Chapter Text
It was cold, so cold as she drifted in a darkness so black and desolate, it was as though she had drowned in night itself. Fear stronger than any she had ever felt before, wrapped itself around her heart. She was lost, trapped in an endless dark void, disorientated and alone. She wanted to cry but could not, as though she had no body, no voice. She tried to open her mouth once more to cry out, nothing.
She found herself beginning to sink in to the inevitable, when a voice reached her through the inky black. It was merely a whisper, millions of miles away, across the stars but she knew that voice, as familiar to her as her own. She tried to call out in response but no sound came out, panic began to wash over her.
“Don’t leave me,” the voice grew stronger, more familiar,more tangible.
Deep and soft, a velvet timbre that contained a pain and anguish that she could not bear.
“Help me…someone please,” the voice came out as a sob.
She desperately tried to reach out to them, to let them know that she heard them.
Warmth and energy slowly began to fill her, spreading through her body, comforting her. She felt life and…and love fill her as a blue effervescent glow seem to surround her, giving her solidarity and form once more. Her lungs filled with air as she took a gasp and opened her eyes. Ben, her Ben was looking down at her, his eyes radiating with both pain and relief, he had come for her, like she had always believed that he would. She sat up, taking his face in her hand, holding his hand with her free one. Her heart beat strongly within her chest, his eyes flickered when he felt it, reassuring him.
“Ben,” her expression broke into a smile so joyous and open that it broke his heart.
He did not want to say goodbye, not yet, not now, it was too soon.
Rey felt a surge of emotion flood her, happiness and love. She loved him, she always had, but now she could show him every day just how much. He would know without a doubt that he wasn’t alone. She lunged forward and kissed him firmly upon his soft, yielding lips, all previous shyness gone. The kiss was awkward and clumsy, but neither of them minded, both relishing the feel of each other via their skin and the bond. Ben deepened the kiss, his kisses saying what his words yet could not. They eventually broke apart and for the first time in a long time, longer than he could remember, Ben broke into a smile.
Rey held on to him, marvelling at how his face changed when he smiled, his eyes crinkled and bright. She was about to tell him when his expression suddenly dropped, and the smile vanished from his eyes. He fell backwards as she tried to slow his fall as his eyes closed. Wait, no, this wasn’t right. She moved her hands to try and wake him but she couldn’t feel him, for he had begun to fade away into nothing as though he had never been there at all, had never existed. . Her blurry tear-filled eyes stared at the blank space where he had been seconds before as her hands hit the cold, stone floor. Her whole body felt cold once more, as cold as it had felt in death. She was alone again, her heart rent in two.
−−−−
Ice cold wind whipped past Rey’s hooded face, almost deafening in its ferocity. She had grown up thinking that Jakku was desolate, but Csilla was something else entirely. The planet was covered in icy plains with snow drifting across her distorted vision. She lifted the goggles up to her increasingly numb face and looked out over the horizon. Why had she decided to come? She knew why, because she was ‘the Jedi’, the ‘saviour’ of the Resistance. The way everyone acted around her was exhausting. She grew tired of having to explain to people that it was Ben…Kylo that had killed and defeated Snoke, to save her. She had seen the doubt and disbelief in their eyes. They still credited her for that victory, despite the heavy cost of that day and the lives that had been lost. Only one person had not looked on in disbelief, but with something worse, hope. Leia.
Shaking the thought of Leia from her mind, Rey focused on the task at hand. The sooner they completed her mission, the sooner they could get off this frozen rock.
“Rey…” a whisper on the wind.
She turned trying to work out which direction the sound had come.
“…against destiny…win.”
A chill ran alone her spine that had nothing to do with the temperature of her surroundings. That voice…it was the same one from her dream.
“…see him again.”
The words were broken across the freezing gales.
“I can’t hear you, what do you mean?” she shouted at the wind.
“Save.”
Then the voice and the words they conveyed stopped and all she could hear once more was the wind.
“Wait!! Come back, I need to know,” her frustration made her angry.
