Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was no warning before it happened. One second, there was a clearing in the dense growth that covered most of Felucia, a remote jungle planet in the Thanium sector. A second later, there was a speck. Just a speck. Had there been a sentient soul around to bear witness, they would have reported that it was darker than the darkest Felucian night, that it hovered in the air, and that it was growing exponentially. Every second: bigger, bigger, and bigger still.

A portal.

A butterfly floated by unknowingly, then circled back, fluttering closer. Too curious by half. An ill-timed flap of its wings and it was gone. Swallowed up. Still growing, the portal was large enough now that a Gelagrub, the Felucian ground beetle used as mounts by stormtroopers back in the days of the Empire, might’ve passed through without struggle.

Bigger. Bigger. Bigger still.

Like the galaxy was opening its great maw, preparing to regurgitate something it had ingested by mistake. Then: a groaning noise, so low and deep the vines dangling from the nearby trees trembled and the ground shook.

And then.

Out flew a battered body: large and pale and covered in bruises, burns, blood. Dark, damp hair; one leg twisted beyond repair, the bones within peeking through skin and muscle.

A man.

He landed on the floor of the jungle and rolled several times, crushing mushrooms underneath him as he slowed to a stop.

He did not move.

The portal shrunk, spinning itself smaller, smaller, and smaller still. A speck, barely larger than a Felucian snail. Then a molecule, then a quark. Invisible to the human eye.

Then nothing.

The man did not move, save to drag in shallow, labored breaths.

Somewhere in the jungle canopy, a red-winged bird chirped out an inquisitive song.

The day went on.

It took hours but eventually, he opened his eyes.

They were dark brown and blood-shot. They were empty and haunted and hollow. They were screaming and they were silent.

He stumbled to his feet then toppled, breathless from the pain. He fumbled in the rich Felucian soil. A fallen branch. It was enough to get him up on his one good leg, enough to begin a slow, painful journey.

Where he was going, he could not say.

Who he was, he did not know.

How he’d come to be in such a place, body broken, mind like an empty vessel, he could not imagine.

But forward he went, for there was no other choice.

Rey dreamed of nothing. A cold, empty nothing, pressing in from all sides like a wet shroud: choking out all the light, all the air, all the warmth.

Compressed into oblivion.

Yet though she dreamed of cold and darkness, she jolted from sleep to find herself dripping in sweat, the sheets on her sleeper drenched with it. She was panting breathlessly as though she’d just run for kilometers and hot, so hot. Frantically, she sat up and tore at the linen leggings and tunic she’d worn to bed, desperate to be naked, to feel cool recycled air against her skin.

It worked. The skin on her arms and legs pebbled as the fever of her dreams receded, sending a shiver through her, and Rey remembered that she was alive, that she was on Coruscant, that the barracks around hers were surrounded by fellow members of the Resistance turned Rebellion turned new New Republic.

Still catching her breath, she flopped down onto her back. The ceiling of her sleeper was the same durasteel as the walls: safe boring grey, with patches of deep red where dripping water had invited rust to take hold.

One of her hands sneaked away from her body towards the empty side of the bed. What was she hoping for? She knew, in her heart, but she had spent so much of her life lying to herself, and after Exegol, it had been safer to go back to lying. So not even in the safety of her locked sleeper, not even in the isolation of her own mind, did she admit the truth.

Her fingertips brushed over cool bedding. Same as it had been for the past year. Same as since Exegol. Before that, even.

Same as always.

Rey let her eyes drift shut but hot tears spilled over anyway, running down her cheeks. Why did she still dare to hope, after all these months? What exactly was it she was hoping for, even? She didn’t know. Or if she did, she couldn’t say. Not aloud. Not in silence. She let her hand explore further, until her arm was fully flung across the bed.

Warmth. At the other end of the mattress, the sheets were warm. Her eyes flew open and she rolled over to study the empty side of the bed. There was a slight indent where the warmth was, and upon the pillow, a similar indent. She touched it: warm.

As though someone had just gotten up to use the fresher and would be back any moment.

She gasped.

By the time he stumbled, exhausted and shaking, to the edge of a farm very far from where he’d landed, the man’s leg was screaming.

His vision was dimming from the pain; through a dark haze, he saw a diminutive being emerging from the field of flowering red crops. They wore a set of roughspun coveralls and a simple cap to protect their head, plus thick gloves made from animal hide. They held a small shovel in one hand. Though their body was humanoid, they had a featherless face, somewhere between avian and reptilian. The being opened their beak and spoke to him but he did not understand a thing they said. He was vaguely aware he was still naked, but he did not have the wherewithal to feel shame about it. All he felt was pain.

They turned and let out a cry in the direction of a simple hut at the other end of the field.

“Rey,” he groaned as he collapsed into the dirt, though he did not know why or what the word meant. Then he closed his eyes, passed into darkness, and knew nothing more.

“Got a visitor coming for you soon,” said the farmer’s son, Dilanni. The Felucian youth was the only member of his family who spoke Basic and as a result, had been tasked with caring for the man in the weeks since he’d stumbled onto their farm. He was the closest thing to a friend the man had in the place; though the others welcomed him to whatever food or resources he needed, they still kept a wide berth around him, as though they’d seen others of his ilk and did not like the look of him.

The man nodded.

He was resting on his low-slung pallet outside the hut; as he was too large to enter it, they’d constructed him a bed outside the door so that they could check on him regularly in the early days of his convalescence. He watched Dilanni stripping the red blossoms off the nysillin herbs, preparing them for curing, and he scratched absently at the cast on his leg, under which were packed the same herbs. Itching had replaced the pain of broken bones and muscle and skin, for which he was thankful, but it had reached a truly intolerable level lately; it drove the man from sleep many nights, encompassing all his thoughts until all he could think about was tearing the cast off and scratching his skin bloody and raw.

Dilanni eyed the cast. “Stand up. Can you put your weight on it yet?”

The man rose with a little difficulty. He was thankful, too, for the soft roughspun clothes they'd made for him, hastily sewn together from scraps. They were comfortable. He was as comfortable as he could be here, all things considered. Dilanni snatched his gnarled branch-cane from where it had been resting against the hut wall and handed it over. Gingerly, the man hobbled around the dirt yard then returned to the pallet.

“You’re ready for the cast to come off,” Dilanni declared.

The man nodded again. His voice was low and rough from disuse when he asked, “Who’s the visitor?”

“You told me you can fly a ship,” said Dilanni, as though that answered his question.

He frowned. “I think so.”

“Well, Ja'Boag runs a shipping and transit company. He’s always looking for pilots.”

Understanding dawned on him. “You’re sending me away?”

Dilanni would not meet his eye. “You’re too big. My father says you’re eating up all our stores for the rainy season and that humans can’t be trusted, not really. He doesn’t want you to stay once your cast is off, says you can't come up into the trees with us.”

The man swallowed. “Oh.”

“Sorry,” mumbled the youth. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you all that.”

He shook his head. “Your father is right. I can fly for this Ja’Boag character—earn my keep.”

“ I like you well enough.”

“Thank you, Dilanni,” he said quietly. “I like you too.”

“Don’t understand how you got here or how come you don’t remember anything, though.”

“Me neither,” he huffed. “I wish I did.”

