat was rising to a dangerous level.

Kira! I think somethi- Suddenly, he was frantically trying to get control of the ship. He barely had any forward thrust and none of the controls were responding. It was like the engines were gone, but there were no alarms indicating a hull breach.

He tried to reach out to Kira again, but she didn't respond. He knew she was there because he could feel anger and an intense concentration of dark power.

Ben flew out of his seat and ran for the engine room as he began to process the readings. When the engine room doors opened he realized his worst fears were real. The engines had exploded; only Kira was there to mitigate the damage.

To his amazement, she was using the Force to contain the explosion in a swirling vortex of power. The problem was there was nothing she could do with it, not without tearing a hole in the ship.

The amount of power she was exhibiting was incredible. Ben had never met anyone who wielded that much raw power.

She might even be as powerful as me, he couldn't help but think.

But this wasn't the time for that. Kira couldn't hold it forever. Luckily, he had an idea.

As he began to move to grab one of the emergency masks, he asked her, "Kira? Your helmet, does it have a respirator?"

"You are not chucking me out an airlock," she said through gritted teeth.

"What? No, of course not," he said, fitting on his own breathing apparatus. "But I will need to expose both of us to space for a moment. Do I need to find another mask?"

"I'll be fine," came her modulated reply.

He moved quickly to open a hidden safe and remove a remote that operated a series of doors to secret compartments throughout the ship.

He returned to Kira's side and placed his hand on her shoulder to help the sync up their actions, but she flinched at his touch. Considering the circumstances, he didn't bother to apologize. There would be time for that when they were safe.

He reached out, feeling her power and the barrier she had created to contain the explosion. Her Force signature was raw and ragged. She intended to rage herself into survival. The power that her anger gave her was impressive, and once, Ben might have been tempted to follow her example.

But he wasn't an angry young kid anymore. He wasn’t a Jedi either, but Ahsoka had shown him that the Force was a river, and to be swept along by it was to be at peace. He now tried to let the peace wash over both of them.

That only increased her rage, which wasn't what he'd intended, but worked out well in this situation since it seemed to strengthen her.

With one hand he operated the remote, opening an airlock to the hidden compartment where he stored the smuggled weapons he was running for his mother. He watched them get sucked out into space, because if all the explosive energy came into contact with all those explosives, who knew what would happen? There was no point in worrying about lost cargo if you were about to die.

Then he shifted his attention to the ball of explosive energy that Kira was holding at bay.

Follow me, he told her, as he tried to move the energy until it was positioned above a hidden hatch.

Luckily, she let him guide her, and then, when it was in place, he opened the hatch. There was now a direct conduit to space and they could both feel the violent vortex as the atmosphere got sucked from the room.

However, they weren't done. The energy wouldn't be pulled by the vacuum; they had to guide it through the hidden compartments and out into space.

He could feel her tremble under his hand, and he wondered just how much oxygen her helmet was giving her. As best as he could tell, they were free and clear of the ship. He snapped shut the outer airlock door and they released the energy.

They were both flung back against the wall as the explosion was finally released and rocked the outside of the ship. Instinctively he wrapped his arms around her, trying to shield her body with his.

There was a moment of stunned silence between them when she seemed to almost relax into his touch. But it only lasted a moment before she was pushing her way out of his arms.

She stumbled for a moment and he could hear her taking a few deep breaths through her mask's modulator before she began to run for the bridge.

For a moment, he couldn't understand her urgency; no alarms were going off. Then he realized what had happened. The explosion had clearly pushed the ship, and there was no telling what their current heading was. They could be free, or they could be headed straight for the center of the black hole.

Chapter Text

Rey flinched when she felt Ben's hand on her shoulder. It was an automatic response. For as long as she could remember, touch meant pain. Her parents were only the faintest of memories. If they ever held her lovingly, she couldn't remember.

She did remember Jakku. She remembered the beatings.

Then her Grandfather's people found her and brought her to Exegol. Her Grandfather didn't beat her. He never even touched her. He didn't need to. If she was disobedient, he used the Force to discipline her.

The only other people with whom Rey interacted during those long dark years were her combat masters, and their touch was never kind.

Finally, she received a chance to prove herself, to see if she could earn a place with the Knights of Ren. Her Grandfather never specifically told her, but she knew only one position would do. She would make them kneel before her or she would die in the attempt.

That Ren could not defeat her, and the other Knights now called her Master. But it was a lonely existence, one where she never dared to show any weakness. Her position in the First Order was little better.

But there was nothing painful or aggressive about Ben's touch. It was the opposite. As he touched her, he tried to join his power to hers and she felt his light and peace wash over her.

It made her angry. Ben Solo had so much power and it didn't seem to cost him anything. He wasn't in pain or alone or frightened or angry. He was at peace. That made anger blossom in her chest, and she used it to keep her grip on the contained explosion’s energy as he guided it outside of the ship.

When the airlock opened, she held her breath. Her mask was pressurized, but it didn't have any real oxygen supply when it wasn’t connected to her TIE. She couldn't exactly say why she hadn't told Solo about her mask’s limitations, other than an instinctive need to hide any weakness.

It took her a moment to catch her breath when they were thrown by the force of the explosion. He caught her as they flew back and she collided not with the wall but with his chest. For just a moment, she was overcome by his warmth, by the feeling of his arms around her. It was much like she had imagined. She could almost stay like that forever.

That thought frightened her. So did the realization that she had no idea what their ship's heading was now. They could be traveling straight for the black hole. The dual fears got Rey to her feet and running to the bridge.

She practically jumped into the pilot's chair. She didn't need to check any of the computers to know they were headed the wrong way because there were no stars visible out of the viewport, only the black hole’s yawing darkness.

She tried to gain control of the ship, but the main engines weren't responding.

Solo wasn't far behind her and understood their situation as well as she did.

"I've rerouted power to the maneuvering thrusters," he told her from one of the side panels.

She checked.it wasn't much, but she had some control now. It took everything the ship had left, but slowly she was able to aim the ship away from the black hole.

Not that it really mattered.

They didn't have the power to maintain their current orbit, much less move to a higher one. Their orbit would slowly degrade until the singularity swallowed them. Of course, they'd be dead long before that, the gravity would grow so intense that it would rip their very molecules apart.

She slumped back in the pilot's chair, her anger drained away, leaving behind only despair. This wasn't how she was meant to die. There were so many things she wanted to see and do. Someday she would find a way to be free of Grandfather, to see the galaxy, to find an island, to learn how to swim.

When she took over the Knights of Ren, she naively believed that it would grant her some freedom, that her world would finally expand beyond Exegol’s dark, dusty hallways. It hadn't. There was only the First Order’s pristine, brightly lit passageways, and the fires they set on the planets they pillaged.

But Rey still hoped that someday she would have the strength to break free. Someday, she would kill her Grandfather. Then she would be the Master and she could go where she pleased.

Now, none of that was ever going to happen. Rey was going to die here, and no one would remember her or care that she was gone.

It was all she could do not to cry.

She felt a hand on her shoulder; this time, she didn't flinch.

"Hey," he said gently. "I know it looks bad, but everything's going to be okay."

Rey froze.

Hearing him actually say the words, Rey remembered the first time she'd heard them, and more importantly, where. It was the World Between Worlds, and why she had thought that it might have been her father's voice, the voice of a ghost from her past coming to comfort her.

"Which black hole is this?" she asked excitedly.

"What?" he said, surprised by her sudden mood change.

She brought up a star chart, although she thought she might already know the answer.

She zoomed out so that the multi-dimensional chart showed the entire galaxy, and then she began to highlight systems, tapping them one by one. She illuminated Lothal, Malachor, Mortis, and eight other systems on the star map. She made sure to leave Exegol as the last one so that it would seem as if she had only discerned its existence from the other eleven points.

Solo watched, bemused. "Congratulations, you've drawn an icosahedron. I thought you wanted to know where we were?"

She glared at him and then realized she was still wearing her helmet, so he couldn't tell. Which wasn't at all why she took it off. No, it was just a bit uncomfortable after the depressurization, that was all.

"I know where we are," she told him. "We started here,” she said pointing. “At Bunduki, so we must be here,” she gestured to their current location. “And it's not an icosahedron, it's a great dodecahedron."

She didn't know why she said that. Solo wasn't actually wrong. They were two shapes defined by the same number of points, but an icosahedron was boring and flat, whereas a great dodecahedron looked more pleasing since it seemed to be imprinted with stars.

Even so, she adjusted the lines the computer had drawn until it revealed her favored geometric shape.

"Okay, fine." He said. "But what's the point?"

She sighed. "Some Jedi Master you are."

"I'm not-"

"Haven't you ever heard of the World Between Worlds?"

That stopped him. "Sure, but that's just a myth."

She shook her head, pleased to have knowledge he didn't. "It's not. It's real. And every one of these systems is an entrance point to it."

"If the World Between Worlds is real," he sounded skeptical. "Then every system is connected to it. It's a plane of existence within the Force that connects all time and space.”

"Okay, yes," she begrudgingly agreed. "That's technically true, but you can't just enter it from anywhere. It may be everywhere and everywhen, but it's closer to these places than any other. These are the places you can enter from."

"But we're not at any of those places, so I don't see how this does us any good."

She sighed. "Because we're here," she pointed to the black hole. "And just look where this black hole is. It sits just inside here," she highlighted it. "Equidistant from all these points. Just like this black hole over here is equidistant from these stars, and so is this one and this one."

She had now pointed out 12 black holes that seemed to make out another dodecahedron inscribed within the first one.

"There's a theory that it's these black holes, the time dilation they create, and their effect on these other systems that allow entrance to the World Between Worlds. These black holes are the real ways in, those planets are just the… survivable entrances."

"You just admitted this isn't survivable," he said flatly.

"Not by any normal means," she admitted. "But a black hole is only gravity."

