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Rey was relieved arriving back at the temple on Kordoku, she was too close to a disaster that time.
BB-8 urged for her to leave, not wanting to miss anymore of the party than they already had, so she began to put the time travel stone back in its rightful place. But a pang in her heart stopped her, seeing Ben again, hurt so much more than she could ever imagine. Having to fight him again was even worse. She knew what she could do, she could save Ben Solo.
“I’m sorry BB-8. There’s one more thing I have to do.”
The BB unit tried to argue with her but there was no changing her mind.
Rey circled the crystal and opened a new portal.
“You can stay here this time, this shouldn’t take long.”
The portal brought her to one of the halls on Exegol, corpses of the slain Knights of Ren laid scattered.
Continuing through the hall, she followed the sound of thunder and destruction, and the sight of lightning flashing. Upon reaching the main room everything had gone quiet, the body of her past self collapsed on the ground.
Then she saw Ben emerge from the pit in the ground, he limped and crawled to her. She watched him as he clung to her with desperation, searching for anyone to help. To see him so broken she had almost revealed herself to him. This timeline though was very delicate, she couldn’t do anything to risk the initial outcome. And so she watched as Ben Solo gave every bit of his life force to her, she watched him smile, she watched the kiss they had shared. And she watched him die all over again.
There was no time to process anything she witnessed, she was on a mission and so she spared no second in making her way to Ben and her past self. Lifting Ben’s head so that it rested in her lap, and laid her hand over his heart, she gave him enough life force to feel his heart begin to beat.
Rey looked up to see her past self looking at her with both confusion and amazement. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry,” Rey tells her, “it’s something you will figure out for yourself. I’m going to have to kinda Jedi mind trick you-me I guess. But I promise, he’s going to be ok, he’s in our hands after all.”
Rey began to circle the crystal again, and with the slow moment of her hand she wiped the mind of her past self, all she would remember is Ben Solo had saved her, she kissed him, and that he was dead.
As the portal appeared she got herself up and dragged Ben through. There they appeared back in the temple. BB-8 rushed over to her trying to see who she brought back this time.
“Give him some space,” she told the droid as she adjusted herself again so that his head was back in her lap and her hand over his heart that held a faint and weak beat. “I’ve gotta fix him up a bit more.”
Rey breathed and concentrated, she thought of that life force he had given her, that he now needed to have back. She thought of that smile, how his lips felt against hers.
Ben’s heart thudded harder against his chest, and he gasped for a breath of air followed by panicked breaths.
“Easy there, you’re ok,” she assured him as she caressed his cheek and brushed through his hair. “You’re ok, you’re alive.”
He looked up at her, seeing her with cheeks streaked with tears. She was crying over his body, she had given her life force to him, the fear of her dying flooded him. “What did you do? Are you ok?”
“I’m fine Ben, I promise.” She told him. Ben tried to sit up but she pressed him back down, “stay down for a bit, you’re still injured. I gave you about half of my life force, you‘re going to need more.”
“No,” he snapped, “no-take it back, half your life Rey, I won’t let you…”
“You will,” she said, shutting him up, “I’m going to be fine. What you failed to recognize is that if you don’t give away all your life force, it will replenish itself.”
He grunted a bit as he shifted himself, his cheeks tinting with a slight bit of pink realizing she was using her lap as a pillow for him. “Healing was never my area of specialty. I learned that ability from you anyways, probably should have asked how to use it.”
Rey laughed as she realized Ben Solo had made a joke. But the most beautiful thing was his smile and laugh that followed.
A moment later Ben asked, “where are we?”
“A temple on Kordoku,” She explained, “it’s life day.”
“I don’t understand? How? How has so much time passed?”
“Do you remember meeting Palpatine and Vader, and traveling back to 4ABY? There were two Lukes, we ended up fighting till I sent you back into your timeline?”
His jaw dropped, “I thought that was some weird fever dream.”
“No, it appears I had ended up causing an unnecessary mess. Everything is fine now, nothing was messed up in the end, but you should have seen Tatooine, that was bad.”