“You should at least pick out a new name for yourself.”

He mulled over that for a long time as the youth kept on preparing the herbs for curing. “I can only remember one name. Rey.”

“Like the human Jedi who helped us win the war at Exegol?” asked Dilanni.

“I—” the man faltered. A memory came unbidden: a streak of blue, a low malevolent laugh. Pain like he’d never known before. It passed quickly, and he shook his head, tossing his long dark hair off his face. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You can’t choose that name. She’s a female and you’re not.”

The man sighed. “Will you choose one for me? I’m too tired, I can’t remember any others.”

Dilanni lit up at the invitation. “Will I! Let’s see. You’re big and I bet once your leg heals you’ll be strong as a hunter rancor. So you need a fierce name to match.”

“I don’t feel very fierce,” the man mumbled, but Dilanni either did not hear or chose to ignore that.

“I’ve got it! You fell out of the sky so we should call you Skywalker, like the famous Jedi from that old story. He was very fierce. The fiercest, father says.”

A chill passed through him. “No,” he said. “No, I… I don’t like that name.”

“Why not?” Dilanni asked, smooth brow wrinkling. “He was a powerful warrior.”

He just shook his head, insistent. “Please. Choose another.”

“Oh, alright.”

For a while, Dilanni kept at the herbs, brow still furrowed in contemplation. At last, he gave a little laugh.

“I’ve got it!”

“Yes?”

“When the Empire controlled the farms here, they used to give a name to everyone who had no family. Even Felucians who already had a name, or still remembered their family. They all got the same name. Now it can be yours, too.”

“Alright,” said the man. “What is it?”

Dilanni grinned triumphantly. “Solo.”

Several days later, Ja'Boag stood before Solo in Dilanni’s family’s dirt yard, eyeing him appraisingly. 

“That leg going to be a problem?”

Dilanni’s father said something, and then turned to Dilanni expectantly. Dilanni turned to Ja'Boag. “We’ll give him enough nysillim to get him back to normal. It’ll heal alright in another few weeks.”

Ja'Boag was a Gossam, and he barely reached Solo’s hip. He circled Solo like a shopper at the night market, tipping his horn-shaped head back so far that the curling gold-plated tip nearly touched the ground. He squinted his tiny, bulging eyes at Solo.

“You speak Basic?”

“Yes,” said Solo, trying his best not to look intimidating, though he was twice the height and several times bulkier than both Ja'Boag and the Felucians.

“Where’d you come from?”

“I… I don’t know. I fell,” he answered.

“Fell?” Ja'Boag blinked in disbelief. “What do you mean, you fell? From where?”

Solo shook his head. “I just—I just fell.”

“Well you’re on solid ground now, kid,” said Ja'Boag. “Until we get you behind the navcom of one my shuttles, see what you’re made of.” He turned to Dilanni. “You said he flew before?”

Dilanni shuffled his bare feet, looking hopeful. “He doesn’t remember. But he thinks so! He told me all about hyperspace and sublight engines and jumps and—and— ”

“Guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” Ja'Boag interrupted, shifting back towards Solo as he stroked the stack of gold rings encircling his long neck.

Solo nodded down at him. “Guess we will.”

Several hours later, with fake papers forged, contract signed and a navy blue jumpsuit with his name printed on the chest supplied to him, the man who called himself Solo was hired by the Felucian Transit Corporation as shuttle operator number B414.

“Thank you,” he said softly to Dilanni, who stood out in front of his family, looking up at Solo with wet eyes, beak trembling. “For everything. Thank your father for me, please.”

Dilanni shifted and shouted something in Felucian to his father. His father gave Solo a nod but held on firmly to the shoulders of Dilanni’s curious younger siblings, not letting them come any closer. 

“But… will you come back and visit us?” asked the youth. “You’re the most exciting thing that ever happened around here.”

He smiled gently. “I will. I’ll come back, Dilanni. I promise.”

It took less than a few day cycles of moving passengers up and down the Perlemian Trade Route before Solo fell into the lull of routine, the comfort of mundanity.

His days went like this: he woke, he ate, he dressed in his company jumpsuit, he poured his thermos of caf, he limped from the sleeper cab of his shuttle up to the console, he started up the engines, he flew. He stopped on this planet and that, picking up and dropping passengers. He ate his lunch in the cockpit. Once he’d finished his route for the day, he set the ship to autopilot or rested it in orbit of a planet or landed it, if he needed to refuel or restock his foodstuffs. He ate, he undressed, he showered. Then he slept. He woke. It began anew.

What surprised him was that although Ja'Boag had warned him the job would be a monotonous bore, and he had faced the proposition of flying everyday with trepidation, he took to it with ease. He enjoyed the long hours at the controls, watching the galaxy pass him by. It was so easy to learn, he felt as though he must have known how to do it once: as though he were simply remembering, not truly learning.

His mind wandered.

A face began to take shape in these wanderings. Lovely green eyes, high cheekbones and a pert nose dusted with freckles. Soft sweet pink lips saying something to him.

It was important, the thing she was saying. The face belonged to a woman, and she was calling to him. She was using a name that was just outside his reach, forever on the tip of his tongue.

Words came to him sometimes, thoughts he arranged into interesting patterns. He was a taciturn man, he was discovering, who didn’t have much use for idle conversation. But in his head, words were like a soft blanket he was perpetually weaving for himself.

He didn’t remember much, but he remembered so many words.

When you’re a child you learn there are three dimensions, he thought to himself, as he waited for the Herglic spaceport workers of Brentaal IV to load cargo into his shuttle's hold. He stared out across the open port, at the idling ships, at the ones rocketing off toward the stratosphere, at the ones gently sinking down to land on the permacrete platform.

Height, width and depth, he mused. Like a box.

Then later you hear there’s a fourth dimension. Time.

One of the Herglics, a bulky amphibian female, stuck her head into the cockpit and gave him a thumbs up. He nodded his thanks. He moved to close the entrance ramp. He switched on the sublight engine startup sequence.

Up, up he flew. Through space. Through time.

I go through trillions of molecules that move aside to make way for me.

Today Solo was pondering the mystery of his origins. It was a common enough topic for him to muse on: he came back to it again and again, trying desperately to remember anything at all before his painful landing on the jungle floor on Felucia.

But there was only darkness. Pain. A stray blue light, a peal of laughter so sickly and evil it made him nauseous.

A face: delicate, crying, pretty. Hers.

How many molecules comprised this shuttle?  He pondered that as he brought the ship down onto the designated landing pad in Coruscant's Central District spaceport. Maybe more than trillions. Whatever number was bigger than trillions. Maybe the number was so large it was impossible to comprehend.

If molecules had dimensions like a box, and so did time, how many trillions of molecules of time had Solo passed through? Especially in the time before he could remember, however long that had been?

With a wry huff, he dismissed his questions so he could concentrate on his job. Engine shutdown sequence completed, he stood and moved to let down the gangway plank. Few passengers met his eyes as they exited the ship, descended the ramp and disappeared into the crowd milling about the spaceport, but that no longer bothered him. He was used to being invisible now.

He liked it, even.

A dozen or so new passengers were waiting to board. Mostly they were human, a common enough occurrence on Coruscant, although a few were not. They began climbing the ramp; the majority did not even look at him as they headed towards the lounge.