There was no reply. If the force was trying to tell her something it was more bother than it was worth, always riddles with the force.
"Rey!" a muffled voice broke through the gales behind her.
She spun around and could just make out a dark shape moving towards her; her shoulders dropped. She would get no further answers standing here freezing her extremities off.
“Finn,” she trudged forward in her heavy boots, boots that made her legs feel like dead weights.
“We should head back to the Falcon,” his voice raised so that she could hear him, his face hidden by the shadows of his fur lines hood. “We are losing daylight; it will be dark soon.”
Rey sighed but knew that he was right as she looked to the faltering light. Nodding in agreement she followed him back, after looking behind her one more time at the white nothing that offered no answers, only questions.
The ramp to the Falcon was already down for them, a beacon in the white and grey shifting landscape. Climbing aboard the ship, Finn hit the ramp’s button, shutting it behind them with it's reassuring hiss. The pair stomped their boots and removed their outer coats, hanging them on hooks by the entry.
“We’re never going to find any,” Rey grumbled as they made their way to the lounge area.
“We’ve not been here long,” Finn replied, trying to be reassuring. “Give it a chance.”
Rey just frowned and rubbed her arms, the cold still not having left her. Space in it's self was cold, but Csilla was cold on another level and Rey couldn’t wait to leave. Rose appeared and threw a blanket around Rey’s shoulders, rubbing at her arms.
“Hey, where’s mine,” Finn pretended to look offended.
Rose rolled her eyes in return.
“You didn’t grow up on a desert planet.”
“I still get cold,” he pouted.
“Don’t be such a baby,” she laughed, throwing another blanket at him.
Finn caught it and gave her a little wink as Chewbacca came out of the cockpit and growled and gargled at Rey.
“It’s okay, I’ll warm up in a bit,” she replied, pouring herself a hot cup of Caff from the pot Rose had readied for them.
She sighed in pleasure as her hand wrapped around the warm cup, letting the steam warm her face, her cheeks and nose pink and flushed. She slid onto the bench joining her four companions.
“You found nothing?” Rose asked.
Rey shook her head, wiggling her toes as the feeling slowly returned to them.
“Nothing, the weather is hindering the equipment, I can’t get an accurate read.”
Rose’s expression went through a number of emotions when Chewbacca growled.
“I know.”
“You know what Rose?” Rey looked between the two of them.
“Do you want the good news or the bad news?” Rose winced.
“Oh, this will be good,” Finn mumbled taking a sip from his drink.
Rose shot him a look before continuing.
“Well good news is, Chewie and I have managed to recalibrate the sensors to get a better reading of the planet’s surface. We are definitely in the right place, there are a network of caves a mile north from here; that has to be where the crystals are.”
Rey’s countenance brightened.
“That’s good.”
“And the bad news?” Finn interjected, placing his cup down with a sigh.
“Well, our scanners show that the weather is going to get a lot worse.”
“Worse than this?” Rey snorted.
“Unfortunately, yes, a storm is coming.”
"You mean this isn't a storm already?" Rey grimaced as Rose shook her head.
“We can just ride it out and start the search after,” Finn tried to stay positive but the look on Rose and Chewie’s face told him otherwise.
“That’s the thing, we can’t. The storms going to be huge, covering half of the planet, and may last days.”
Chewie agreed with her, waving his large fluffy hands around.
“That’s right, the ship may not be handle the storm, we need to leave and come back when it’s safer. Plus the longer we are here, the more chance the Chiss will turn up.”
Rey’s friends turned to look at her, noting how her face had fallen, her forehead marred by a frown. Her finger tips drummed lightly against the side of the mug as she chewed the inside of her lip, that voice echoing in her head.