He scoffed at her. "Only gravity? Its gravity is so strong that even light can't escape its pull."

"I guess then, that I’m lucky that there isn't any light in me." It was as close to a joke as she had ever tried to make, and it fell flat. "But seriously, we overcome gravity all the time with the Force, how is this any different?"

"It's a black hole, that's how it's different," he argued.

"Oh, I see," she said. "I didn't realize how much you'd worn yourself out the other day lifting that engine. I assumed you had real power. I've always considered lifting something like that to be trivial."

"That was trivial!" he insisted. "I'm capable of lifting far more than that. After all, I helped pull your entire ship, with you in it, away from the black hole."

"My point exactly," she said triumphantly. "The Force is stronger than gravity. And it's not like we have to fight all the black hole’s power. We want it to draw us into the center. If there's a way into the World Between Worlds, that's where it will be. All we need to do is keep the singularity from tearing us apart.”

Chapter Text

"Sit!" Kira commanded him.

Ben glared at her. It was one thing to listen to her when they were rebuilding the engines; she was clearly a skilled engineer. But when it came to the Force, he was sure that he knew more than her.

Besides, he still didn’t completely buy her plan. Choosing to enter a black hole was suicidal. The problem was he hadn't come up with any better ideas, and as she pointed out to him. if they didn't come up with another plan they would get sucked into the black hole anyway, so they might as well prepare.

Maybe what worried him the most about the idea was just how much a part of him wanted to try it. Something was appealing about overcoming the power of a black hole with the power of the Force. There was still a part of him after all these years who wanted to prove his uncle wrong, who wanted to prove that he could have been the greatest Jedi ever.

That was precisely the sort of pride a Jedi shouldn't have. Ben's uncle always encouraged him and the other students not to compete against each other--not that it had ever stopped Voe from trying to be better than him.

The desire to be the best, Ben knew, was one of the traps that could lead him to the dark side. It was one he thought he'd escaped a long time ago, and yet here he was, imagining Voe's face when the Jedi heard about this.

He wanted to blame Kira. She was the perfect embodiment of all the dark side’s temptations rolled into one package. However, the truth was, he always possessed darkness.. He'd come to terms with it over the years and found a kind of peace. But peace was always fragile. He might not have been tempted to reach for the dark side when the engine had ruptured, but that didn't mean he was never tempted.

He had no doubt that Kira intended to use this exercise as an excuse to pull him further towards the dark side. She claimed that it was just to make sure they knew how to work well together because they would have to if they intended to survive. He suspected the Knight of Ren had ulterior motives. After all, she was Snoke's apprentice, and Snoke spent years trying to corrupt Ben. It was hard to believe the Supreme Leader had simply given up.

"I said, sit!" she commanded again.

Sighing, he behaved and found a spot opposite her on the cargo bay floor to sit in a meditative pose.

"Now, close your eyes an-"

"I know how to meditate," he growled.

"I didn't know Jedi were so touchy," she told him.

"I'm not a Jedi," he told her for the hundredth time. But he did close his eyes anyway.

He cleared his mind and tried not to let her get under his skin. It was difficult when he could sense her, a dark swirling vortex of amusement. That grated on his nerves. She was laughing at him, at least on the inside.

"If I'm so unworthy of respect," he said with his eyes still closed. "Maybe there's no point in even attempting this."

"I didn't know you needed my approval," she said. "But if you want it, I can teach you to access real power."

"That's enough," he said, opening his eyes. "There's not going to be any tempting me to the dark side, okay? If you want my help, then you need to let me use the Force in my own way."

She had the temerity to smile at him. "Yet, you get angry so easily."

"Yes, I get angry," he said, not trying to calm himself. "Because I told you, I'm not a Jedi. I'm okay with being angry. That doesn't mean I'm going to succumb to the dark side."

"You'd rather die than embrace your true power?" she asked.

"No," he said firmly. "But what you really mean by power is dominance, not strength. I'm strong enough as I am, thank you."

She frowned at him, "What is the point of power if not to dominate?"

He signed. "The Jedi answer would be to protect. My answer is to live free."

Her gaze became intense; he expected her to ridicule him. The words sounded so good in his head, but seemed silly when he said them out loud. To his surprise, she didn't laugh.

For a moment, it was silent between them. Then Ben held out his hand, palms up. She looked at him, confused.

"It will help us work in sync," he told her.

She started to say something but then thought better of it. Even so, she stared hard at Ben before she slowly placed her hands in his. He noticed she didn't remove her gloves.

They both closed their eyes, and for a moment he focused only on his breathing, finding his center in the Force, before expanding his awareness to include Kira.

Rey closed her eyes and struggled to push the words 'live free' out of her mind. It was tempting to call Solo a fool. The way of the light side was one of surrender. There could be no freedom there. Power was the only path to freedom. But she couldn't mock his intention. Freedom was all she wanted.

She placed her hands in his and began to center herself.

Even though this was her idea, it made her nervous. She had too many secrets she couldn't let Solo know, and she was careful to make sure her walls were in place before she reached out to feel his presence in the Force.

She expected him to try and look in her mind, to prod at her defenses. After all, he was always asking her questions. But he didn't; instead, he was still, letting her feel the contours of his Force-signature as they both accustomed themselves to each other.

After a few moments of this, they both began to reach out together, to lift the hollowed-out remnant of her TIE. They had agreed this was a good practice exercise for them while they learned to work together.

It turned out to be easy. Their power flowed smoothly together, and Rey had to push down the traitorous thought that his light seemed to complement her darkness.

It shouldn't have surprised her. She felt a connection to Ben Solo the moment she heard his voice.

Did he feel the same thing? Did he have any clue as to how their paths had almost crossed all those years ago? Did he have any idea what she had done?

The questions gnawed at the back of her mind, scratching away at the edges of her concentration.

Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. Without thinking it through, she pushed her way into Ben Solo's mind. Looking to see if he felt the connection, if he had any memory of her.

He felt her intrusion immediately. But he didn't merely put up his own walls; instead, he pushed back, trying to thrust his way into her mind. Rey had thought her barriers were strong, and she did succeed in hiding everything about her Grandfather and the First Order.

But she hadn't kept him out completely. Before she managed to push him out, two images were yanked to the forefront of her mind. A girl crying in the desert as she watched a ship take off, and the island she had never seen, but never stopped dreaming about.

When all was said and done, he'd gotten more from her than she had from him. All she'd seen was the Jedi temple burning, something she knew about all too well.

Solo jumped to his feet. His fist slammed into the side of her TIE. The blow must have been strengthened by the Force because it slightly dented the metal.

"What the hell was that?" he yelled at her as he began to pace, practically vibrating with anger.

She was amazed to find that his usual calm had been broken so easily. She knew that Snoke spent years trying to recruit Solo to their cause, but he'd failed. So it surprised her that it continued to be so easy to anger Solo, especially considering he'd learned more about her than she had about him.

"You're angry," she said calmly. "That's good. Embrace it, let the anger sweep you away."

He spun on his heels to glare at her.

"Is that what this is about? Still trying to seduce me to the dark side?" he said disparagingly.

Her cheeks reddened slightly at the word seduce. Solo didn't seem to notice, and he kept ranting at her.

"What is this? Some sort of… connection? You think you can, what? Bind me to you, and I'll do whatever you want?"

"You didn't feel it before?" she asked, disappointed. Had the connection she felt before only been in her mind?

"Feel what?" he asked somewhat warily, but she suspected he knew.

"The connection between us?" she insisted. "You didn't feel it before?"

"You mean the connection you just made? No, of course I didn't feel it before," he snapped at her.

"No, I... It was always there," she tried to argue. But she could see he didn't believe her. "For me anyway," she added softly. She couldn't look at him anymore and looked down at her hands that sat in her lap.

"Oh, please. I know what you're doing," Solo accused her. "It's not going to work. You're not going to seduce me to the dark side."

"Stop saying that!" she yelled at him. "I'm not... Okay, yes, I'm supposed to try and turn you to the dark side. And yes, maybe I'm supposed to seduce you. But I... I wouldn't even know how. I only know how to make people afraid of me, it's not as if anyone has ever liked me."

She couldn't believe she'd said that. Everything in life had taught her to never show weakness, and she'd just admitted how pathetic and lonely she was. Maybe it was because she'd just been reminded of her parents leaving her on Jakku. She felt too much like that little girl right now.

And why had she said 'liked'? She didn't need to be liked, she needed to be feared and respected.

Silence filled the cargo bay. Solo stopped moving. She didn't dare look up at him, afraid of the ridicule that would come at any minute.

She wished he'd just leave. She could almost feel his eyes burning through her.

"Maybe..." He finally started to speak. "Maybe if you didn't hide, people would get a chance to know you and like you."

Her head snapped up, and she glared at him. "I am Kira Ren. I don't hide!"

He sat back down on the ground across from her, hugging one knee and resting his chin on it. His hair flopped down over his eyes, and he looked like an overgrown child.

"Really?" he asked. "Because I always found anger to be one of the best ways to hide."

"So you were hiding a minute ago?" she challenged him.

"Yeah. When someone digs into my mind and brings up the worst night of my life, my instinct is to hide," he shrugged as if there were no shame in admitting to fear or weakness.

He watched her for a moment, waiting for her to respond. When she didn't, he said, "Why did you care about that anyway? Snoke knows all about it, it's not like it's a big secret."

"You're always saying you're not a Jedi. I wanted to see if it was true."

"You know, you're not a very good liar," he said with a smile.

If she could have glared at him even more than she already was, she would have. "I'm an excellent liar," she said before she realized that she was admitting that she'd been lying.

"No," he laughed. "I think everyone's just too scared of you to challenge you on your lies."

She opened her mouth to disagree with him, but then stopped. He was right, everyone was scared of her. The only person who wasn't was her Grandfather, and she'd never dared to lie to him. She suddenly wondered if Solo was right. Was she a terrible liar?