Two did, though. A human male with dark skin locked eyes with Solo and stopped mid-step, gaping at him. His brown eyes grew wide with what looked like horror; his mouth hung open. The woman behind him, petite with long black hair that shone in the Coruscanti sunlight, scowled at Solo then grabbed hold of the man’s arm and steered him away.

“Did you see—” he heard the man mutter, only to be interrupted.

“It’s gotta be a mistake, somehow,” she said, pushing the man into a viewport seat and taking the one beside it. “It can’t be him. It’s a big galaxy. There’s probably lots of random men who look a little like him. Right?”

Solo frowned.

Did they know him? Know something about his past that he did not?

He’d given up hoping anyone did.

He stood by the entrance, waiting as a few crates of cargo were loaded into the hold down below, and watched the back of the couple’s heads. They were bent together, exchanging words in low, harried voices, and he could not see their faces.

Finally, the Coruscanti port worker gave him the all clear. He had no more excuse to watch the couple, so he pulled the ramp up and made his way back to the cockpit.

It was like the woman had said, probably. He just looked like somebody they used to know.

A prickling sensation at the back of his neck roused him from a light doze and alerted him to the fact someone had entered the cockpit. Solo turned to see the man from before standing at the threshold, eyes narrowed. The man studied Solo and Solo studied him back.

He had dark hair trimmed neatly on the sides and twisted into locks on top. His attire suggested he was military, but it was not like the uniforms he saw the New Republic security officers wearing at some ports; it looked weatherbeaten, and dated. A holster rested against each of his thighs: one bore a blaster pistol, the other, what looked like a cylindrical weapon. Although maybe it was just a flashlight. Solo couldn’t tell; he didn’t recognize it.

“You don’t remember,” the man said, by way of greeting. “But how? That’s impossible.”

“Nope,” replied Solo. “Don’t remember a thing, ‘cept flying and Basic.”

“Not the First Order? The Supremacy? Hosnian Prime? Jakku, the villagers? Any of it?”

He startled at the vehemence in the man’s voice. Slowly, he shook his head. The man sat down in the empty co-pilot seat. “FN-2187. That ring a bell, Ren?”

“I—”  The man’s expression, of anger, of deep resentment, made him hesitate. The silence stretched on until at last he managed, “I’m sorry. You want answers. I wish I could give them to you. But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What do you call yourself?”

“Solo,” he said. “I go by Solo.”

That got a sardonic laugh from the man. “Solo. Solo? Wow. The nerve of you, you son of a bantha.”

“Hey, I didn’t choose it—”

“Did Rey ever tell you the Force is with me, too?” the man cut across him. “Bet I could see if you’re lying. Bet I could see everything, just like you could.”

Rey?

He leaned forward in his seat, fully awake now. “Wait, I know that name. Rey. Who is that? Why do I remember it?” he demanded. “The Felucians told me she’s a famous Jedi.”

“She is.” The man tilted his head. “You… don’t remember Rey?” The prickling sensation returned, but more gently; it felt like someone was running a feather over the surface of his brain. “You don’t,” the man breathed. “Stars. The Force wiped your brain like a dirty floor and spit you out blank and now you don’t remember any of it. I’ll be damned.”

“I remember her, I think,” Solo said softly. “That name, at least. Rey. Why?”

What seemed like an entire lifetime’s worth of emotions passed across the man’s face before settling into something serious, something resolved. He set his jaw, then shrugged. “You probably saw her on the holonews or something. I should go back. Don’t want my wife getting worried.”

“Okay.” He watched glumly as the man rose and turned to leave the cockpit. “Hey, wait a minute.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Finn,” he said, chest swelling with pride. “Finn Tico.”

“Then what’s FN-2187? What’s Ren?”

Now it was Finn’s turn to shrug. “Just a couple of ghosts, I guess. See ya around, Solo.”

“Yeah, okay,” he murmured, to the empty cockpit, to the blinking lights on the console, to the passing star systems. “See you.”

Chapter Text

“Ja’Boag,” said Solo, the next time he docked at headquarters on Castell and entered his boss’s office to verify his payslip, “Have you ever heard of someone named Ren?”

Seated behind the desk, the Gossam swiveled towards him. The gold plating on his head and the rings around his long neck glinted. He was dressed fashionably in sumptuous, boldly colored fabrics, but his pinched face paled from its usual dark blue to a lighter shade. The look he gave Solo was sharp, almost fearful. 

“Ren?”

“Or, the… Supremacy?”

“You mean the Supreme Leader,” said Ja’Boag. “Kylo Ren.”

“Ah.”

“Trust me, Solo, you do not want anything to do with that guy. Not even his memory.”

“Memory?” he echoed, feeling a furrow form between his brows.

Ja’Boag’s eyes went back to the holopad in his hands. It was with forced casualness he explained, as he reviewed Solo’s numbers, “Oh, yeah. Big Sith warrior. Supreme Leader Snoke’s right hand man before he killed him and took power—a bad, bad man. He died in The Final Gasp at Exegol. They say he performed some darksider ritual to bring back the emperor and that it killed him in the process.”

“Died,” he repeated.

“Last I heard. But who knows? That’s what they said about Ol’ Palpatine, too. You can’t trust a Force user, Solo. Remember that.”

Solo was hardly listening to him now; he was lost in memories. Of falling. Falling on and on, for what felt like forever, until he landed somewhere hard and sharp and cold. And then a climb that lasted twice as long. Soft lips on his, a body in his arms: desperation and terror and anguish. A smile, a true smile. The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Fighting alongside a woman, a woman who knew his name, who could give it back to him if he could only find her. A woman who saw him. Who smiled at him.

Hope and agony surged in him with such intensity he felt sick from it, giddy and full of dread at the same time.

“They say he blew up Hosnian Prime,” Ja'Boag added. “A monster, that's what they called him! A monster.”

“He did? H—he was?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Solo looked around the drab office, then out the tinted window to the landing pad below. “Where is it? Hosnian Prime. I want to see it.”

“It’s blown up, Solo.”

“Nothing’s left at all?”

Ja'Boag raised his hands in defeat. “You really wanna visit Hosnian Prime?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve accrued some vacation time, haven’t I?”

The question was redundant; he knew he had. For months now, he’d been piloting his old shuttle without any breaks at all. He’d even picked up extra runs when his fellow pilots had asked for time off to return to their homeworlds for Life Day or other local holidays.

“Sure, sure. Hey, take a week. I’ll give you the coordinates. Go see the dead rocks, what do I care? But you better be back here and ready for your route bright and early next week, or I’ll send my meanest Kyuzo after you. Got it?”

“Yeah, Ja'Boag,” he said. “Thanks. I got it.”

“Tell her,” said Rose, giving her husband a stern glare. “Or I will.”

“Rose, I thought we talked about—”

“No, you talked. I listened. I still disagree and I’m right. She deserves to know.”

Patiently, Rey sipped her gatalanta tea and waited for one of them to explain. They were seated at a table in the empty canteen of her flight squadron’s station, where she had been living ever since her trip to Tatooine. The Ticos came and went much more than she did, especially now that they were married; they’d made several trips to Rose’s home planet of Hays Minor, where Rey knew they were discussing making a permanent home for themselves now that the last of the First Order’s commanders had been captured.