A memory came back to him, and he remembered her words that had haunted him from what he thought was a dream, “you said goodbye to me. You sounded and looked so sad.”
Rey’s breath shuddered at the very thought, “I didn’t expect to ever see you again. I never had the chance before to say it.” She rubbed away some fresh tears that started to run down her cheeks. “I said goodbye to you then. But I realized I didn’t want to say goodbye.”
“You saved me,” he said as his hand raised to caress her cheek.
“You saved me first.”
Ben shook his head, “no, you’ve saved me first. You always were trying to save me, even when I didn’t want to be saved.”
“Except for when I slashed your face with a lightsaber,” she joked.
He laughed knowing it was true, there was a time when she hated him, “yeah, I deserved that.”
Rey brushed her fingers over his brow and down his cheek, “I didn’t even realize your scar is gone.”
“Yeah, some extremely skilled Jedi healed it,” he teased, “you know after she stabbed me with my lightsaber.”
Rey couldn’t help but cringe, “sorry about that.”
He laughed, shrugging his shoulders, “I probably deserved that one too.”
She placed her hand over his ribs, unable to forget where she had stabbed him. “No, you didn’t.”
He watched as a tear trailed down her cheek, one that he quickly tried to put a stop to, brushing the pad of his thumb over her cheek.
“I missed you,” Rey whispered.
Ben was careful as he made his way up to a sitting position, minding his injuries, he continued to caress her cheek as he whispered back. “I promise, I will never leave you again.”
Ben’s eyes flashed to her lips briefly before pressing a gentle kiss to them.
“I’m sorry, I hope you don’t mind.”
Rey wrapped her arms around Ben’s neck and pulled him in for a deeper kiss, one she had been longing for.
“Don’t you dare,” She said trying to catch her breath, “ever apologize for kissing me, Solo.”
He laughed and began to kiss every inch of her face, her forehead, nose, cheek, corner of her lips. That was until a certain orange and white BB unit interrupted them, begging for Rey to leave.
“Sorry BB-8, your right. I promised I wouldn’t miss the celebration.”
Bb-8 moved closer to Ben, the droid's head tilting to the side trying to determine if this new human was a friend or enemy.
“Finally my mission is complete,” Ben smiled, ”I suppose I’m to thank you BB-8, who knows if I would have ever found Rey without you.”
Bb-8 chirped back an excited “you’re welcome”, though he was a tad confused on how he had anything to do with the two humans meeting.
Rey got to her feet, offering Ben her hands. Standing for him was a bit of a shaky start, but Rey kept him standing, draping his arm over her shoulder.
“You're built like a tree,” she commented as she bared some of his weight.
Ben limped along, smiling down at Rey, “I’m going to take that as a compliment, even though you could very well be trying to insult me.”
“Haven’t decided yet,” she joked.
They made it out of the temple to the X-wing. Bb-8 took care of himself getting on, meanwhile Rey had to give Ben a bit of a lift to make it up and in. She then joined him, there was only a bit of space left for her in the pilot seat, but they managed to squeeze in together. Rey’s back pressed to his chest, his hand that stayed secured over her abdomen. Her own hand finds it way to rest on Ben’s thigh when she didn’t need it to pilot.
“We’re going to the resistance, aren’t we?” Ben asked with a tinge of worry in his voice.
“Technically we are going to Kashyyyk”, Rey told him, “we wanted to celebrate life day on Chewies home planet. It’s not the entire resistance is there, only a few. I don’t know who’s on the guest list so there might be others, not to mention Chewbacca’s family.”
Ben groaned as he leaned his head against the headrest, “that Wookie is going to kill me on sight.”
“I don’t think he will,” She assured him, “when I told him you were dead, he mourned you as much as he did your mother and your father. He told me in private today that he was going to be honoring your life today as well.”
He blinked away a few tears, he couldn’t believe it. “It’s an honor I don’t think I deserve.”
“I was going to be honoring your life as well. Because you mean something to me.” She reached for his hand and pulled it up to her lips to kiss, “I love you, Ben.”