She began thinking over conversations she'd had with Hux. Had he seen through what she said? Sid he suspect the truth behind the First Order? Did it even matter if he did? No, she decided, Hux didn't know. He wouldn't be putting so much effort into Starkiller Base if he knew there was an entire fleet of ships out there that could match his base's firepower.

She really wished she'd found a way to stop the Starkiller project. It was a silly waste of resources. Not only did the First Order not need such a weapon, but building a Death Star-like superweapon was just tempting the old Rebel leaders to come blow it up the way they had blown up Death Stars in the old days. That's why the Final Order fleet was so much better. Once the fleet was outfitted with crews, they would be mobile. It would be too many targets for the Resistance to be able to take down.

Solo misinterpreted her thoughtful silence.

"Even if you are scary, I still like you," he stumbled over the words which came out in a rush.

She didn't want or need Ben Solo to like her, she told herself. But then she looked up, her eyes met his, and she found herself blushing. Maybe she did want him to like her? Maybe before she was torn apart by a black hole, she wanted to know what it was like to kiss someone?

She was a Sith Princess, which meant that except in the presence of her Grandfather and Master, she was used to taking whatever she wanted. So without thinking, she leaned forward to kiss him.

It wasn't graceful. Rey's nose bumped against his as their lips touched, and she couldn't lean in too close because his knee was up between them.

He gasped, startled, by her actions, but he didn't pull away. Instead, he leaned forward and cupped her cheek. A pleasant heat filled her as she felt the softness of his lips and breathed in his scent.

Why wasn't there more kissing and soft touches in her life, she wondered? She knew the answer, of course, and pulled back. She was sure this wasn't what her Grandfather had meant by seducing Solo to the dark side, if only because she was the one being seduced. She trembled slightly at the thought of what would happen if her Grandfather ever saw this weakness in her. What would happen if he realized that she opened herself to the light for a pair of pretty eyes?

"Hey," Solo said gently, and their faces were still so close she could feel his breath against her lips.

He shifted his position to put down his leg and then pulled her back towards him. He leaned forward to kiss her.

All thoughts of the Emperor fled her mind, and she found herself chasing the second kiss. She grabbed him by the back of the neck, threading her fingers in his hair, and leaned into him. Within moments, she found herself half sitting in his lap as he wrapped his arms around her, and he became her entire world.

Chapter Text

Ben sat in the Grimtaash’s pilot's chair one last time and sighed as he ran his hands over the controls.

"Sorry, girl," he told the ship.

He wanted to believe the ship would be fine. That they'd be able to save her. However, he rather suspected that none of them were going to make it. Kira actually seemed to believe that her crazy plan would work, they would dive into the center of the black hole, and come out safe and sound in the World Between Worlds.

He was skeptical, and even Kira had to admit that it was possible that they wouldn't be able to maintain a big enough bubble of Force energy to keep the Grimtaash safe. They might only be able to maintain a small safe zone around themselves.

The problem was black holes weren't exactly known for having breathable atmospheres, so keeping the ship intact was ideal. But if they couldn't... Well, Kira had come up with a backup plan, a very bad back up plan. If only he could figure out how to explain to her just how bad the plan was.

The Grimtaash wasn't the only ship they had. They also had her TIE. True, it had no engines, but it did still have oxygen tanks they could hook into. The only problem was her custom TIE only had a single seat. So the only practical way for them to both fit in it was for him to get in first, and her to sit on his lap.

He might have enjoyed that in other circumstances, but the whole plan involved them using the Force to keep the black hole’s gravity from crushing them. That meant concentration and not getting distracted.

And Ben found Kira very distracting.

Especially since they'd kissed.

He didn't know exactly how long they'd spent making out on the cargo bay floor, only that eventually he'd put a stop to it. Not because he hadn't enjoyed it, but because he'd enjoyed it a little too much.

He wished he could say that his feelings for Kira were confusing. The truth was they only confirmed something he'd suspected about himself for years. Ben Solo rather liked being told what to do.

It was a little more complicated than that. His first and only love had been Tai, and Tai had been far from bossy. Tai was probably the most compassionate and understanding person Ben had ever met.

No one had ever understood Ben like Tai had, and no one had ever tried as hard to get through to Ben during his teenage years when Ben himself had to admit he was probably a pain in the ass.

But Tai had offered Ben something no one else ever had: he had offered to take care of Ben. Maybe not in those exact words; they had been teenagers, after all. But Tai was there to listen, to understand. He was the only person who made Ben feel as if it wasn't Ben's sacred duty to protect the galaxy and live up to all the burdens of being a Skywalker.

He was the only person around whom Ben ever dared to be vulnerable, and eventually, their relationship had turned physical.

It turned out that keeping a relationship secret among a bunch of Force-sensitives was hard. Especially because Tai hadn't learned to shield his thoughts the way Snoke taught Ben to shield his. Their relationship ended in possibly the most embarrassing way possible when Tai accidentally broadcast to the rest of the Padawans precisely how well Ben was learning how to use his mouth.

His Uncle put a stop to things quickly after that, and also realized that as his students were getting older, he had to work sex-ed into his Jedi curriculum.

It was one of the worst periods of Ben's life. He had started to believe for the first time that Snoke was wrong, that Ben could trust someone other than the omnipresent voice in his head. But after being caught, Tai wasn't willing to continue as anything other than a friend. Becoming a Jedi was too important to the other boy, and so he made sure not to let any further attachment grow between him and Ben.

After their breakup, the loneliness only served to make Ben trust Snoke even more and made his Uncle keep an even closer eye on Ben.

That was all a long time ago, and Ben went years without thinking about Tai. Until he finally started talking to his family again, and somehow his father found out.

After the temple’s destruction, Ben hid from his family. He wouldn’t admit he was hiding from them; he was just learning from Ahsoka. Looking back he could now admit that he avoided them. Until the second time the Grimtaash unexpectedly broke down.

While waiting for the repairs on his ship, he’d run into his father and Chewie. Before Ben could find a way to escape from them, the people chasing his dad caught up to the elder Solo, and it all became a mess.

Ben had always assumed that his parents would side with his uncle and the other Jedi. That they would never believe that Ben hadn’t fallen to the dark side.

As it turned out there was nothing quite like being captured by the Hutts to give a family a chance to work out some issues. By the time they’d made their escape, Han had convinced Ben to come home, at least for a while.

He’d contacted Ahsoka and told her he’d be late to their next rendezvous, and she’d told him not to worry about it. She also seemed to think it was time he fixed things with his family.

Ben never told them the whole story. More than once he thought of broaching the topic of Ahsoka with his mother, but then he’d have to explain who had trained Ahsoka. Every time he tried to discuss his grandfather, his mother found a way to change the subject.

As for his father, once Han Solo realized his son had left the Jedi life behind, he made it his mission in life to find his son a romantic partner.

Ben often wondered just what his father thought of him when he considered the women with whom Han Solo tried to set him up. They were always beautiful, sometimes they were smart, sometimes rather vapid. They were always a little star-struck.

Then his dad found out about Tai, and the pretty young women were replaced by pretty young men.

Even though some of them were accomplished in their various fields--usually illegal ones--he always got the feeling that male or female, they were damsels just waiting to be in distress. They always seemed to be eager for a big strong man to come in and rescue them. To take their hand and protect them from the world.

Ben didn't want anything to do with that. He didn't want to be someone's protector. So when his father set him up with transport jobs, and it turned out that the person being transported was a beautiful sentient getting out of a dangerous situation... Well, Ben didn't mind helping people. But he didn't want a relationship where he was required to be someone's savior.

If he was independent and preferred to be alone, it was because he still had a hard time trusting. He wanted someone with whom he could be vulnerable, who wasn't reliant on him, someone who was as strong as he was. An equal.

So it wasn't surprising that Kira Ren stomped her way into his heart. It didn't matter that being vulnerable with her was a terrible idea--she was after all his mortal enemy--he still wanted to be open and honest with her. He wanted to share himself with her and have her share her own vulnerabilities with him.

If he was looking to rescue her, it was only from the trap of loneliness he knew all too well. She was strong and powerful, his equal in the Force. She didn't need him as a protector, but maybe they could be vulnerable together.

Also, he kind of liked it when she told him what to do. It was a bit of a relief to not have to come up with a plan. One of the reasons he kept his distance from the main body of the Resistance was people always expecting him to be a natural leader. They looked up to his mother and seemed to assume that he would be her second in command. The truth was he was quite happy following orders.

Although he probably wouldn't be happy following Kira's orders as long as she was part of the First Order. He wasn't about to turn on his family and the Resistance for her. If only he could convince her to leave with him...

Not that it mattered if they didn't get away from this black hole.

Sighing, he finished what he had come to the cockpit to do. He connected his datapad to the Grimtaash's systems.

He took one last look around the cockpit. She was a good ship. Until now, she had always gotten him to where he needed to be, even if it wasn't always where he wanted to go.

"One last time, okay?" he said to the ship. "Get me where I need to be one last time."

Kira paced nervously around the cargo bay, waiting for Solo to show up. She had no idea what could be taking him so long.

They hadn't talked about their kiss. Instead, once it was over, they returned to training with the Force.

Something had changed when she pushed her way into his mind. He had accused her of creating a bond between them, but the connection between them already existed. However, it was more intense now. The next time they used the Force together, it was almost effortless. Using her power alongside Solo, she felt as if together they could do almost anything. It was as if his power increased hers exponentially.

She knew her plan to enter the black hole was a desperate long shot. Now she felt like they had a genuine chance of surviving.

While she waited, she did a final check on her TIE's oxygen reserves. The ship wasn't designed for two people, and Solo hadn't been as careful as she would have liked when he'd removed the engine, but it maintained just enough reserve power to keep them alive for a short while.

She felt as much as she heard him when he came back into the cargo bay.