Meanwhile, here Rey stayed, in this drab durasteel bunker on this exhausting city planet with too many people, too much noise. She had friends, she had acquaintances, she had sparring partners and people to drink caf or wine with. People consulted her on logistical matters, she sat on several committee boards to help organize the new New Republic, though she had little idea of how governance worked and even less interest in learning. She flew missions sometimes, her favorite part of her new life. She was respected, if not particularly well liked, because—as Poe had told her regretfully after a long night of drinking—she was far too honest and far too feral to ever be a true politician, and far too untested in battle to be given a high place in the new military, despite her prowess in a cockpit.

Just as well. She was fine being a prop and a cog for the time being; it gave her more time to meditate. More time to seek within and without for the voice in her mind that was not her own.

“KyloRenisflyingashuttleomnibus,” said Finn begrudgingly, all in a rush. Rey cocked her brow and waited, a trick she’d learned from Leia. Finn sighed. “Kylo Ren. We… found him.”

A bolt of lightning passed through her veins. She knew it. She knew it.

“The sheets,” she murmured. “It was him.”

“What?” asked Rose.

“Nothing. Where did you find him? What did he say to you? Was he looking for me?”

Finn shook his head. “Rey—he, he doesn’t—” 

“Do you know where he is now?”

“No,” Finn rushed to reply. Rose shot him another pointed look, under which he caved. “He… he flies a shuttle. For the Felucian Transit Corporation.”

“That’s enough to go off,” she said, pushing away from the table. “Thank you both, for telling me.”

She had turned and taken a few steps away, half-jogging, when she heard Finn call out, “He doesn’t remember you!”

That stopped her in her tracks. She turned back. Finn looked sadder and more serious than she’d seen him look in a long time; beside him, Rose wore a twin expression. Finn added, “Or me. Or any of it.”

“All the more reason he needs me.”

“Rey,” tried Rose. “I wanted you to know about him because—” she took a deep breath and a glance at Finn before blurting out, “We know about your search for him.”

Rey shook her head, ready to obfuscate, but Rose held up a hand and she fell silent. 

“Frankly, I don’t think he does need you. Maybe… it’s better this way. Whatever it is that brought him back, it seems like he’s meant to have a new start.”

“I wanted to arrest him on the spot, to be honest,” said Finn. “But he truly doesn’t remember any of it. He seems, well, at peace.” He tapped his temple. “I checked.”

“No,” she said, throat on fire like she was choking, “It’s not—it’s not better, it’s not a new start. Not without me. He’s waiting. He’s waiting for me. He’ll remember. He will remember me. He will.”

“Rey—”

“I have to go.”

She spun on her heel, tears in her eyes, this time moving at a full sprint towards the hall leading to her sleeper.

“Thank you both!” 

She did not wait to hear their reply, which was just as well, for she’d left them sitting in stunned silence, wondering, she sensed, if they’d made the right decision in telling her after all. They had. She’d prove it. If it took her until her dying day, she’d prove it.

“Shit,” Solo whispered to himself as he brought the shuttle to a stop amid the floating remains of the galaxy’s one-time capital.

Hosnian Prime.

It was just as Ja'Boag had described it: dead rocks, some bigger than his shuttle, drifting through space. For a time, he set the sublight engines to their lowest setting, just barely above an idle, and carefully navigated the debris.

There was something… it was just there, another memory almost within grasp. What looked to be a scrap of frozen metal floated past his viewport, reflecting the system’s sun and nearly blinding him. Just like that, it came to him, fully intact.

He’d been a small boy laying in bed with a fever. His mother had been there, her long intricate braid dangling down from her shoulder, its tip coiled on the bedding. She had been telling him a story. Outside his bedroom, the sun had shone brightly.

“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful planet named Alderaan,” she’d begun. “Although monsters destroyed that planet, they could not destroy the things that made it great: the wisdom, the kindness, the generosity of its people’s spirit, their beautiful culture.”

“I know this one,” he’d said sagely, in a voice very different from the deep, quiet one he had now. Just a small boy with a small boy’s voice.

In his memory there had been someone else in the room. His mother had not been able to see this other being; only he could. He’d loomed tall in the corner, bald head nearly brushing the ceiling, with a scarred face like an acid lizard’s, eyes like chipped ice, and a sneering grin. Solo could not remember the being’s name, only that in this memory he was about nine years old but already used to this apparition lurking around, unseen by anyone but him.

“Alderaan is dead,” he remembered the being intoning. “Say it. Tell her.”

“Alderaan is dead,” his child self had repeated, terrified.

“No!” His mother’s jaw had dropped at the word. “No, sweetheart. No. Alderaan the planet is gone but the people are not and they never will be.”

He’d looked to the being to see what he had to say about that, but the being had disappeared.

“Alderaan lives on in me and it lives on in you,” his mother said, for good measure.

“It’s inside me?”

“Yes, it is. You carry Alderaan with you. You are its light.”

He’d blinked thoughtfully. He remembered having thought: maybe the light will be enough to keep him away.

“What was it like on Alderaan?”

“Beautiful,” she’d replied. “Gardens and libraries and palaces, safe warm homes for everyone. Shining lakes. Deep forests full of old Alderaanian secrets. And the people. Good people. Kind people.”

“What did you do there?”

“I was their princess.”

“Does that mean I am a prince?” he’d asked.

“You are, my dear,” she’d said. “You are a child of Alderaan, its crown prince. You must always bear its joy and its sorrow. Never forget.”

The memory faded away, replaced by one of watching his mother methodically brushing her long brown hair for what felt like hours before plaiting it into a complicated knot of neat braids.

“Mom,” he whispered now, seated in the cockpit of his shuttle, watching the cold remains of a dead planet pass him by. “Am I Kylo Ren?”

There was no answer; he had not expected one. Not really. But he couldn't stop himself from asking.

“Was I Kylo Ren?”

Again: nothing.

He dropped his voice even lower, barely above a rasp. “Was this my doing?”

Silence. The kind found in the deepest, darkest folds of space, and the kind found in the primordial sorrow of loss.

“Am I a monster?”

Another memory: another voice. “You’re a monster!” someone had shouted at him.

“Yes, I am,” he’d said, sounding certain. Angry and sad and certain.

Solo could not help it; he dropped his face into his hands and began to weep.

“Be with me,” breathed Rey, legs crossed, palms resting on her knees, mind calm, heart racing. She was seated on the floor of her sleeper, only a thin rug protecting her from the hard permacrete floor. “Ben. Be with me.”

It’d been over a year since he’d disappeared in the depths of Exegol and every day she had called to him, asking him to return. Every day her call had gone unanswered.

Today, she opened her eyes and did not see durasteel walls or her forlorn bed. She opened her eyes and saw the rolling white dunes of Jakku. It was so real she began to sweat from the midday heat, feeling the sun on her face, smelling tuanulberries and carrion on a breeze that rushed past her face, playing with tendrils of loose hair escaping from her bun.

She sucked in a quick breath, electrified, giddy. It was right there, playing out before her eyes: the future, solid and clear. She knew what she had to do now.

And she knew she had the strength to do it.

“Pavan!”  