“I love you too,” He told her through a croaky voice, wrapping both his arms around her, holding her tight. “I love you so much.”
They reveled in those few silent moments between themselves. Both knowing how much those confessions meant to each other.
After a while, Rey starts up the conversations again and tells him, “Finn is force sensitive. You didn’t happen to know that, did you?”
“Oh yeah, I knew that.” He confessed, “sometimes stormtroopers in their training when they are young either they will use the force as a defense or it will get so suppressed that they would never even know. Hux had a strict protocol, any stormtrooper found as force-sensitive will be executed. Finn, I assume must have suppressed it way down, if I had paid any less attention I would have missed it.”
“Finn had always wondered if you knew,” Rey admitted, “he told me that not long after he told me about being force sensitive. He said you should have reported him if that was the case.”
Ben then began to explain, “despite my record and the amount of blood on my hands, I don’t find pleasure in killing. They would have killed him, made an example of him. Hux would have loved every second of it, and it would have been a senseless death, and a waste of potential.”
“You saved his life.”
Ben laughed and shook his head, “I wouldn’t go that far. I also nearly killed the guy so I don’t expect any thanks from him, if anything he should be getting an apology from me.”
“That can be arranged.” Rey said, “I’ve been trying to train him. That’s why I went on this whole mission anyway. Turns out the mission was pointless and if I had trusted myself and Finn, then I would be a decent enough teacher to him.”
“Sounds about right. It was inside of you the whole time kinda deal.”
“Yeah,” Rey sighed, “it would be helpful if Finn had two teachers. Not that I don’t think I’m capable. But since you’re here now, and you have your knowledge in the force that maybe you might have something of value to offer. No dark side stuff of course.”
“If he would even consider the offer, then yes. But you and him are going to have to learn a few dark side things. Not sith stuff, and none of the things that Snoke put me through. But both of you need to be well versed. It’s like how you used to fight only as a scrapper till you learned some new skills.”
“I want to disagree with you, but you have a point. We’ll discuss that more later.”
“Agreed”, Ben said with a yawn.
“Get some rest, we still have some time before we land,” Rey told him.
It didn’t take him long for exhaustion to take over. Soon his head was resting on top of her shoulder, his body more relaxed all over. His breath was even and steady, a constant reminder to her that he was still alive.
Bb-8 gave Rey the heads up that they were approaching Kashyyyk, waking Ben in the process.
“How do you feel,” she asked him.
He pressed face into her neck, pressing soft kisses up till they reached her jaw, “I feel like I’m dreaming.” He whispered in her ear, his voice groggy from his nap.
She smiled, feeling another kiss to her jaw, “I could get used to this.”
Rey could feel his chest vibrate from his low chuckle, another thing she was more than happy to get used to.
Ben looked out the windshield of the X-wing as they entered Kashyyyks atmosphere.
“It hasn’t changed a bit,” Ben said, seeing the Wookie village still strong and thriving.
“You’ve been here before?”
“Dad used to always bring me with him when he and Chewie would visit for life day.” Ben told her, “Chewie would put me on his shoulders and show me around, introduce me to his family. I’d usually play with the kids while the adults prepared everything.”
She looked up at him, noting the tears shining in his eyes, “thank you for telling me. I like learning about your past and childhood. I know it wasn’t always great, neither of us had ideal childhoods, but I want to know everything.”
“Give me time, it’s not an easy subject for me.” He said resting his forehead on her shoulder, “but I don’t want to be alone with these memories anymore, and you are the one person I want to share them with.”
“I’ll give you all the time you need.”
Rey landed the X-wing, right from where she had taken off with it. Much to their surprise, Chewie was there to welcome her back.
“Oh no,” Ben said, defeated. “He’s going to kill me.”
“Have a bit more confidence in him,” Rey said turning the ship off and powering it down.
The hatch lifted and Chewie was quick to see that Rey was not alone, and even quicker to know exactly who her passenger was.
