Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. – Emily Bronte
"Ben".
The solid fervor of her voice echoed in the space between them, galaxies away.
He sat on his bed, bare and trembling hands twisting in his hair. It had been days without her – without feeling her presence. As his Father's dice slipped through his fingers, his knees aching from the hard floor of the abandoned resistance base, he felt that she had slipped from him too. He worried the pull to the light was gone, heavy and dead with her final goodbye, more resounding than the millennium falcon's door, his childhood home, shutting in his face.
But it wasn't.
He had felt the tug in his chest, spreading through his limbs, before he realized it was her.
"Ben".
His head whipped up at the sound of her voice.
She appeared in front of him, her eyes red and swollen. She was covered in a sheen of sweat, her skin pale and her lips bruised and worn from worrying. Neutral colors draped her body in a simple gown, her hair down and frazzled.
She had been having nightmares too, then. Was it from missing him? Or because of him?
He stared up at her where she stood, inches from his presence, his eyes boring into her soul. He could hardly see past the tears that he had grown accustomed to behind closed quarters.
He was a powerful monster when he had to be.
But now, as he was still calming his staggering breaths from yet another cruel and twisted dream, his pants and shirt, sweat stained and clinging, he felt… peace.
She looked down at him, ravaging his heart with her gaze.
"Please….", she whispered, choking on a sob. "I can't do this."
"Do what?" he croaked, his own voice full of blatant curiosity.
She took a deep breath, holding out her small hands, palms facing upward. She begged him with her thoughts. "Please, please, please…"
Swallowing, he held out his hands, shaking in tune to her own. He remembered how he had trusted her so implicitly on Ach-To, the fire dancing in her eyes.
Was he a fool to trust her again?
"Please", she begged again, pleading with him through her mind.
He held his palms above hers and ever so slowly, drowning in her brown pooling orbs, he placed his hands in hers.
She startled at the contact, breathing faster as her heart thrummed through the force.
Or was that his?
She slowly shifted her hands under his forearms, up his biceps, firmly and smoothly sliding around his shoulders, the strained muscles in his neck, until they rested on his jaw line. He automatically shifted so she could gravitate between his legs. Like their bodies knew exactly how to navigate the space between them.
They always had though, hadn't they?
She took a deep breath, clenching her jaw, before firmly saying aloud what he had known she would.
"Come home."
He opened his mouth, about to remind her of just how unwelcome he was, how they would kill him, how he could never, never, face his mother again…
"Ben", she said, shaking him ever so slightly.
His mouth shut automatically.
"Come home… to me."
The silence was more deafening than the stopping of his heart.
"Not the resistance," she continued. "Not the First order, not the Sith, nor the Jedi. Nothing. Just come to me." She began to rush her words, afraid that he was already rejecting her proposition. "I was wrong. Ben, I was so, so wrong. In all of my life I hadn't had a home. I wandered without cause and lived just to survive. When I found the resistance, when it found me, I thought I had found a home. But I hadn't, I really hadn't. I found friendship, a semblance of family. But not home. But when I remember that night on Ach-To, when I remember the vision I had seen, when I think of your face as you asked me to join you… I have never felt emotion like that. Never. And I know, truly know, that my home is with you."
Tears fell freely from her face, falling on his arms, his hands gravitating to grab her forearms during her speech.
"You told me I wasn't alone," she continued, choking back sobs. "Please tell me that I'm still not alone."
He could barely see her through his water filled eyes, tightening his grip on her, before saying what they knew all along.
"You're never alone".
She collapsed into him, sending them both to the ground, a flurry of arms and awkward knees, clinging to each other as if their lives depended on it. She bawled into his chest, squeezing him so tightly his ribs ached. He engulfed her in his size, one arm raking around her back to her hair, the other securing her hips tightly to his body.
They stayed that way for a while, both allowing their tears to dry, their breathing to return to normal.
"What do we do now?" she said, nuzzling his chest while her fingers traced patterns on his back.
"It won't be easy. We could very well be killed," he replied. "But I think I know how we can live in balance."
She leaned back, releasing her fierce grip on him, and reached to his face, one finger lightly tracing the scar she had left on his face. Her mark.
"I love you, Ben."
The slightest of smiles graced his lips.
His name on her lips was a litany, a prayer. Beauty. Grace. Fear. Hope.
She was his redemption.