A throng of FTC's pilots stood around the entrance to Ja'Boag's office, waiting to receive their schedules and routes. Solo was among them. He’d barely said a word to anyone since he returned from Hosnian Prime this morning; he’d barely been able to think.

He was a prince of Alderaan. Maybe. And he’d turned into a monster, the kind of man who could do the same thing to another planet.

Maybe.

“Pavan?”  

A jumpsuited old man elbowed his way past Solo. “Here, I’m here.”

“Your coordinates,” said Ja'Boag, handing him a data chip.

Pavan inserted it into his holopad, then balked. “Burke's Trailing? You gotta be kidding me. No way, Ja'Boag—I been here fifteen years, you’re not putting me in the back of beyond like this.”

“I could just not put you on any schedule at all.”

“What’d you say to me?” Pavan snarled.

“You heard me. Punk.”

Ja'Boag tilted his head back to fix Pavan with a steely glare. Tension thickened the air to sludge; what few quiet conversations there had been while they waited for their schedules came to a stop. The only sound was the clanking of mechanics working on their shuttles, otherwise, all was silent.

“I’ll take it.”

Both Human and Gossam turned to Solo, eyes wide, ready for a fight. But Solo simply shrugged. “I don’t mind being in the back of beyond. I’ll take the coordinates.”

Pavan frowned at him, suspicious. “What’s your route?” 

“Perlemian.”

“And you’d give that up?”

Solo shrugged again. “It’s all the same to me.”

“Well there you have it,” said Ja'Boag. “Problem solved.”

After a few runs through the route, he could see why Pavan had objected to being put on Burke’s Trailing. The route was mostly asteroid fields and shadowport planets. Pirates patrolled the hyperlane. It was lonely. The ports along the way rarely shipped anything with him: not secure enough, was the general consensus. That was fine by Solo. As was the light passenger load. More time for thinking, more time for words.

His final stop was a desolate desert planet called Jakku. Each time he landed there and dropped the gangway into the sand, he waited, but no one ever came aboard. Yet he always felt a strange sensation, like a swarm of bees was buzzing in his chest; like something on that planet was calling to him.

There was something important about Jakku. Something he'd known once, maybe.

So finally, after he’d run the route a dozen times or so, he decided he had to know. He landed on Jakku and initiated the engine shutdown sequence, got out, checked and found that as usual there were no waiting passengers, then activated the ship’s immobilizer locking mechanism.

Then he took a good look around.

His port was a derelict outpost called Niima. A few scavengers were bringing in their day's haul to clean, but there wasn't much else of interest. He shaded his eyes against the high afternoon sun but all he saw in every other direction was a vast landscape of sand dunes, a few scrubby plants, some dark snakes slithering by. At the far end of the outpost there was a well and around it were gathered several gargantuan porcine creatures snorting away happily to one another.

He worked his jaw. What was he supposed to do? What was he meant to remember?

Just like at the ruins of Hosnian Prime, no answer made itself known to him. He stared down at his boots, sinking into the hot sand. He was already beginning to sweat. It would be so easy to retreat into his shuttle, turn on climate control, and have a nap. Make himself some food. Flip on the holo, watch an old film.

The buzzing in his chest grew stronger, so intense it stole his breath away.

“Okay, okay,” he said quietly. “Can I at least have a hint which direction to go?”

A bird with scraggly black feathers and a beak like ossified bone soared over his head, letting out a piercing screech as it went. It flew on, headed south, towards the sun.

Solo rubbed the back of his neck and his palm came away wet. He sighed. “Got it.”

Over an hour, nearly two. That’s how long he walked. His mouth was drier than the sand beneath his feet, and rougher too; he’d sweat all the way through his jumpsuit, large dark stains under his arms and down his back. His face was doubtlessly sunburned. He was stumbling with thirst and exhaustion, unused to this kind of climate, when he spotted it in the distance.

Dull metal so old it barely shone in the long rays of late afternoon sunlight: a vehicle of some sort, with four dilapidated legs sprawled out around it, half-buried in a dune.

As he neared it, he could feel the heat radiating from its durasteel hull. Yet when he bowed his head and climbed into the low entryway, the air inside was cool. He cast about for a moment, letting his eyes adjust. Piles of junk. A scavenged pilot seat. A handmade doll dressed like a Republic pilot fighter, a posy of reddish-purple desert flowers. He ran his finger over one of the velvety petals and winced when it flaked off, drifting down to the ground.

In one corner, a hammock woven from what looked like parachutes swayed gently. Solo sank into it, relieved it could take his weight.

He was exhausted. There was nothing here, but it felt oddly like home to him. His eyes sank closed. For a while he drifted, half-asleep, half-awake, seeing the same shock of blue, hearing the same horrible laugh, feeling the same sensation of falling, falling, endlessly falling.

How many molecules had he passed through to get here? How many more did he have to go?

Falling, falling, falling.

A scraping sound startled him back to wakefulness. He opened his eyes and tried, awkwardly, to sit up. Someone cleared their throat, drawing his attention to the entrance.

His breath caught. He thought maybe his heart stopped beating, if only for an instant.

The shape of a woman was silhouetted there in the entryway, the sun behind her rendering her face invisible to him. All he could make out was a tall, slender figure, long hair dancing in the breeze. She was draped in a soft flowing dress that fluttered around her booted calves.

Solo felt like he had landed, at last.

“Ben,” she said, voice deep and clear and sweet as a bell. “There you are.”

Chapter Text

“Rey.”

As soon as he spoke the name aloud, he felt the truth of it: this was Rey. She stepped forward, revealing her face to him.

Lush eyelashes, green eyes, freckles across a straight nose and high cheekbones. A small, sweet mouth that pressed dimples into her cheeks when she beamed. At him. It was her, the face he remembered. 

“You need a haircut,” she said, eyes welling with tears. She took another step towards him; her hands, he noticed, were balled so tightly into fists that her knuckles were white.

“Do I?” He touched his hair; it nearly reached his shoulders now.

Another step. Close enough for her to loosen one fist and twirl a lock around her forefinger. “Oh, I don’t know,” she murmured, “On second thought, maybe I like it this way.”

Solo swallowed. “Oh.”

Her smile fell as she took in his sweat stains, his damp, sunburned face. She released the hair. “C’mon. You look about ready to collapse—I’ll cook you something. And there’s potable water on my ship.”

“I, uh, I don’t think I'm ready to go back out there,” he said, chagrined.

“I’ve got my speeder.”

Though what she’d said was innocuous enough, she was running her gaze from his face to his thighs in a way that was far from chaste. He tugged on the neck of his jumpsuit; it fit a little snugger than he’d like but beggars couldn't be choosers. Slowly, she dragged her eyes back up to meet his.

“Ben,” she sighed; a happy sound. He gave her a small smile. When she held out her hand for him, his heart kickstarted into high gear and his palms started sweating, but he managed to take it. “C’mon.” With a yank, she freed him from the hammock; with another, she was pulling him out of the makeshift home, back into the world of heat and light.

“Was that—” he began, but stopped as she raced on ahead.

Her speeder was parked a few paces from the entryway. Without pausing, she climbed onto it and threw one leg over its seat, then looked at him, expectant.

It was quite a sight.

“Yes?”

He cleared his throat. “Was that your home?”