"Ready?" she asked without turning to look at him.

"Uh, look, before we do this..." Solo's voice trailed off nervously.

Her shoulders tensed. Maybe it was his tone of voice, perhaps it was something she could sense over their newly strengthened bond, but she just knew that whatever had him upset, it wasn't about the plan or their possibly imminent death. It was about kissing.

Why had she done that?

Part of her wanted nothing more than to start kissing him again. Part of her was terrified. The feelings he aroused in her didn't feel like the dark passions appropriate for a Sith. They felt warm and gentle. Safe.

She was supposed to want to bend him to her will, to help mold him into a perfect weapon for the dark side. Instead, she wanted to wrap her arms around him and keep him just as he was, and lock him away forever somewhere protected where he would always be hers.

Oh, and kiss him a lot more. She wanted there to be a lot more kissing and other things as well.

She had struggled with these thoughts all night, trying to bring what she should want in line with what she did want.

She tried to imagine herself finally fulfilling her destiny: taking her Grandfather's place on the Sith throne with Ben Solo kneeling before her as her new apprentice. As much as she liked the idea of him kneeling before her, she also knew all too well the life of a Sith apprentice. She didn't want him to kneel because she had broken his will, but because he wanted to. And she knew Ben Solo as he was now would never submit to her.

Even worse, she feared he regretted kissing her back. After all, he was the one who had put a stop to things before they went any further.

What was she supposed to do once they escaped the black hole, take him prisoner? She didn't know, and she'd been trying not to overthink it.

But now he wanted to talk.

"We should get going," she told him, hoping to delay any conversation about what the kissing meant.

"Yeah, about that, you know something might happen, or you know it might not..."

She turned to look at him. "Is that some sort of Jedi proverb? Because if so, it's not really profound."

He chuckled nervously and ran a hand through his hair.

"No, it's not a Jedi proverb. What I mean is that there's only one seat, so... you'll be sitting on my lap, and..."

"Yeah, we already talked about that," she was getting impatient. "It’s the only way that makes sense."

"Okay, yes," he agreed. "But I just want you to know, I don't really have control if you know, something happens. Or if it doesn't, that doesn't mean anything either."

"Well, you better get control," she snapped at him. "If you can't call on the Force, then we'll die."

"Kriff! I'm not talking about the Force, I'm talking about my dick," he yelled back. At this statement, he turned beet red and clamped his mouth shut.

"Oh!?" was all she could say for a moment, and she could feel her own face heating up. She hadn't really thought about that, even though she had wondered if he would put his arms around her when they were in the ship.

As her mind tried to recontextualize the last few minutes, something occurred to her.

"Wait, that can't be true," she said.

"Look, I know it's cliched to say it has a mind of its own, but-"

"No, that's not what I meant," she interrupted him. This was a terrible and awkward conversation. She wanted out of it and she figured the only way to really resolve it was to rip the bandage off.

"I mean, it does mean something. One of those means something. Either you get a-" She paused for a moment, trying to figure out what word she wanted to use. She quickly threw out all of the slang she'd heard from the Knights of Ren and decided to go with what she hoped was a more neutral tone. "An erection, or you don't. I mean, either you feel that way, or you don't, whatever your… dick does. You can't pretend you have no opinion on the subject. So which is it?"

His eyes met hers, and she regretted saying anything. He stepped towards her until he was directly in front of her, and for the first time, Ben Solo seemed truly dangerous, and it sent a shiver down her spine.

He tilted her chin up so she couldn't help but look at him. "You are...very attractive." Then he let go and moved past her to get into the TIE. "Well, aren't you coming?" he called after her as she stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do or say.

Chapter Text

Kira Ren sitting on his lap wasn't as awkward as Ben feared it would be. It was worse. There was something about the way she demanded he confess his attraction to her, something about how she wrinkled her nose that turned him on.

Which was the last thing he needed under the circumstances.

He was already half-hard by the time she got in the TIE and sat on his lap. Of course, she couldn't sit still but had to squirm around, a lot more than he thought should be necessary.

"Do you mind?" he asked her.

"You're the one that's too big," she said. "There's barely any room for me here."

He was glad that she wasn't facing him, and that he was wearing a helmet in case the TIE depressurized, so she couldn't see his face.

He knew what she meant, but still, those words didn't help the situation.

Finally, she settled into place. Ben took a deep breath and tried to center himself. He tried to recall his uncle's voice. Remembering Skywalker's instructions on meditation was a good way of reducing his ardor.

"Well," Kira said impatiently.

"I need to be able to concentrate," he told her.

"You know what's great for concentration?" she asked. "Being about to die."

With that, she took the datapad he wired into the Grimtaash's systems. Although the main engines were useless, the ship's maneuvering thrusters still had a little power. He'd set up an ignition sequence to turn the ship towards the black hole and into a lower orbit.

It wasn't much, but Ben figured anything that got them close to the center of the black hole faster meant less time they had to try to keep the gravity from tearing them apart. The small course correction would either help them survive or kill them quicker. It was all a gamble at this point.

Nothing dramatic happened as their orbit began to decay. They still had time before the g-forces became deadly.

"Ready?" Kira asked.

"Yes," he told her.

"Now who's a bad liar?" she responded.

He wasn't really listening to her words anymore. He was instead listening to the bond that hummed between them. He still wasn't happy about it. He had no idea what it meant that she had bound them together like this. But for now, it was useful because he could instantly feel and react to the contours of her power.

Together they expanded their awareness first outside of the TIE, and then outside the Grimtaash’s hull. Then as one, they began to move the ship, accelerating it towards the black hole.

It didn't take long after that for gravity to find them. Soon, they no longer needed to direct the ship as the black hole began to drag them in; instead, they concentrated their efforts on creating a shield around the ship, pushing back at the forces that wanted to tear it apart.

Ben was hardly surprised when their bubble began to contract. The black hole’s force was too great, and there was a limit to how much area they could protect. He expected the ship's metal to groan as it tore apart, but there was no sound. There was only a strange elongation as the ship was pulled apart bit by bit. First, coming apart at the seams, and then at a molecular level.

But inside their bubble, they were still safe, although the strain was enormous. Neither of them could have done this alone. Kira was right about the threat focusing him. It focused both of them, not only on the peril, but on each other.

Now their minds were wholly intertwined as they combined their power, both dark and light, to shield themselves from the quiet destruction of the event horizon.

There!

Ben was no longer sure if it was he or Kira who spoke. It didn't matter, they both felt it: an emptiness in the massive presence that was the black hole. Despite what the name implied, a black hole wasn't empty. It was a ball of mass so dense that nothing could escape its gravity.

Yet, impossibly, there was a gap. A place that was not the dense maelstrom of matter that threatened to pull them apart.

They began to direct the TIE towards that emptiness, moving at incredible speeds towards what should have been their doom. But they both knew that gap represented something more. It was empty of matter, but not of the Force.

All at once, they passed through the event horizon, the moment marked by a blinding light that would dissipate and had no apparent source. All of the light that passed too close to the black hole and was unable to escape its pull was here. Light that no one had seen in centuries, maybe millennia, trapped, unable to be seen, or to move on.

Their bubble contracted again. Gravity was almost overwhelming here, but still they pushed back. The TIE’s wings seemed to vanish as they stopped protecting them. In reality, the molecular bonds had been torn apart so rapidly that it seemed to leave no trace.

The bubble shrank again. The strain was getting to them. The power of the black hole was too much. The TIE was gone. There was only the two of them. Ben's arm around Kira's waist as if they were frozen in the middle of some dance.

He could feel it in all directions now; gravity, pulling, tugging, tearing. They were intruders here, violating the purity of the crushed star's center with their determination to retain their shape.

They could not hold on much longer. Yet, it didn't feel like defeat. This was the impossible and they had done iit.

The air was getting thin. Their helmets were no longer being fed by the TIE's system. Ben had the foolish thought that he would, in fact, start dancing. They would dance to their deaths, letting their atoms swirl around each other for all time.

So it was a rude surprise when his body suddenly slammed into something hard. Kira came loose from his arms. Disoriented, he tried to sit up, confused by the fact that there seemed to be a floor, and he seemed to be lying on it.

His eyes blinked rapidly, still adjusting from the blinding light that had been the inside of the black hole.

For a moment, he thought it was all a strange dream. It was ridiculous to think they actually managed to survive. But as his vision cleared, he realized if it was a dream, he'd only just hit the strange part.

Ben took off his helmet--it had been severed from the oxygen supply, so it wasn't doing him any good anymore--and looked around. For a moment, he thought he was suspended in a void. Then he realized there was a difference between the floor he felt under him, and everything else. The floor was an empty flat black, whereas the rest of the void seemed to be filled with distant stars.

He was starting to stand up when he was startled by a modulated laugh in the otherwise silent void. His hand slipped, and he discovered that the void wasn't all solid. There was very much an edge to the 'floor' he was sitting on, outlined in a faint silver line.

Luckily, he caught himself before discovering what happened if you fell off the edge of nothingness.

He turned to see Kira laughing. That alone was enough to make him wonder if he hadn't gone mad.

She caught his eye. "It worked," she said exuberantly. "We're here."

It seemed the momentary lack of oxygen had gotten to her too, leaving her giddy.

"It's very between," he said. "But not very world like."

He hadn’t known what to expect the World Between Worlds to look like. He supposed he'd just expected it to look like something.

She ignored his comment but offered him a hand to help him to his feet.

"Now we just need to find a portal," she said enthusiastically.

"Can you take that off?" he asked. Kira's happy tone was very disconcerting when it came from her barbaric looking mask.

"Why?" she asked suspiciously.

"Because black is a really bad look here. I'm likely to accidentally walk through you the way you disappear into the void."

"Really? Not because I'm very attractive?" She teased him.

Why, he asked himself, did being called out like this turn him on? Something it was clearly too dangerous to admit to her. So he changed the subject.

