Chapter Text
Ben Solo wakes up.
He didn’t expect that.
He draws a breath and it leaves him almost instantly as the movement sends fire screaming along nerves he hasn’t felt since Snoke’s last punishment. He tries moving and quickly judges that to be a poor decision. His skin feels raw, blood trickles out of open wounds, and not all his bones seem like they’re where they belong. His eyelids stick together as he peels them open and finds oddly familiar crags of rock above.
He casts his mind back, trying to connect the wrongness reverberating through his thoughts. He remembers Rey, Rey with him, Rey looking at him like he’d never imagined she could. And then –
He reaches out in the Force to find her, and his body goes colder than it already was at the void that greets him. Rey is gone. The emptiness at the other end of their bond yawns, threatening to consume him. He remembers now, Palpatine throwing him across the room and the full weight of that twisted wrath descending on Rey.
Rey, who’s gone.
His world centers. Nothing else matters but correcting that mistake. Faint echoes in the Force call him across the cavern, and he knows without seeing that he’ll find her there. He pushes himself off the ground, even as his entire body screams in protest. Once on his feet, he sways before he can steady himself. One leg at least is broken, which leaves him three limbs to pull himself out of here. He looks up at the wall of rock in front of him and starts climbing.
When his hand finally reaches the top of the hole, he can’t tell one pain from another, all melded into a sharp mass shoved to the back of his mind. Every part of him begs him to stop. He drags himself over the edge, rock scraping against his entire body. He can see her now, her limp form sprawled on the rock, and the sight pushes him to rise on his good leg and finish his journey. He half staggers, half crawls his way over to her, the ground somehow managing to find new parts of him to scratch open. He doesn’t want to see what state his leg is in. He collapses on the rock next to her, drags himself to sit, and pulls her into his arms.
She’s so cold. It’s all he can think as her eyes stare sightlessly up at him. Rey has always been so warm, a burning sun in the Force, like she never let go of the heat of the desert planet that raised her. The chill to her skin as he wraps his arms around her is so fundamentally wrong that it feels like the Force has warped unnaturally on this cursed planet to let the balance of the universe become so unravelled. He looks around, as if there could be anything else here to help fix this.
Of course, it’s only him. He tightens his hold on her and lays a hand over her stomach, letting his eyes slip closed. He knows, in theory, that the Force can be used like this, but he’s far more experienced with its destructive outlets. He can tear an enemy apart without thinking, but restoring life doesn’t come so easily. He shouldn’t be the one to do this, except he’s the only one who should. No one else could be more willing to give everything for Rey than him.
He imagines that now. Through his hand on her stomach, he pictures the sparks of the Force that flow through his veins pouring out of his heart, down his arm, and into her. The flow starts slowly, one small star at a time, then faster, the light gathering until the tether connects them like the bond between their souls. He pushes harder, emptying himself into her, until the last few drops of light fall off his fingers and sink into her core.
He holds his breath, waiting. He has nothing left to give. If this doesn’t work, he doesn’t know what else he can do. Rey remains still in his arms. Silence looms.
A hand covers his, warm and alive. Rey’s body shudders as she draws in a deep breath, and his eyes fly open to meet hers. She sees him and smiles. He’s never seen something more beautiful.
“Ben.” Her voice reminds him that this is real, that he’s saved her. Rey is alive, and the universe can exist once more.
Her eyes search his, and he wonders what she finds. Her side of the bond blazes with joy, and it’s enough to keep him breathing a little longer. Her other hand curves around his neck. For a moment, he knows what’s about to happen and yet cannot believe that such a thing would happen, and then she kisses him. Her lips crash against his and, as many mistakes as he’s made in his life, he at least did one thing right to have this. He can’t ask for anything more.
The emptiness left from where he poured himself into her balloons, creeping out from his chest to his limbs and finally, up his neck until he can taste the darkness at the back of his throat, threatening to overwhelm his senses full of Rey. His hold tightens on her, a brief panic at the thought of letting go so soon, and then the fear vanishes. He’s done all he can. This is what’s left.