“Once.” She looked past at him at the crumbling heap with a wistful expression. “Once upon a time, it was.”

“And now?” he asked as he climbed onto the speeder behind her.

“Home is less a place than a person these days.” She glanced back at him from beneath her lashes and her voice went breathy. “Hold onto me.”

“Are you, uh, sure?”

“If you knew how hard I've been looking for you, Ben Solo, you wouldn’t ask me that.”

“Rey.”

He cupped her cheek in his palm, turning her face back until he could meet her eyes again. There was this driving need to be near her, to touch her, to look at her face. Drink her in. She stared up at him, chest rising and falling in deep breaths.

“I want… uh… I feel like… I just… remember…”

Stars, he was making a mess of this. He grimaced, trying to retrieve that wellspring of words; it had suddenly gone dry.

“You remember me. I know you do,” she said.

“I think so.” He nodded. “Not all of it. But you… it feels… right. Being here with you.”

She surged towards him, turning further in the seat, and brought her lips to his, planting one hand on his thigh for balance. 

For half a second he froze, until surprise melted into delight and then something even warmer, something hot and liquid in his chest that dripped down to his core. With a helpless sound rumbling up from the back of his throat, he pulled her tight against him and deepened the kiss. He felt her twist around, arms encircling his neck and depositing herself in his lap. A tickling sensation: she was playing with his hair as she traced the seam of his lips with the dainty tip of her tongue. Before he could respond, and oh how he wanted to respond, she pulled away just enough to speak.

“And that?” Her breath was warm on his chapped lips.

“Huh?”

“Do you remember that?”

He blinked at her. All at once, a jagged piece of the past lanced through him. Takodana. A snowy forest, his face sliced open. Ahch-To. Rain on his glove. His bare fingers reaching out for hers. A turbolift. A battle for their life fought back-to-back. Kef Bir, wet metal under his feet. Burning pain, his vision going dark.

Exegol.

Falling.

Need. Love. Fear. Pain.

“I remember,” he said, but it came out like a sob. “Rey. You kissed me. I’d never been happier. And I… I— I died?” 

“Oh, honey.” She wriggled closer. “Ben.”

“Is that me? Am I Ben? Was I Kylo? Did I die in a darkside ritual bringing the emperor back to life?”

“No.” She shook her head sternly. “You were, and you are, Ben. Just Ben. My Ben. And you died saving me. You saved my life.”

Relief rushed him. His eyes burned. He blinked, but it did no good. Tears began to spill over. Rey did not comment on them; she merely directed his face into the crook of her neck as sobs wracked through his body. He felt her shaking, too. They cried together, perched on her speeder in the quiet Jakku twilight.

“Okay,” he said at last, lips brushing against her soft skin. “Okay, Rey. If I died to save you, that’s okay, then.”

What “cook something” meant to Rey, he learned, was two large tin cups filled with tepid water and two rehydrated ration packs.

“For me, and for you,” Rey said cheerily, as she handed him his bowl and took a seat beside him on the bed of her sleeper, the only place in her small ship they could sit besides the cockpit or the cargo hold. Her eyes were red-rimmed from their cry, but he thought that maybe, like himself, she felt lighter after. A great weight removed, a burden set aside at last. She looked content now, in any case.

Gingerly, he gave his bowl a sniff. It smelled faintly like those creatures from the well in Niima. Rey either didn’t notice or didn’t care about his worried grimace; humming to herself, she dug into the polystarch and veg-meat rations with her fingers.

She ate with her mouth open. A half-feral thing, his Rey. He was charmed.

“Go on,” she pushed her knee against his. “Try it. It’s not so bad, really.”

He scooped up a bit on his fingers and took a tentative bite. The texture was like a wad of cotton; the flavor, as though that cotton had been in a room with meat for a few days, absorbing only the faintest hint of its essence.

“Mmm,” he moaned theatrically around the foodstuffs, which seemed to be expanding in his mouth. He mustered a smile for her, which she returned, before resuming her devouring of her own rations.

A black BB-model astromech rolled into the sleeper. In desperation, he tossed a hunk of the stuff its way. The BB trilled and beeped at him in consternation before rolling out again, leaving the vegmeat on the grated metal deck where it had landed. Stupid droid.

“BB9E is not for eating the food you don’t want, Benjamin Solo,” she chided, without taking her eyes off her food.

He started to laugh, ready to apologize, then hesitated as what she’d said registered. “Dilanni gave me that name. Solo.”

She tilted her head as she set her empty bowl down on the deck. “Solo-Organa, technically.”

“Organa?”

“Your mother’s name.”

Long braids shining in the sunlight, brown eyes crinkling in delight at the sight of him. He had the sense there were bad memories too, but when he tried to recall his mother, that’s what came to mind. That and her voice, deep and sure and steady. Telling him the tales of Alderaan. Passing on the light.

“And Solo,” he croaked, “the Empire’s name for orphans. Dilanni chose it because… I was alone.”

As his father must have been.

“S’pose I’m a Solo too, then,” she said, taking his rations from him and starting on the uneaten remains. She didn’t meet his eyes; her studious attempt at indifference made his heart twinge.

“It was really good,” he said, with a nod at the bowl.

“You hated it.”

“No, no,” he rushed to assure her, “I—”

She shrugged good-naturedly. “It’s okay. Cooking’s not really my strong suit. Do you like to cook?”

“I guess.”  

“We’ll cook together next time. Han was a good cook.”

“Han?”

“Your father.”

He sipped his water. “My father.” He searched his memory, but there was nothing. A crooked grin, maybe. Had that been his father's? A blaster on the kitchen table. He tried to push himself, to remember more, but he came up short. He hung his head. “I can’t remember—” 

“You will, Ben.” She stacked his empty bowl in hers, then took his hands. “I’ll help you.”

Echoes of the past rippled through him; he let them pass by as though merely visitors. He wanted to be only here, only now. Their hands were clasped together. Hers were rough, calloused, and so small in his own. Nearly swallowed up, hidden. Protected. He gave a gentle tug, thrilling when she shuffled closer.

“In fact, I have an idea about that,” she told him. “I’ve got a contact who’s known you your whole life. He’ll fill in the blanks. I think he’d be happy to see you.”

“You sure?”

“For the first time in a year, I am. Truly. I have hope.” 

Rey scooted away from him. Cringing, Ben tried to release her, but she kept a firm grasp on his hands, not letting him. Reclining back onto the sleeper, she brought him down with her and twined her legs through his. He could feel her breasts pressed against him, the heat of her on his thigh, even through her dress and his jumpsuit.

He let out a nervous huff. “What—what do you want to—”

Rey gave him that smile again, the one that dimpled her cheeks and made her eyes shine.

“I have an idea about that, too. Can I show you?”

He barely had time to nod before her lips met his, another chaste kiss, but at the same time she gave a sinuous roll of her hips, rubbing against his thigh and one hand snuck between them, taking a hold of him. Her small, hot fist around him, even through his jumpsuit and underwear, made him forget his own name. Again.

“Ben?” she prompted.

He shivered. “Yes, please, Rey. Show me. Anything you want.”

“Good,” she said. “Good boy. My good boy.”