Rey helped Ben get out of the cockpit, Chewie helped her down, and then turned back to Ben and without a second thought helped him off as well.
Rey took to Ben’s side as his feet hit the ground knowing he needed the extra support, but Chewie kept his hands on either of Ben’s shoulders keeping him steady.
“I thought you were dead,” Chewie said with a whimper. “I thought I lost you too.”
“Yeah, plans kinda changed with that whole dying thing,” Ben said with a trembling voice, “and I was so lost Chewie…I’m so-so sorry.”
Chewbacca pulled Ben into his arms and held him tight, crying, “You’re alive, and home. That’s what matters. Happy Life Day Ben.”
“Happy Life Day Chewie,” Ben said back to the Wookie as he cried into his fur.
As Chewbacca released Ben from the hug, Rey stepped in to add a little extra support for him. “I need to get him patched up. What’s the likelihood that if I take him into the falcon and he doesn’t get arrested on the spot.”
“Poe’s already drunk, he won’t notice,” Chewie told her, “my family will recognize Ben, but they don’t know about you being Kylo Ren, we should keep it that way. Finn might need some convincing. But if anyone tries anything I will keep them from arresting him.”
“No, I need to own up to my crimes.”
Chewbacca nodded, “you do. But not today, today is meant to be spent with family, you’re my family little pup. We can deal with everything else tomorrow.”
Chewie escorted them onto the Falcon, Ben noted the holiday decorations, besides those the ship looked just as he remembered it, though there were a few nests made of twigs and wires, and a little ball of feathers and noise squawked at him to which he raised an eyebrow to.
“Porgs,” Rey told him, “they’re from Achto, they kinda made a little home for themselves on the falcon. I think that one there likes you.”
“I like them, they’re kinda cute. They would have driven Dad crazy.”
Rey felt a sudden sadness wash over him, she couldn’t help but hold him closer. “It’s ok to be sad Ben.”
Chewie placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder and told him, “he’d be glad you’re here, I’m glad you’re here.”
Ben smiled and breathed, trying to remind himself it’s ok to remember his father, remember the memories. He’s allowed to be on this ship, and make jokes.
As they made their way through the ship, Rose and Finn were walking around the hall, both still humming along to their previous sing along. Of course, they were quick to notice Rey and Chewie and not a second more the last person they both expected.
“Hey Rey,” Finn said suspiciously, “glad to see your back, quick question, why is he here, he’s supposed to be dead? He’s not like a force ghost, he’s not going to haunt me for the rest of my life because I swear if I have to be stuck…”
“He’s not a force ghost,” Rose said, cutting him off, “I can see him too.”
Rey took a step forward, her hand still in Ben’s, “this is Ben Solo, formally Kylo Ren. He was dead and now he’s not.”
“And he’s invited to the party,” Chewie growled, “so don’t even think of arresting him.”
Rose without hesitation stepped towards Ben and held out her hand, “Rose Tico, I’ve heard a lot about you. Break my friend's heart and I will break you.”
Ben shook her hand and smiled, “I’ll remember that. Nice to meet you Rose.”
“You’re ok with this!” Finn yelled.
Rose shushed him not wanting others to come looking, “it’s life day Finn loosen up. Besides, you know how Rey was after he died, how long it took for her to even talk about it. As long as he doesn’t hurt her and she’s happy, then I’m happy.”
“Fine,” he signed, “I guess this is ok, for now.”
“Thank you, both of you.” Rey said, “and Finn I need to speak to you, I owe you an apology.”
“I also owe you an apology,” Ben added.
“I’m going to get back to the party,” Rose told them as she made her way out, “make sure Poe hasn’t broken anything.”
Chewie then followed Rose informing them, “I’m going to give Maz a heads up about Ben so she doesn’t cause a commotion.”
It was then only the three that remained in the hall, Finn with his arms crossed read to listen.