He breathes out, and his lungs refuse to expand to inhale. His hands loosen, falling away from her. He barely feels his back hit the stone. Rey crawls over him, eyes frantic and sad, and he wants to tell her that it’s okay, she’ll be fine now. She’s won. Now she can live. But his mouth refuses to move and reality dissolves into nothingness.
Ben Solo wakes up.
He didn’t expect that.
He tries moving and when every nerve, muscle, and bone screams in response, he remembers this pain. He’s been here before. More than deja vu, a pair of phantom sensations overlay themselves in his mind.
His eyes struggle to focus once he opens them, but when he does, he swears he’s seen this exact patch of stone before, maybe more than once, looking up at it from his back. He raises his head and sees a similarly familiar stone wall. His leg aches in remembered strain.
Did he have some kind of Force vision? Is the Force attempting to tell him what he has to do? He could tell it that he doesn’t need the guidance; there’s no universe in which he wouldn’t give himself for Rey, but he knows better than to expect a response. Talking to the universe is worse than useless. Wondering about the peculiarities of the Force seems particularly useless when he can feel Rey’s absence in their bond, an aberration he has to correct. Vision or not, he knows what comes next.
He drags himself to her, one agonizing step at a time, haunted by the void where she should be the entire time. The wrongness makes his pain feel inconsequential in comparison. He can’t feel soothed when he holds her in his arms, not when her eyes stare emptily up at him. He gives himself to her, pushing until the last drop. She breathes. The universe rights itself.
The kiss still feels just as unexpected as the time before, and he clings to it until he can’t anymore. His body goes limp, emptied, and everything fades.
Ben Solo wakes up.
He’s starting to think something’s wrong.
He knows for sure he’s been here before. Same stone ceiling above, same looming rock wall in front of him, same damaged body, down to the cut across his cheekbone. Same emptiness where Rey should be. In the end, that’s the only thing that matters. If he can fix that, maybe everything else will make sense. And given his memories, he’s certain that at least he can fix that.
He crawls, heals, holds her, kisses back, and collapses.
Ben Solo wakes up.
He is almost certain that something’s wrong.
What if this isn’t real? What if he’s stuck in some kind of vision, and the Force refuses to let him out until he’s solved whatever arcane mystery it demands. What if he’s trapped on Exegol, and everything since meeting Palpatine there has been an illusion? The Sith have warped the Force in this place, enough that it’s hard to be sure what to expect. He’d seen some traps laid by ancient Force users back in his time with Luke, and methods to ensnare the mind weren’t uncommon. He could be trapped here while Rey fights on her own.
Rey. He can write off his own memories and the pain coursing throughout his body easily enough, given the decades he spent with powerful Sith inside his mind, warping his thoughts to suit them. But the bond is the one thing that’s never led him astray, a clear beacon even when everything else fell apart. And right now, it’s worse than empty. Rey is gone and he can’t live with that. The longer he lays here, the greater the emptiness grows, gnawing along the bond and tearing him apart bit by bit. If nothing else is real, Rey’s absence is, and it can’t remain that way.
Once more, he does what he must to fix this mistake in the universe. He savors the look of wonder in her eyes, the kiss he never dreamed of. He wishes he could hold onto that sight instead of her terror as everything disappears.
Ben Solo wakes up.
Is this what death is? Reliving his final moments forever? Out of all the deaths he could have had, this one is better than he deserves. He could’ve been shot down by infinite enemies of the First Order, destroyed by Sith artifacts or any of the Knights of Ren. He could’ve let Luke kill him instead of defending himself. He can imagine few things worse than seeing his uncle stand over him, ready to strike the killing blow, filled with righteous fury that he was doing the right thing in removing an evil creature from the world on loop for eternity. He’s seen it often enough when he tries to sleep.
At least here, he gets to see Rey one last time, can hold her, cling to the memory of her smiling up at him and the miracle of her lips on his. He could’ve died happy just knowing she was alive. Everything else is a gift he can’t imagine he deserves.
With that in mind, he pulls himself back out of the pit and gives everything he has to see Rey’s smile one last time. He collapses with her taste on his lips, the fear in her eyes haunting him even as they fade to nothing.
Ben Solo wakes up.