He was different. Of course, she knew he would be. Finn had warned her about the memory thing, and on her way to Jakku, she’d considered that without the weight of the past on him, he might grow another way. It seemed he had. He was… gentler. Quieter. If Kylo Ren had been a raging maelstrom and Ben Solo the subdued joy of sunrise after a long night, then the man before her now was a soft whispering drizzle on forest leaves.

But oh, the relief at finding he still wanted her.

When they were joined, so gently, him shaking just like she was, whispering sacred nothings against her collarbone, she’d cried with the joy of it, with the relief. Finally, a release of all this love she’d been hoarding away for so long. Finally, a home for it. A home for her.

He’d kissed away her tears as his own dripped onto her cheeks and in the end Rey knew that the taste of salt and the feeling of relief would always remind her of their first time together. He had promised her anything she wanted. Everything. And she believed it. They would deny themselves nothing, not anymore.

Now, wrapped in a quilt and seated beside him in the cockpit, she sipped contentedly at her gatalanta tea and watched him run through an autopilot systems check. The navcom switches glowed blue and ambien starlight filtered through the viewport, illuminating his profile.

“The shuttle’ll be fine,” he was saying, but Rey was a little distracted, as all he had on was a quilt as well, wrapped around his broad shoulders. His torso was exactly how she remembered it, how she’d dreamed. His old scars, the ones before Kef Bir, were all healed, but deep veins of scarring climbed up his left leg, valleys of smooth and rippled skin serving as a reminder of the terrible damage he’d sustained on Exegol. 

“Locked up tight. My boss knows. He said he might fire me, might not. Depends on his mood when I get back to Castell.”

“Mm,” she replied absently.

He stole a peek at her from the corner of his eyes. With a laugh, Rey offered him her mug of tea. He accepted it and took a sip. “Good.”

“Soothing.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Soothing is good.” He handed the mug back. “Are you—what we did—uh—”

“I’m happy,” she said, rescuing him. As reward for her good deed, she got to watch a blush climb up his neck to his ears. “I’m so happy, Ben. I’m not happy on Coruscant, I’m not happy being on committee board after committee board. The only other time I ever feel this happy is when I’m flying. Or drawing.”

His heavy brow furrowed. “You haven’t been happy?”

“Not since—” the words caught in her chest; she couldn’t say it. Not that it mattered. He heard them anyway.

“C’mere,” he said, leaning back and opening his arms.

Tea forgotten, her own quilt left behind, she climbed into his lap and curled up, humming softly when his arms wrapped around her, wrapping her in warmth.

“When I landed on Felucia, I didn’t remember anything except a name. Just one name.”

That ache in her throat just would not quit. Rey could barely swallow around it. With trepidation, she looked up at him and found him watching her.

“Yours.”

“Ben,” she said, voice thick.

“I thought about you all the time. So much that your face started to come back to me. More familiar than my own.”

“It wasn’t right, you being taken away from me. It wasn’t fair. We're a dyad in the Force, you and I. You told me that. Two that are one.”

“I know. I don't know how I know, but I do.” He soothed her, running one hand over her hair. She probably needed a haircut too; the ends of it reached past her shoulder blades. “I like it like this,” he said, as though he’d heard the thought.

Rey nuzzled into the solid warm plane of his chest. “I’ll keep it, then.”

“Mm.”

“Ben?”

“Mm?”

“Were you—” she swallowed back her fear, forced herself to ask the question she only wanted one answer to. “Are you happy flying the shuttle?”

A long silent pause ensued, but Rey did not dare look up at him again. His hand continued petting her hair, slowly, calmly.

“Yes and no,” he said at last. “I like the job. The rhythm of my life, the passengers I meet, even the jumpsuit. I like the time to think. It feels like… whoever I was before, that wasn’t part of my life.”

“And no?” she prompted.

“There was a piece missing. A lot of pieces. All I could remember was how to fly. And your face.”

Now she could bring her eyes up to meet his. They shone with tears.

“You should get a co-pilot,” she told him. “If you did, you could fly a bigger shuttle.”

One of his shoulders jerked up. “I don’t mind the size of my shuttle.”

“You could sleep in shifts with a co-pilot.”

He laughed softly. “I sleep that way anyhow—autopilot lets me nap between stops, if I need to.”

“Well you’d have company!” she snapped. “You could have me.”

“Oh,” he breathed, eyes wide. His arms tightened around her. “Rey, I—would you want that? To fly a shuttle with me? It’s a boring life. Quiet.”

She fixed him with her sternest look, the one she saved for misbehaving governors and generals, the one Leia had taught her. “A boring quiet life with you is the dream that has kept me going since you disappeared. You know what I want to do, Ben? I want to wake up in bed every day with you, and drink caf with you, and eat with you, and fly with you, and draw the weird angles of your stupid beautiful face again and again until I've mastered them.”

He was blushing again. A wide grin stole across his face, revealing crooked white teeth and dimpled cheeks. “We’ll have to get you a jumpsuit,” he warned her.

“Same as yours.” She nodded firmly. “A pair. A dyad.”

“You’ll look much better in it than I do.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s a good look for you.”

His smile turned shyly roguish, a little wolfish. Just a hint of the Solo charm. Like he was testing a muscle long disused. 

“I hope I don’t like the way you look in it too much.”

Rey’s limbs went lax and she beamed up at him. “I’m hoping that you do.”

Just a quick stop, she’d told him, before they leaped out of the hyperlane and traveled, sublight, down into the atmosphere of Tatooine. She navigated much like he did, more intuition than computer, and it was a marvel to witness her doing so. He was more than content to sit back in the co-pilot seat and watch. She was all confidence here, all smooth capability. Her hands flew over the controls and gripped the control yoke with an ease that made him hungry for her all over again.

Child of the stars, just like him.

“C’mon,” she said, when they’d landed on the Tatooine sands near a burned-out old moisture farm. She glanced back at him as she raised the hatch. “That is… if you want to?”

“I do,” he reassured her. “Lead the way.”

Once outside, she marched past the living compound to a seemingly unremarkable spot. Then she fell to her knees and pressed her hands to the ground. All it took was a moment. A package, wrapped in bantha leather, emerged into view, rising up through the sand as though summoned.

She stood, package in hand, and held it out to him. “Your mother’s lightsaber. And your grandfather’s.”

He remembered the scarred molelike face of that being looming in the corner, unseen by all but him. A voice in his head, a hand guiding his. Leading him away: away from sunlight, away from love. Falling, falling, falling. Through darkness, through cold. Alone. Pain.

He stepped back. Looked toward the charred remains of the dwelling. “I know this place. It’s been… someone told me about it once, I think.”

“Your uncle’s home when he was a boy.”

“I can feel him, his memory. A fingerprint left behind.” He swallowed. “He wasn’t happy here.”

Rey frowned, then followed his gaze towards the dwelling. “No.”

“And my mother? Did she ever come here?”

“I’m not sure. I— I saw her ghost here once. I think. With your uncle's.”

He tipped his head down to the package, watching as she unwrapped the bindings. Inside were two cylindrical metal objects, like flashlights. Like the one in Finn’s holster.

“Lightsabers,” he said, surprised that he knew. He took a deep breath. “Weapons.”

“Well… I suppose so, yes. A Jedi's weapon.” She tilted her head, pushing them towards him. “Don’t you want them? They belong to you.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think I do.”