Why couldn’t anything be simple? Her books taken from Ach to had shown her that Kyber crystals could be harvested from caverns hidden in the depths of the planet. The search for crystals had become the reason she had given everyone else for needing to come here. Yet that was not entirely truthful. That dream, that awful dream kept playing on her mind, over and over. The only difference in the dream, was that sometimes a voice would whisper to her, like it had out in the snow. It had told her to come here. She had thought first of all it was merely for the acquisition of crystals, especially after having the location confirmed in one of those ancient tomes. The dreams could just be that, dreams, but what if the force was telling her the future, warning her. So many nights sleep had been lost when she had awoken, covered in sweat with her heart thudding loudly within her chest, the vision of Ben fading away on her mind. She had seen it so many times and each time hurt as much as the last. Every time she tried to do something different but nothing changed and the same outcome prevailed as though it were written in the stars as a fixed point.
“Like fate…” she whispered.
Maybe the force was mocking her.
“What?” Finn’s voice broke through her stream of thought.
Her eyes shot up to three confused and concerned faces looking back at her.
“Yes, yes, you’re probably right,” she placed her now empty cup down, avoiding their eyes. “How soon do we need to leave?”
Chewbacca replied with a soft growl and a tilt of the head.
“That and we need to run a diagnostic on the hull before we go after that bumpy landing,” Rose explained. “Plus, I want to fine tune the engine in case we run into any bucket heads leaving here.”
“So in the morning?” Finn asked, before breaking into a yawn. “Will that give us enough time to leave before the storm hits?”
Rose looked down at her holopad, swiping through the various readings and data she had collected.
“Should do yes.”
“Then I suggest we all get some rest,” Rey placed her hands on the table and pushed herself up, feigning a yawn. “We’ve got a lot to do.”
--------
Inside the Falcon it quiet and calm aside from the various beeps and whirs of the ship’s internal workings, its computer constantly chattering, the sound of wind and snow whirling around outside. Rey crept along the corridor, away from the sleeping quarters, her boots in her hand, her thcick socks padding quietly across the floor. Rose and Finn had been completely out of it as she had crept from her bed, their quiet snores making her smile. She proceeded to curse as she tripped over a tool box that had been clumsily left in the passageway.
“Finn dammit,” she hissed to herself.
Rubbing her stubbed toe, she sat down on a supply crate and gently pulled her boots on, pulling the lacings tight. She could hear Chewbacca snoring softly in the cockpit with a soft purr, reverberating gently.
Grabbing her jacket from where it still hung next to the boarding ramp, she added her final layer of clothing before placing her satchel over her shoulders, checking that she had her blaster, her hand hovered over the ramp controls. For a second she hesitated, her hand shaking. Her friends would be furious, hurt even, but she could not get Ben’s lifeless form from her head. That voice that had whispered to her seemed to have changed to a persistent pulling and tugging at her conscience, willing her to follow it. She didn’t know why or how, but she knew that she had to listen.
“Rrwwghff,” a low rumble behind her made her jump.
So much for being attuned to the force.
“Chewie,” her voice came out as a raspy whisper.
“Rrmmph,” luckily, he spoke quietly.
“I have to go, somethings telling me…I need…look please Chewie.”
He growled, his eyes a flash of worry, his features downturned. Rey took his hand in both of hers, holding it to reassure him.
“It’s Ben.”
His eyes widened and she could see the questions there, questions that she honestly had herself.
“I can’t explain it, I wish that I could, but I have to go…alone.”
He did not want to let her go, wanted to protect her, unlike Han whom he had failed. Yet, he saw in her eyes that same fire and determination that she had shown that day when she had gone for Ben. A stubborn wilfulness that he recognised. His thoughts immediately went to Ben, the dark-haired boy that had sat on his shoulder as a child, not the masked killer on the bridge. She had failed before, what had changed? What could she find on this lump of ice?
“Please Chewie.”
He didn’t speak but pulled her into a hug before hitting the ramp controls. As the ramp lowered and snow and wind blew up along the ramp to meet them, she pulled up the visor over her eyes.
“If I’m not back in time, make sure you get off the planet.”
Chewbacca growled, low and tense.
“Promise me, you have to take care of the others.”
Chewbacca nodded in resignation and watched Rey walk down the sloping ramp and disappear into the blurry white nothingness.