Rey began, “I’m sorry about doubting you. I should have trusted you, that’s one of the biggest lessons to learn is to trust in the force and I failed you by not trusting your instincts. Turns out my whole mission was a bit of a flop, besides I guess one thing, but I was so determined that the answers would be in the books or would come from other masters. I needed to stop and trust in both of us, and start teaching you from not just the books but from experience. And I’m hoping Ben can do the same for you.”
“Thanks, Rey,” Finn said hugging her only to pull away and ask, “wait did you insinuate that he’s going to teach me too?”
Ben to a step, or limp, over to Finn, “That’s if you are willing to learn from me, but for you to even consider that I do owe you an apology. I’m sorry about Star Killer, it was never personal which makes it even worse. Anger and pain blinded me, and you had become another obstacle. But I’m glad you have finally begun your steps to learn about the force, and I’m glad I didn’t do any irreversible damage. And I hope that you would be willing to learn some things from me as well.”
Finn turned to Rey, “he knew?”
Rey in turn nodded to him to confirm.
“Yeah, I knew.”
Finn let out another big sigh and shifted on his feet, “well that was a lot to take in. I guess first thanks for the apology, but you are not forgiven yet, that shit hurt. Second, thank you for not turning me in, I don’t know if I would be here if you did. Third, lemme get used to you being here, then I’ll consider your offer.”
Ben smiled and chuckled a bit, “that’s all more than what I deserve.”
“You’ve got that right,” Finn said half-joking. “I’m gonna go back to the party, he looks like he might fall over soon if you don’t get med-pack started for him.”
They parted their ways, Finn, back with the party, and Rey who helped Ben get to the crew quarters.
“Do I look that bad?”
She looked up at him, a worried crease in her brow, “your face lost a lot of color in it, it reminds me of…of how pale you are before…”
“I’ll be ok,” he assured her, knowing she was fearful that she could lose him, he knew the same worry for her.
She had him sit on the bed as she applied bacta to his wounds and gave him a stim to get some more color to his face. She even took the caution to inject him with an anti-infection to be safe. She checked his hip and leg which were most definitely broken.
“We don’t have the supplies to speed healing for anything this major,” Rey informed him.
“It’s ok, I’ll be fine.”
“Ben, you haven’t been able to put any pressure on this leg. Please, let me…”
“No.”
“Please, I’ll be ok. I can tell my life force is already back to normal. Please, let me help you.”
“Fine,” he grumbled.
Rey took a seat next to him and placed her hand over his hip and breath. It didn’t take long, she could feel the bone, muscle, and tendons healing. It took extra concentration with bone healing, but it wasn’t long till she heard Ben sighed in the relief of pain.
“Thank you,” he whispered, taking a hold of her hand. “How do you feel?”
She kissed him on the cheek and smiled, “I feel good, better knowing you’re a bit more healed up.”
Ben stood testing out his healed leg, it felt as if it were brand new to him but felt good to walk without pain.
“Shall we enjoy the celebrations?” He grinned offering his hand.
Walking into the main hold Rey was happy to see how well everything came together.
From across the room, a drunk Poe yelled to her, “Hey Rey! Is that your boyfriend? You got yourself a real cute one.”
Rey laughed holding up her hand that held Ben’s, “yep he’s mine!”
“Good!” Poe yelled, giving two thumbs up. “That’s perfect since you and him are standing under the saava!”
Rey looked up noticing the beautiful golden flora but then looked back at Ben with confusion. “I don’t think I understand what he means by that.”
“It’s a stupid life day tradition,” Ben laughed, “if two people stand under an archway with a saava plant hanging from it they are suppose kiss under it. I’ll never understand the plant choice, but it’s Wookiee tradition.”
Rey got onto her tiptoes to get her face closer to his, “well I would hate to impose.”
She captured his lips with hers, they were both so lost in the moment they had not noticed the cheers and whoops from around the room.
Poe was once again crying with joy, “I love, love.”
“I love you,” Rey whispered.
Ben grinned wider than ever before, he didn’t care what the next day might bring, he had Rey, he had another chance to live. He will make things right, and he will do everything he can to make Rey the happiest woman in the galaxy.
“I love you too. Always.”