"We should find a way out of here. I don't see anything that looks like a portal. Do you?"

"No," she admitted. "But, they are here somewhere."

"You sound confident," he said.

Their path extended into two directions, but he couldn't see anything on either horizon. So he arbitrarily picked one and began to walk.

"How do you know so much about the World Between Worlds anyway?" he asked, noticing that she decided to follow him.

"Jedi aren't the only ones who study the Force," she told him.

He could sense she was hiding something from him. Maybe there were some advantages to this bond. Of course, how much insight did it give her about him?

For now, he let it go. It was enough that Kira Ren hadn't turned into his enemy the moment they were free of the black hole. Of course, it was hard to say how much better off they were in this uncharted void.

They traveled in silence for a while. It was hard to tell for how long since there was no tangible way to judge time or space. It was possible they were traveling in a giant circle--there was a slight curve to their path--there was simply no way to know.

The most exciting thing to happen was Kira finally taking off her helmet.

Then out of nowhere, he heard a young girl’s voice.

"I'm here, Grandfather."

He froze, looking around in confusion before realizing that the sound had come from somewhere below them.

Ben moved to the edge of the path and, looking down below, he finally saw something in the void. He couldn't quite call it a chamber for it had no walls or ceiling, but it had a great circular floor and at the edges of the circle, he finally saw the portals Kira had mentioned.

The portals were not solid. It was as if silver paint was suspended in the air, drawing out the shape of a triangle with an oval inscribed within.

In the middle of all of it, all by herself was a young human girl in a dark grey robe.

Ben was about to call out to the girl--thinking she was lost--when Kira's hand covered his mouth as she pulled him back from the edge.

"She's fine," Kira whispered to him. "You can't help her anyway."

Chapter Text

Ben was unsure of what to do as he looked down on the strange young girl who stood below him, here in the World Between Worlds. He felt he shouldn’t leave a young girl wandering lost and alone, but Kira was clearly distraught.

He could feel unease rolling off of her in waves, and he saw fear in her eyes.

"Then let us begin," a man's voice said.

Ben looked down again, unable to see anyone else below. He knew that voice, although he couldn't place it.

He followed the girl's line of sight and realized that one of the portals was open and she was speaking to a figure just inside the entrance. He couldn't make out much about the man except that he was draped in black.

The girl reached out towards one of the other portals. This one was directly across from Ben and Kira's perch, and so he could see clearly inside when the portal opened.

His heart caught his throat as he instantly recognized the place on the other side of the portal, even though it hadn't existed for years.

It was the Jedi temple where he had trained as a boy.

Kira was pulling on his arm, trying to get him to step away, but he was rooted to the ground with a morbid fascination. He couldn't look away even if he wanted to.

"Now, Grandfather?" the girl asked.

"Not yet," responded the voice from the obscured portal. "You will know when."

Then it happened. One of the huts near the temple collapsed.

His hut.

Ben Solo watched in horror as a younger version of himself stumbled out of the wreckage, lightsaber in hand.

The girl lifted her arms so that one was directed at each of the two open portals. From the portal with the man, lightning suddenly burst forth, connecting with her outstretched arm.

The girl seemed to catch it, channel it, and then redirect it towards the other portal.

Ben understood a moment too late what was happening, as a storm erupted in the sky above the temple, and the entire complex suddenly burst into flame.

"No!" Ben screamed.

He'd seen this before, experienced this before. He always swoe that he hadn't been responsible for the temple's destruction and the students’ deaths. Even so, some part of him always wondered if the darkness inside of him had struck out violently that night, burning everything to the ground.

Now he'd seen it again. He should have realized what was going to happen; he should have stopped it. This time, he truly was responsible. He'd been given the opportunity to save all those children, his friends. And he'd failed.

The lightning only lasted a moment. When it was gone, the girl dropped heavily to the floor. The portal closed, and Ben could no longer see his younger self running towards the temple in the hopes that he could save someone.

Ben pulled himself free of Kira's grasp and leapt off the ledge from where they were watching to land on the floor below. He rushed over to the girl, ready to demand an explanation from her.

Instead, he found her lying on her side, her skin cracked and burned from the lightning. She was still alive, but only barely. This close, he realized just how small and young she was. There was something familiar about her too.

He had been angry a moment ago, but seeing her burnt flesh, hearing her whimper in pain, he knew there was no way this girl could have really understood what was going to happen. No one would volunteer for something like this. What was the point in being angry at a dying child anyway?

He heard a thump and looked up to see that Kira had followed him down. But she was swaying unsteadily and couldn't quite get to her feet.

"Wait," she said, her voice was weak. "She'll be...she'll be fine..." Then Kira collapsed.

Confused about who to help, Ben looked down at the girl, wondering if anything could be done for her. He reached out with the Force to measure her injuries.

That's when he felt the bond, and he recognized her.

The girl was Kira.

It was only a whisper of the connection he'd felt to Kira since she'd forged their bond, but it was unmistakable.

Now he understood how Kira had known so much about this place, how she had been so sure the World Between Worlds was a place that you could travel to and not just a myth. She'd been here before.

Perhaps he should have been angry, but both Kiras were dying in front of him. He began to understand that if the younger Kira died, the older one would too.

Too many other children had died that night. He hadn't saved them. Ben would save this one if he could.

He closed his eyes and reached out to the Force. Laying a hand on her stomach, he began to channel the light into her, offering her his power to rejuvenate her own, encouraging her cells to heal and become whole. The Force had torn her apart; now it would put her back together.

He expected it to be complicated. Instead, the bond thrummed between him and the younger Kira. He had not only his power to draw on, but hers as well.

The burns began to heal, the girl's eyes started to flutter open.

"Everything's going to be okay," he told her.

He placed his hand on the side of her head and gently put her to sleep before she could get a good look at him.

He looked over to Kira, expecting her to have gotten back up, now that her younger self was no longer in critical condition. But she still lay on the ground, not moving. He could sense her, she was alive, and yet her signature was weak as if she was fading away.

Confused and panicked, he tried to remember everything he knew about time travel. Then he realized everything he knew was from a children's holo series he'd loved as a kid, Captain Timewarp, because time travel wasn't real.

Except here he was with two Kiras having just seen his younger self. He was, after all, either nowhere or in the center of a black hole. Time was relative, he reminded himself. He'd been worrying about time dilation for a week or so now, as he wondered how much time had passed for his parents while he was stuck around a black hole. Not to mention some Jedi had visions of the future, although such visions were never guaranteed to come true.

The only useful thing to do was accept that some form of time travel could happen, he was in the middle of it, and if his only real guide was Captain Timewarp. Well, it was better than nothing.

What were the rules? Number one, never interact with your own timeline. Well, he'd already messed up there.

It made him wonder, however, could he have saved the temple? If he'd understood what was happening sooner, if he'd stepped in to stop it, could he have changed his own past? Supposedly no. Kira must have known what was going to happen, and she had tried to stop him from talking to her younger self.

You can't help her anyway.

That was what Kira had said, wasn't it?

This, he realized, was the real reason Kira had tried to look at his memory of the night the temple had been destroyed, because she was there, she had done it.

Looking down at the girl in his arms, he found it hard to blame her for this. She seemed like a discarded tool. The man who sent her here, the one she had called Grandfather, had not come for her. She had served her purpose and been left behind. Besides, she was only a child. Children, he knew, were desperate to please, even if it was someone who didn't have their best interests at heart.

No, this girl was another victim. If he hadn't stepped in and saved her, she would have been one more child that died that night. This night. Whenever this was.

But despite her insistence, Kira wasn't okay.

Ben set the girl's head back down and went to examine the woman. She was fading, he could feel the bond between them getting weaker as it seemed to shift to the girl. Kira Ren wasn't conscious; she couldn't tell him what happened next.

He debated whether he should look into her mind. It would be an invasion, but it was also to save her life.

Helpless, he looked between the two Kiras. Maybe he hadn't done enough, he thought, looking at the girl. Perhaps he hadn't really saved her life. Healing wasn't a power with which he was ever comfortable. He should get her to a medical facility somewhere.

But how?

He looked at the portal that led to the temple. If he took the girl there, maybe he could find help. The temple was burning, but perhaps he could find Tai before the other Jedi chased after him. Tai was much better at healing, he would help her no matter what.

But Voe would be there too. Voe hunted Ben down for destroying the temple, which he hadn't done. In her anger and grief over the other students’ deaths, she might hurt the young Kira, who was, in fact, partially responsible.

Also, if he did find them, it might stop them from chasing the younger version of himself, which meant that when the Grimtaash’s compressor failed and he had to make an emergency detour at Sintar station, they might not catch up to him. It meant he might have made it to Snoke, and then what would happen to him?

He might have risked his past to save the lives of the young Jedi students at the temple, but they were already dead. Again.

He would take her somewhere else. Maybe somewhen else.

Then, he understood the problem. Even if he knew how to take her somewhere else, taking her to his own time would undoubtedly destroy the Kira he knew, because she'd never have the chance to grow up when she was supposed to.

He would be effectively killing the past of the woman he knew, and destroying her along with it.

He looked at the other portal, the one from where the lightning and the voice had come. He had no idea what was behind it, but it had to be from where the child had come from.

Slowly, he picked up the girl. He was trembling as he carried her towards the portal. He had no idea how to open it, but it didn't seem to matter because as he approached, the portal changed. Behind its emptiness, he could now see a dimly lit space and a robed figure.

The portal opening got the figure's attention. It turned and moved in the most unnatural of ways until it was facing Ben.

Ben felt the blood drain from his face as he looked in horror on the stuff of nightmares. Impossible as it seemed, he understood why he recognized the man's voice.

It was the old Emperor, Sheev Palpatine.

Ben was struck by how much worse the Emperor looked than he had in the holos Ben had watched in school. No wonder he knew that voice. You couldn't grow up in Leia Organa's household without listening to the speech that had killed democracy in the Old Republic a half dozen times and explain why it had been a travesty.