For a moment, she simply frowned at him, brows knitted together. Then she frowned down at the weapons. Finally, she frowned at the old farm.

“Me neither,” she said simply, frown melting away. With that, she rewrapped them and buried them back in the sand. She rose to her feet once more and brushed the sand off her dress. “Ready to go?”

He took one last look at the ruins of the farm. Another deep breath in, then pushed out. No choice but to keep moving forward; that was the only route through the dimension of time. That is what you gave me. So much loss here. An unbroken chain of it, of loss, of ruin, of despair. But that was backwards, and backwards was not his path.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve seen enough. Let’s go.”

Kashyyyk was similar to Felucia but more: bigger, taller trees, thicker jungle, more colorful, beautiful wildlife. They landed in a clearing and far above their heads, a Wookie leaned over the railing of his treehouse to call down to them.

The moment the Wookie spoke, Ben began to remember. Before, he’d had no memory of learning Shyriiwook, yet he understood every word of the Wookie’s invitation perfectly. And what’s more: he remembered that Wookie’s face.

Chewbacca.

He scrambled up the ladder with Rey in tow. He was hefted up the last few rungs by a strong pair of arms before being pulled into a furry, bone-crushing hug.

“You’re back,” said Chewbacca, the trills and growls of Shyriiwook vibrating in Ben’s chest. 

“I am.”

He was placed back on his feet so that Rey could receive the same treatment, then they were both led inside. A grated durasteel fire pit warmed the home; the mats on the floor were soft and thick, and cold beers were placed in their hands.

It took hours and it was painful. He’d expected it would be. But over many shared beers, Chebacca walked him through his life, leading him from birth through all the moments, all the molecules, that had led him to this treehouse. At some point, Rey curled up in his lap; whether she was seeking comfort or dispensing it, he wasn’t sure.

When Chewie was finished, Ben sighed, and wiped his cheeks. He wiped Rey’s too. She gave him a wobbly smile.

“What do I do now?” he asked his father’s oldest friend. “Now that I know. Now that I remember.”

“Never did understand all that Force business,” said Chewbacca. “But you are where the universe wants you to be.”

He gave Rey a pointed look, and her face went red. She hid her smile in Ben’s throat.

“You two will make the most of the gift you’ve been given.”

Ben smoothed his palm down the silken veil of her hair; it was quickly becoming one of his favorite things to do. She made a soft sound, something between a murmur and a hum. When he glanced down at her, he found her eyes had drifted shut.

“We will,” he told Chewbacca. “Of that, I’m sure.”

“Dilanni,” said Ben, hand resting gently on the small of Rey’s back. “This is Rey.”

“Hello.” The youth gaped up at her, wide-eyed. “I—I know all about you. You’re a hero.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she demurred.

“Yep! You are. Even my father says so and he doesn’t even like humans very much.”

She tilted her head to look at Ben; he nodded in agreement. “It’s true. Dilanni’s father couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”

“But it was good, right? ‘Cause now you’ve got Rey.”

Ben smiled indulgently; she could see his fondness for his young friend. “It was.”

Dilanni lowered his eyes, scuffing his three-toed feet in the dirt. “Rey, do you want to see my snail collection?” He glanced up, eyes darting between Rey and Ben. “I’ve got over a hundred!”

Around them, the Felucian air was thick with the humidity of the coming rainy season. The nysillim reaping had been completed in preparation for the floods, the harvest safely stored until the crops could be sold or used. Sweet birdsong rang out, a cheerful melody soon answered by another, the call responded to, then another made, and on and on. Overhead, the canopy was lush and green; the ground beneath their feet dark with rich, damp soil. Mushrooms sprouted in clusters in the dense undergrowth of ferns and lichen. A rodent skittered up a tree trunk near them, stopping to chatter at Rey for a second before continuing on.

This was a good place for him to have landed. Silently, Rey sent her thanks to the Force.

“I would love that, Dilanni,” she said kindly. “You’ll have to explain them to me, as I’m afraid I don’t know much about snails. But I’d like to learn.”

Ben’s hand grabbed hers, entwining their fingers as Dilanni tore off excitedly towards his wooden hutches. Just like that, Rey knew.

She was home.

If you ever left me I’d tear my heart out and never put it back, Ben scribbled on the antiquated wood pulp paper Rey had bought him for his birthday. He glanced up from the page and took in the cozy surroundings of their tree hut; the stove in the corner to stave off the chill of the Felucian rainy season, the overlapping mosaic of rugs to soften the hard wooden beams of the floor. A rough-hewn table and two chairs, and in the corner by the stove: their bed, a luxurious affair.

It took up most of the hut’s single room, not that either of them were complaining.

Rey was sprawled out on her belly in its center, naked, sheets kicked to the floor, legs and arms stretching to its edges as though she were seeking something. Her firm behind and muscled back tempted him, but he wanted to allow her every minute sleep they could afford.

Was that what it felt like? he wondered, admiring her sleeping form. When the Force took me? Like your heart had been torn out?

He returned to his notebook, swallowing hard. She’d never go through that again.

When I wake up earlier than you and you are turned to face me, face on the pillow and hair spread around, I take a chance and stare at you, amazed in love and afraid, he wrote, underneath the first line.

Outside, the tattoo of steady rain was like a heartbeat. Ben spun his rope chair to look out the window. Tree leaves danced under the raindrops, making all the jungle quiver. Birds called to one another over the pitter-patter and a primate somewhere off in the distance let out a whooping complaint, which was answered a moment later by its mate. Ben grinned.

“Damn slimespines,” he heard Rey grumble. He shifted back to find one of her green eyes open. She rubbed her face. “Come back here, Ben Solo—I demand to be cuddled.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. The loose pants he’d pulled on after climbing out of bed were easy enough to shuck, so that when he settled down onto the mattress beside her, they laid bare skin to bare skin, so close that imagined not a single molecule could fit between them. Her warmth spread through him; he felt his eyelids grow heavy and he pressed his lips against her forehead, breathing in the scent of her.

“How long ‘til we have to get up?”

“Couple more minutes,” he murmured.

“Hmm,” she sighed. “Write anything this morning?”

“There’ll never be anyone like you,” he quoted from something he'd jotted down earlier.

“Oh I like that.”

He pulled away from her and pushed up onto his elbow. “You stay, I’ll put the caf on. Want first shift today?”

Her eyes opened just long enough to give him a disgruntled look and yank him back down onto the bed; he went without complaint, huffing out a short laugh.

“Five more minutes,” she mumbled, “And you take the first shift—I’m going to master your left eyebrow while I drink my caf.”

So many molecules. So much time, so much space had they traversed to come back to each other. She was right, just like she’d always been. Home was less a place than a person. What was five minutes in the grand scheme of two lifetimes spent waiting? They'd traveled through enough time. And if time was a fourth dimension, was love a fifth? Ben felt that if it was: every day they traveled deeper in, exploring each other, together.

This was what the Force had wanted for them. He knew it, somehow. He trusted it.

And the dimension of love, it seemed, was ever expanding. An entire galaxy to be discovered in and of itself. Ben gave a contented sigh and let his eyes slip shut again.

“Okay,” he said, brushing his nose against hers. “Whatever you want, Rey.”