He licks his dry lips, but nothing of Rey remains. He has to save her to earn that taste. He drags himself to her again, holding the vision of her alive and happy in his mind to guard against the darkness across the bond. If this isn’t real, maybe he could tell her something before he leaves again, something he could never tell the Rey who lives on somewhere outside this afterlife.
He holds her in his arms, heals her with all that he has, and savors the joy in her eyes when he looks up at him. Her eyes brim with life, such a relief after their empty sightlessness. He cups her face in his hand, imprinting every detail of this onto his memory.
“Thank you, Rey,” he says. His voice comes out dry and hoarse, and he realizes how long it’s been since he used it. He clears his throat and says it again. “Thank you. For everything.” He does everything he can to impress his sincerity on her. This may not be real to anyone but him, but it’s important that she knows, all the same.
“Ben?” The light in her eyes hasn’t dimmed as she blinks up at him, likely confused. He can understand.
“I love you.” He kisses her first this time and gets to taste her surprise that melts into joyful response, her lips pressing back into his in return. He doesn’t know why, but it relieves something in him. She didn’t just kiss him in that one frantic moment. She wants to kiss him back too.
He slumps forward onto her when the nothingness comes this time, and he only barely has time to think that he doesn’t have to see her fear when her panicked voice pierces him instead.
“Ben? No, no, no, don’t go. Please!” Her words break off in a sob and he can’t even apologize before he’s consumed.
Ben Solo wakes up.
He lays on the hard floor, a sharp rock digging into his side, and stares up at the familiar cavern overhead. Emotions roil through him, and he doesn’t know which to pick out first. He’d seen Rey’s sadness before, has become very familiar with the desperation on her face as he slips away, but, if pressed, he would’ve called it a natural reaction to someone collapsing in front of her. Not necessarily the result of a strong attachment. Rey is a good person, kind, someone who instinctively cares for others. Even him.
Her last words echo in his ears, and he can’t detach himself from them. She doesn’t want him to go. She begged him to stay. Did she really want him there with her?
He can’t remember that he ever had a clear vision of the future. Maybe when he was very little, he thought of being a smuggler like his dad, or an important person like his mother. Briefly, very briefly, maybe even a Jedi like Luke. The smuggler had always seemed the most likely. As he got older and the voices grew louder, those futures blurred and faded, but nothing had really taken their place. Snoke spoke of a bright future, a galaxy with him in control and Ren at his side, but that felt like more of the same, another day serving his master. He would serve until, eventually, he would be caught off guard and it would be the end.
Killing Snoke and then leaving the First Order hadn’t changed his expectation much, if he’d had time to think about it. Maybe the Resistance or whoever came after them would execute him for his crimes against the galaxy. Maybe any of the millions of beings with a grudge against the First Order would get to him first. There were several possibilities, but all led back to the same end. People like him didn’t have futures.
So why did Rey cling to him like she thought she could keep him with her? What did she think would come next? He can’t say he’s thought much about what she’d do after him and the First Order either, but he has a vague sense of her going off with her friends and rebuilding the galaxy to be a better place until the next crisis comes. There’s not a place for him in whatever comes next.
Is this own deeply buried feelings manifesting into this twisted reality? Has kissing Rey awoken something in him, something that makes him think she’d keep him around, that she’d want more from him? Is he doing this to himself?
His heart twists and he grits his teeth. He hates all of this. He shouldn’t have said anything. He had an afterlife where, if he fought past Rey’s death, he could bring her back and have her look at him like he’s her entire world and kiss him like she means it. He should know better than to mess with that.
The bond has been empty for too long. He flings himself towards the wall and climbs out in record time. When he holds her in his arms, he doesn’t start slow as he brings her back. He shoves everything at once, like he could force his whole heart out and into her, where she could keep it safe. Exhaustion overtakes him almost immediately, and he barely catches her smile before it crumbles and she clings to him.
“Ben? Ben! No, you can’t do this!“ He swears the anguish in her voice hurts worse than before, much worse than any of his wounds. She chokes on the words. “Ben, please. You can’t, you can’t leave me. Don’t, Ben, please.”
He'd do anything for her. Darkness swallows him and he leaves her behind.
Ben Solo wakes up.