It made no sense. The Emperor was dead.

But then, time travel.

Ben Solo's head hurt.

"Well now, if it isn't the young Ben Solo. Or perhaps not so young?"

Ben's mouth was dry. A little voice in his head wanted to argue that he wasn't thirty yet, but he was too stunned to say anything to his childhood boogeyman.

"Interesting," Palpatine said, looking past him at the older version of Kira lying on the floor.

Ben turned to follow his gaze and realized that although she was getting stronger, she wasn't awake yet. Which meant he was doing the right thing. Except how could this be right?

"Look at what my little Rey has grown into. Perhaps she is stronger than I thought?"

"You were going to let her die." Ben finally found his voice.

"Death is... not as absolute as you might think. But perhaps she doesn't need as much improvement as I thought."

The Emperor's laugh was a terrible thing, and it took Ben a moment to realize that the young Kira had begun to levitate out of his arms towards the portal.

He tried to grab onto her.

"Wait," he said. "I can't..."

"What?" Palpatine mocked him. "Give her back to her family? Come now, Ben Solo, surely you of all people wouldn't take a child from their family?" The Emperor looked past him at the young woman lying on the floor. "It's not as if you won't meet again. I assure you there is a place for you, with her, at my side."

It was a terrible thing to see the Emperor smile. Ben's stomach turned, and he lost his hold on the girl as Palpatine used his power to pull her through the portal. The Emperor laughed at Ben's discomfort, the sound only stopping as the portal snapped shut when the young version of Kira was pulled through.

He should have held onto her. He shouldn't have let a monster like Palpatine take her. Horrified at his own inaction, Ben Solo slumped to the floor as tears began to stream down his face.

Chapter Text

Rey felt light-headed. Slowly she tried to sit up, unsure of why she was lying down in the first place.

It came back to her as she looked around: the World Between Worlds, Ben Solo, and both of them watching her younger self destroy the temple.

Her younger self was gone now; only Solo remained. He sat slumped against the edge of one of the portals, tears running down his face.

He knew everything now, or at least enough.

"So," she said as she got shakily to her feet. "Do we fight now?"

He looked at her in surprise but started to stand as well.

He nodded his head slowly. "I understand if you can't forgive me, but I don't want to fight you."

Rey had started to reach for her lightsaber as he got up, but now she paused.

"Why would I need to forgive you?" she asked, confused.

"Right, you wouldn't remember. I... I gave you to Palpatine."

She frowned, trying to make sense of his words. "What do you mean gave me to him?"

He shook his head as if trying to clear it. She could feel his distress. "I healed you, the other you. And then, you, the you you, was still vanishing. So I... I opened the portal and... I had no idea who I'd find."

He started to pace.

"What am I saying?" he asked rhetorically. "That can't be real. He's dead. And there's no such thing as time travel." He spun on his heel and looked at her. "This is like a vision cave!"

"No, it's not," she said sadly. "What you saw, that was real. Wait? You healed me?"

She began to put together what must have happened while she was unconscious. It meant something very different had happened than what she'd always assumed. The Emperor was bound by his life support machines, and so he couldn't pass into the World Between Worlds. That's why he'd sent Rey to act as a conduit for his power.

She still remembered the pain as the lightning coursed through her. She'd always assumed that when it was done, her Grandfather had used the Force to lift her, bring her back through the portal, and heal her.

"He left me to die, didn't he?" Rey asked, afraid to hear it confirmed.

"When the lightning stopped, both portals closed. I had to open it again. I didn't know who I'd find."

It shouldn't have surprised her, and yet the realization that her Grandfather had simply used and discarded her hit Rey like a ton of bricks. Deep down, she quietly held on to the hope that her only family really did care for her. But not only had her Grandfather never cared, he hadn't even thought her valuable enough to retrieve.

"Are you okay?" Solo asked, taking a step towards her.

She reached out and knocked him back with the Force. Pain and anger burned through her veins. The dark side howled in her ears. Her Grandfather, her Master, thought she was worthless, powerless. She would show him just how strong she was, she would show everyone.

Rey was done being the apprentice, the faithful granddaughter. She would kill her Grandfather and take his place as Lord of the Sith.

Her lightsaber leapt into her hand as she ignited the dual red blades. She spun the weapon around her before swinging it at Solo. She didn't intend to actually strike him and was ready to stop the blow before it could connect with his neck. She only wanted to conquer him.

She always feared that her Master wanted Ben Solo as an apprentice more than her. She would make him hers instead. She would show him her true power, the power of the dark side. She would be Master, and he, Apprentice. She would be Empress, and he would be her consort.

But as her lightsaber whirled through the air, he dodged backward, deftly getting out of the way. Angered, she swung again, no longer thinking about pulling her blows. Again and again, he ducked out of the way as she chased him through the void.

"Kira, listen to me-"

"My name isn't Kira," she interrupted him. "My name is Rey Palpatine. Bow, and you can share in my power."

"I'm not going to do that," he said.

Finally, he ignited his own lightsaber, parrying her red beam with his blue one.

"Kira... Rey... I don't want to fight you," he said. Now he was parrying her every attack, but still, he didn't strike back.

"Then surrender," she told him. Subjugating Ben Solo would be proof that it was her time to rule the Sith.

They were close to each other now. Solo blocked another strike, but this time he bore down, using his height to press down on her blade with his.

"If I surrender, can we stop fighting?" he asked.

"Yes," she told him through gritted teeth. Why did he have to be so tall? It wasn't fair.

He pulled back suddenly and extinguished his lightsaber.

"Then I surrender," he said.

She didn't attack again but moved into a ready stance in case this was a trick.

"You surrender?" she asked.

"Yes," he said.

As if to prove it, he tossed his lightsaber to her. She caught it, but he felt her wariness through the bond.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I don't want to fight you," he said. "And because surrender is the path to the light side."

"I thought you weren't a Jedi," she said warily, still unwilling to put her guard down.

"I'm not," he said. "The Jedi talk about balance, but they want to destroy the dark side. And I don't want to destroy you. They talk about surrender, but they train as warriors, and I don't want to fight."

"So you'll join me?" she asked, feeling unsteady.

"No, but I'll surrender to you," he repeated.

"It doesn't work that way," she said, stomping her foot. "You're either with me or against me."

"That's not how things work," he told her. "I like you. That doesn't mean I have to agree with you. Very little in life is binary, maybe not even the Force. I can… care for you without helping you take over the galaxy and establishing a new galactic Empire. Or whatever it is you want."

"It doesn't matter what I want," she said, finally lowering her lightsaber. "I'm a Palpatine, I don't have any choice."

He smiled sadly at her.

"There are always more choices than people think," he said. "Telling someone, there's no choice is how you control them." She started to object, but he stopped her. "Isn't that what you were just trying to do to me?"

She wanted to object, but couldn't find an argument. She extinguished her lightsaber, having lost the will to fight.

Solo placed his hand on the side of her face, tilting her head up to look at him, and he smiled broadly.

"That's better," he said.

"What?" she asked defensively.

"Your eyes," he told her. "They're hazel. I like them much better that way than yellow and corrupted."

"Even after everything I've done?" she asked, but she didn't pull away from his touch. "I killed the Jedi."

Now he looked uncomfortable as if she had managed to finally show why all this surrendering nonsense was just that, nonsense. In the end, things were only resolved with fighting.

"You were used by a monster. And I... I gave you back to him."

She could feel an intense shame radiating off of him that she didn't entirely understand.

"Why did you?" she asked.

He stroked the side of her face.

"Because I like you, the you that you are. And you wouldn't have been you anymore. You would have been... some new version of you." He laughed at his own convoluted words. "Also, it would feel creepy waiting for you to become old enough to kiss."

"So kiss me," she told him.

He did. Yet it was his words as much as his lips that filled Rey with warmth. He wanted her as she was, not some idealized version that he could mold and shape. In his eyes, Rey was worth enough as she was.

She gripped his shirt, pulling him closer as she explored his mouth. To her disappointment, after only a few moments, he pulled back.

"Look, I'm sorry," he said. "But I can't get it out of my head, and I just have to ask. Was that really Palpatine?"

"So, what do you prefer?" Ben asked her. "Kira? Rey? What do I even call you now?"

They sat next to each other, swinging their legs over the edge of the void that was the World Between Worlds. Ben was slowly trying to process her story about clones, resurrected Sith lords, and the First Order’s true origins.

She considered for a moment. "I prefer Rey, but... no one's supposed to know who I really am."

"Rey, then," he said. He liked it he decided, maybe more so, because at the moment it was a secret between them. "By itself, it doesn't really give much away. And please, can you start calling me Ben? Hearing you call me Solo makes me think a bounty hunter has tracked me down."

She smiled and nodded. Ben wondered if she knew how disarming her smiles were, especially since they were rare. The more she talked about her past, the more her anger seemed to fade. She could have been almost any girl at the moment.

If they weren’t trapped in a timeless void that existed between all of time and space.

"I can call you Ben, but you shouldn't call me Rey. I'm Kira Ren," she said, but it didn't sound as if her heart was in it.

"Why?" he asked. "Because that's what your creepy uncle wants you to tell people?"

"He's not-"

"You said your father was another clone of him, so he's not really your Grandfather. And I know a creepy uncle who has planned your entire life's path out for you when I see one."

"You shouldn't make light of him," she insisted. "He's more powerful than you can imagine."

Ben shrugged. "You were willing to take him on just a little bit ago."

She sighed. "I wasn't thinking straight."

"True, but I think you know something. It doesn't matter how powerful he is. You and I together, with this bond, we're stronger, aren't we?"

"I thought you were angry about the bond."

He squirmed a little uncomfortably. "That's when I thought you created it by forcing your way into my mind. But I think I made it when I healed you."

She raised her eyebrows and looked at him. "So, it's fine when you make a bond, but not when I do?"

Ben started to open his mouth before he realized he had no good answer. So he said the only thing he could think of. "Yes?"

She glared at him. "I should knock you off this platform into the endless void."

He smiled, seeing his opening. "You could, but then you wouldn't have anyone to kiss."

She made a sound of disgust, but he could see her fighting a smile.

"You sure think a lot of yourself for a guy who had to surrender to win a fight."

"You admit I won," Ben said with a grin.

"You're impossible."

"Yeah," he nodded. "I get that a lot." He frowned slightly then. "Can I ask you something?"

She nodded.

"Do you actually want it?"

She looked at him, confused.

"You, Rey, Kira, whatever you want to call yourself. Do you want to be Empress or a Sith Lord? Did you even want to be a Knight of Ren? What do you want?"

Ben could see from the distressed look she gave him that no one had ever asked her that before. He wasn't surprised. He knew what it was like for your family to decide your life without asking you. He had been an adult before anyone asked him that question.

"If I tell you," she said slowly. "Will you answer a question for me?"

"I'll answer any question you ask," he told her. "As long as it's about me." She looked puzzled. "I mean, I'm not giving you any Resistance secrets."

"Oh," she nodded. "Okay, I guess that's fine."

He felt bad. Evidently, Rey had been in earnest. This wasn't some interrogation trick.

"When you looked in my mind you saw it, didn't you? An island, an ocean. That's what I want. To find it. To learn how to swim."

She looked away from him, embarrassed.

"That's a wonderful thing to want," he said earnestly. He understood it all too well. When you were supposed to stand at the center of the galaxy and hold it together, all because of who your family was, a simple dream was the most tempting.

"So?" he asked. "What did you want to ask me?"

"Why didn't you join Snoke?" she asked. "Your uncle, the other Jedi, they all turned against you. It's obvious now there was a plan to bring you to the dark side. So, why didn't it work? Why didn't you join us when you were supposed to?"

He was a little disappointed that her question was about his history, not something more personal. Then again, he'd been quizzing her on her own childhood and family not too long ago, so maybe it was only fair.

He stared into the void, thinking where to begin.

"Do you remember me telling you that I could count on the Grimtaash to fail when I needed her to?"

Rey nodded.

"Well," he shrugged. "That's what happened. I was on my way to Snoke when the compressor failed. I had to make an emergency stop at Sintar station."He leaned back, remembering. "I was young, my uncle had just tried to kill me, most of my friends were dead, and those that weren't thought I had murdered the others. So while I was waiting on the repairs, I went into a bar figuring this was the perfect time to have my first drink.

"I had a few, more than I should have, when this strange woman sat down at the table with me. I couldn't get her to leave. And then… then they found me, the other Jedi.

"What happened next is a bit hazy. Like I said, I was drunk. The woman said something like, 'I'll handle this,' and then she used the Force to push me back down into my seat.

"The others must not have noticed. At least Voe didn't. She said something about this being Jedi business, and when the woman wasn't impressed, she drew her lightsaber.

"What happened next... I'd never seen anything like it. That was the first time I began to understand the difference between power and skill. The woman, Ahsoka, that's her name, moved like no one I'd ever seen. Before any of us knew what happened, she flung Hennix across the room, broke Voe's arm to disarm her, and had a silver lightsaber at Tai's throat. I didn't even know there were silver lightsabers back then."

Ben paused to smile. With all the terrible things that had happened that night, meeting Ahsoka had been one of the best things to ever happen to him.

"The funny thing is, in many ways, Snoke was the reason I followed her and begged her to teach me. For years, he'd been telling me that Luke Skywalker wasn't half as wise or impressive as everyone believed he was. After all, he'd only ever had a few lessons from any actual Jedi Masters. Most of what my uncle knew he pieced together from old Jedi texts. That’s not to say my Uncle isn't a big deal, there is something instinctive about using the Force that he's always excelled at. But seeing someone who actually knew what they were doing? I had to learn from her. She was the most deadly fighter I'd ever seen, and all I wanted was to know how to fight like her.

"I figured Snoke would understand, hell, he'd want me to learn everything I could.

"Of course, the first thing I wanted to know was how she learned to fight like that. Who was she, where had she come from? And she was honest like no one ever had been with me before."

Ben paused, considering for a moment if the next part was his secret to tell. But he knew how damaging covering up the past could be. Ahsoka would understand. At least he hoped she would.

"She was Anakin's Skywalker's apprentice. For the first time ever, someone was actually willing to talk to me about my Grandfather, the good and the bad.

"Before Ahsoka, everyone had always acted like if I knew too much about him, I'd become him. But not her. And because she was so honest with me, I was honest with her. I told her about Snoke. About the voice in my head. And she helped me see him for what he was, someone who wanted to turn me into a weapon.

"She helped me realize that he was the one who kept me alone all my life. Who made me see the worst in others. He'd been telling me to slap away every hand I was ever offered.

"And then you know the First Order showed up, and it turned out that my mom wasn't crazy saying there was some shadow threat against the New Republic, and here we are."

"Here we are," Rey repeated almost sadly.

Chapter Text

Rey felt a kind of exhaustion she'd never felt before. It wasn't like the physical exhaustion of a particularly brutal training session or the weariness that came with hunger. It was something new. It was something that came from doing more talking than she had in her entire life.

Even so, as she watched Ben pace about inspecting the various portals, she couldn't help but ask, "What are you looking for?"

He looked at her, puzzled. "A way out, of course."

"Out is easy," she said matter of factly. "You just have to kind of will the portals to open, and they do. And I already told you the twelve systems they go to."

"I'm not so worried about where, as when," he told her. "Although, where matters too, since we don't have a ship. So the temple's no good, at least not in the right time, no ships there to carry us off-world anymore."

"When do you want to go?" she asked, puzzled.

"Back to when we left. Well, maybe not then," he said, considering. "Not if we have a choice in the matter. I never really did figure out how long we spent around the black hole compared to the rest of the galaxy. So let's say about the time we got stuck around the black hole. That would be more or less perfect."

For all he liked to talk about his Jedi training--and then insist he wasn't a Jedi--Ben could be somewhat thick.

She was still getting used to that, Ben.

"Why is there a floor?" she asked.

He stopped and looked at her like she'd gone crazy.

"Seriously, I'm sitting here on the edge of the floor. But why is there one? Why are there doorways? You don't really think anyone actually built this place, do you? We're inside a...nexus of the Force? Maybe The Force Nexus?" She shrugged. "I'm pretty sure it's just a matter of thinking about when you want to go."

"Oh. Yes. Well, probably," Ben admitted, a little deflated. "I guess then it's just a matter of where, when," he paused, making the last part a question. "And if we go together?"

Rey drew up her legs and hugged them. "We're mortal enemies out there. If we leave together, we'll just have to fight."

"We don't have to be," he said, coming to sit back down next to her.

"Yes. We do," Rey said sadly. "My Grandfather won't go in for that surrender thing you tried with me. Either you join us, or he kills you."

"So come with me," Ben pleaded. "You don't want to be Empress. We can find your island."

She shook her head. "He won't let me go," she told him. "He needs an Apprentice, someone to carry on the Sith legacy and power. Even if there was someone else, he'd have me hunted down and killed. He won't let any powerful Force user live that doesn't serve him."

"Well, since I'm not going to serve him," Ben said thoughtfully. "I suppose it's already him or me. Not that being hunted across the galaxy is much different than my normal day," he added. Then he shrugged. "I may not approve of all of this light side versus dark side fighting, but if it's him or me, I am going to choose me. Wait, can he be killed? I mean, he's sort of already dead, isn't he?"

Rey considered what she should say. Then she realized she needed to tell him the truth if only to protect him before he went off and did something reckless like taking on her Grandfather by himself.

"Yes, he can, but there's a problem. Well, not a problem for me, but for you. If you strike him down in anger, he will die, but whoever does that will inherit the legacy of the Sith. They will become him and all the Sith before him."

"Well, that sounds terrible," Ben agreed. "Wait, why is that only a problem for me? You can't really want all the Sith in your head for the rest of your life? Only to train the person who will kill you and then be stuck in their head for all of their lives and so on. That sounds nightmarish on so many levels."

No, Rey had to admit, it didn't sound great, especially when you put it like that. But Rey had always been a survivor, and there was only one way to survive her Grandfather, unless...

"So maybe," Rey said slowly. "There's another way to defeat him. I mean, there's no guarantee it would work, and there's a chance that someone else might come along someday and undo it..."

"Sounds like you have a dangerous, half-baked plan, against insurmountable odds with a tiny chance of success?"

Rey hadn't realized that she'd quietly gotten her hopes up that there was another path in life for her until he put it like that and crushed her dreams.

But then he burst into a wide grin.

"Sounds like a job for a Solo. Luckily, I know one who's available."

She almost wanted to slap him for taking things so lightly. But there was something infectious about his optimism. It was almost going to be too bad when he heard her plan and realized how unlikely the whole thing was to work.

Ben took a deep breath, trying to channel the angry teenage boy he'd worked hard to leave behind years ago.

It didn't work.

He'd done too good a job making amends with his past. He really did need to tell his parents that he wasn't holding a grudge anymore. That was going to be the first thing he did when this was all over.

"If this is your idea of the dark side, we're doomed," Rey said.

"Give me a minute," he told her.

Looking at her turned out to be all he needed. It wasn't attachment or desire that allowed him to connect to the darkness within him. Those he could handle. It was the thought of the evil decrepit old man who was her only family and yet, had done nothing but use and mistreat her.

That anger, that was what he needed.

"Better," she said. "Just remember-"

"Whatever I do, don't kill him," Ben said.

He no longer believed what he'd been taught as a boy, that using the dark side once led you down a path from which death was the only escape. But, if you killed a Sith lord and they all jumped into your head, well, that probably was a point of no return.

"I was going to say keep him talking. He loves to hear himself talk. Oh! If you can work it in, ask him about Darth Plagueis. I don't want to give away the ending, because ‘The Parable of Darth Plagueis the Wise' isn't as interesting as he thinks it is, so no reason for you to be bored. But he loves to tell that one."

"So basically treat him like any old spacer in a bar who wants to talk about his glory days."

"Don't be an ass," she scolded him. "This doesn't work if you’re an ass. Be dark. And angry. Dark and angry are key, okay?"

"Dark and angry," he repeated.

She was probably right. Solo sass was not what was called for in this situation. If for no other reason than it took Ben out of his dark and angry mood, and he needed to convince the most conniving Sith Lord of all time that he was ready to give in to the dark side.

She put on her helmet and looked him over one more time.

Then out of nowhere, she slapped him.

"Hey!" he protested.

"That's better. I'm not sure why everyone was so convinced that you were some great heir to the dark side, but at least you're mildly convincing now."

"I'll have you know I'm Darth Vader's grandson!" he objected. "I can do dark!"

She sighed, an unpleasant sound when heard through the helmet. "I hope so because this is going to end badly if you can't."

"Just open the portal already," he told her.

He couldn't read her expression behind the mask, so he decided to believe she was sticking out her tongue at him. He didn't think she'd actually do that, but it would be adorable if she did.

Then he remembered he was trying to be dark, and imagined her with a more sultry expression instead as she reached out one gloved hand towards the portal.

The blackness of the portal gave way to a different kind of dark. Life was strange, indeed, when the inside of a Sith temple was considered normal darkness. It was the kind that came from the absence of light, rather than the darkness of the World Between Worlds, which came from the absence of everything.

Not that he'd call it a friendlier darkness. The World Between Worlds was much more inviting than Rey's home on Exegol. The reminder that she had spent most of her life in the shadows of that dead world, and he had sent her back there, was enough to help him really grab on to his own darkness as he stepped through the portal, a step or two behind Rey.

He was not really ready for what lay on the other side, even though Rey had tried to prepare him.

It was a vast chamber filled with... He wasn't sure, his senses couldn't quite make out the massive crowd that looked down into the arena. Rey had told him to ignore them, “They won't interfere,” she'd said. But he could feel them, watching him, judging.

Then, there was the monstrosity that was the Emperor himself. Rey had warned him that her Grandfather was kept alive by a complicated machine that suspended his body on a sort of crane. It was one thing to hear it described. It was another to watch the corpse of the Emperor glide down like a nightmarish puppet.

Rey fell to one knee. "Master, I have brought you Ben Solo, as you asked."

"Well done, my child," Palpatine said, but his gaze was fixed on Ben.

"I may be here," Ben said, mustering up every bit of bravado he could. "But don't be so sure I'm going to serve you." He began to move, specifically moving away from Rey. "As far as I can see, you're just the clone of a man killed by a farm boy from Tatooine."

"So young Skywalker boasts of killing me?" the Emperor snarled. "Your uncle is nothing but a braggart and a liar. He could never teach you real power, not like I can."

"That's right," Ben said, trying to sound disdainful. "I forgot it wasn't a Tatooine farm boy that killed you. It was a Tatooine slave."

Palpatine hissed at him and Ben wondered if he'd gone too far. He did at least have the Emperor's attention. Palpatine hadn't noticed Rey slip off to the side and out of the arena. But if Ben annoyed the Emperor too much, it was possible that he would realize Rey had disappeared, and this might turn into a fight before they were ready.

Actually, if the plan worked, this would never really be a fight, but Ben knew that plans never went the way you expected them to.

"That slave was the most powerful and talented apprentice I ever trained," Palpatine said. "What makes you think you are worthy to stand in your grandfather's place?"

Ben laughed. "If you didn't think I was worthy, you wouldn't have spent all that time and energy trying to bring me over when I was a child. Or was that Snoke? He's the one out there, after all, actually doing things. Perhaps he's the one that can teach me about power?"

That seemed to have been the right thing to say, at least if you wanted to listen to a long boring diatribe about how Snoke was only a puppet, or creation or something, and how it was always really Palpatine inside Ben’s head.

Of all the crazy plans in which Ben had ever been a part, why did it have to be the one that involved standing there listening to a crazy old man rant and rave that would go off without a hitch?

Even so, Ben started to have his doubts. How long had Rey been gone? Had she betrayed him after all? Or was she in trouble? Who knew what awful traps or monsters might be hiding in this Sith mausoleum?

Just as Palpatine was starting to lose steam, Ben felt Rey return along with something else. Something dark and sticky and comfortable, an aberration in the Force.

The crowd felt it too. They began to scream and shriek, but none of them made any attempt to move down from their positions to do anything.

Hoping to keep the Emperor distracted from the real threat, Ben pulled out his lightsaber. He knew it was the nature of the dark side to expect violence. Palpatine was unlikely to realize that Ben had no intention of physically harming him, not if it looked like an attack.

At the very least, Ben succeeded in splitting Palpatine's attention before he was thrown across the room by the power the old Sith Master wielded.

"You think you can-" but Palpatine's angry rant was cut short.

Too late, he realized that Rey was the real danger, even though she didn't have her weapon drawn. While Ben had been distracting the Emperor, Rey had made her way into one of the Sith vaults to retrieve an artifact. It was an old Sith device designed to deal with Jedi by cutting them off from the Force.

The device was a horror, which Ben supposed wasn't surprising considering who had made it and why. At first, it seemed to be a whip, with a green base running through black wire. But as Rey snapped her arm forward, and the whip wrapped around the Emperor, it began to change. The cords untangled themselves from each other tendril-like, as they buried themselves in the Emperor's flesh.

The green center began to pulse and glow, almost like a Sith Holocron, as it bound and sapped the Force energy from its victim.

"The clones," Rey reminded him.

As the Emperor screamed, Ben moved quickly to disable the life-support systems for the unused clones Palpatine kept at the ready. According to Rey, it wasn't unusual for whichever body contained the Emperor's spirit to fail, sometimes suddenly, so he always had several spares ready just in case.

Rey was unsure if once the Sith device was activated if he would be able to leave his current body for one of the others. Ben now slashed the cloning equipment, destroying it with his lightsaber, and watched as the empty husks that might have housed Palpatine's spirit faded and died.

From the stands above them, he could hear the crowd scream.

"Don't mind them," Rey told Ben as he prepared for the onslaught that he assumed would come. "They're only echoes of the past. They can't act, not if he's restrained."

"So it's over?" Ben asked. It seemed a little unreal.

"As close to over as it can be," Rey said. "The machines will keep him alive for now, but the Sith artifact cuts him off from the Force. Without another clone body to jump to, when he dies... he should really be dead. I think."

"So just like that, the First Order is done with?"

Rey laughed. "Why would they be done with? I'm Empress now. I mean, no one knows it yet, but I am."

He looked at her, stunned. He assumed she wanted to be free of it all. It never occurred to him he was helping her in her own power grab.

The look on his face must have given his distress away.

"What did you think was going to happen?" she asked helplessly.

"I thought... I don't know. I thought maybe we'd go and find your island."

"The island isn't real," she said sadly. "And even if it was, how would we find one island in the whole galaxy?"

He laughed. "That's what makes looking for it fun. We can go anywhere we want, let the Force guide us to where we need to be. And just imagine if we did find it?"

He could tell she was tempted. For just a moment he thought he had her.

Then she shook her head. "It doesn't matter if I go with you. It doesn't matter if, with my Grandfather cut off from the Force, Snoke just topples over dead. The First Or-"

"Wait? Why would Snoke topple over dead?" Ben interrupted her.

"Oh! Snoke was one of Grandfather's creations. See?" she said, pointing to a subset of the destroyed cloning equipment. "That's the Snoke section."

He looked where she was pointing, and then took a step back at the unpleasant sight of the mindless Snoke clones. At least now some of the Emperor's ramblings made a kind of sense.

"Wait?! Does that mean every time Snoke spoke to me..?"

"It was really my Grandfather? Yes," Rey confirmed.

He looked at her sadly, "Then will you believe me when I say I get it? In some ways, we were raised by the same person. I know his arguments, Rey. I know how it goes, 'Peace is a lie.' But so is power. They are both only temporary. They both take constant work and struggle to maintain-"

"But I'll be free," she interrupted him. "What's the alternative, fighting with your Resistance? The First Order is real. It's made up of people who aren't just going to vanish because the Emperor isn't controlling them any more. They didn't even know he was alive in the first place. But if I'm in charge, I'll finally be free to do what I want."

"No, you won't," he told her. "You'll spend every minute of every day trying to keep your power, keep your freedom, and you'll never have a chance to enjoy it. Whether you meant to or not, you've already done more for the Resistance than probably anyone else. So if you don't want to fight for the Resistance, don't. You deserve a chance to have a life and see the galaxy before you decide if it's worth fighting for."

"So you do want me to join the Resistance," she accused him. "You're just trying to use me for your side."

"No," he told her. "I'm not asking you to choose sides. I'm not asking you to walk some dogmatic path of light or dark. I just want you to have what it took me years and a lot of pain to get—freedom from your family's legacy and expectations. If you really want to be Empress for yourself, then I guess that's what you need to do, and I can't follow. But if you even think there could be another way..."

His voice trailed off. He realized this wasn't an argument that could be won with logic. He couldn't make this choice for her, she had to want it. So he looked at her with both hope and fear as he held out his hand hoping she would take it..

He could feel her doubt, her struggle to break free from a lifetime of conditioning.

"I guess," she said slowly. "Since no one knows I'm Empress, I can tell them any time I want to."

It wasn't the ringing denouncement of the First Order he might have liked, but for now it was enough. Her reasons didn't matter. Only one thing mattered.

She took his hand.

The End