"Don't do this, Ben."
She answered his plea with one of hers. Her face betrayed everything she was feeling at that moment: his offer had crushed her heart. He was surprised at being rejected, but not surprised enough to not be aware of her tears. He had caused it, first by making her acknowledge her parentage, and then his offer to rule the galaxy with him. But why couldn't she see it? That his offer was to put an end to those very tears. Not just hers, or his hidden ones, but everyone else's who had had to be caught in the crossfire of the Sith, the Jedi, the Resistance, the Order. It was all so meaningless. Let them be damned. They can put an end to all of it and create something better. Something that can free them from these divides.
All of a sudden the throne room grew dark. Instinctively he tensed, glancing around him. When his surroundings resurfaced, the corpses of the Praetorian Guards were gone, replaced by black crumbly rocks that withstood the rivers of lava lapping up against them. He sensed a particular sense of fury mixed with anguish. But not his...?
"Ani, you're breaking my heart."
Someone was sobbing. He looked up, and his eyes fell on a woman who reminds him so much of her with her dark hair and eyes. She was also heavily pregnant. He felt his heart falter at her words, yet almost immediately his emotions were washed over with untrammeled anger. Instinctively his arm shot out in front of him, and the woman was lifted off the ground, grasping at her neck even though there was nothing there. He was shouting something, but he couldn't hear it. As he watched her struggle, he realized that he was Force Choking her. But strangely enough, he felt it too...
The next thing he knew, he was embraced by a familiar warmth and the comforting scent of gingerbell. He knew this embrace very well. He had always needed it in the past as a child. Perhaps a bit too much. As the New Republic threatened to fall apart again, the embraces became less and less, hurried and more brief. At times he suspected them to be insincere, especially when they come after quarrels he overheard about how disturbing he is. The last time he received an embrace similar to the one now, it was an embrace meant to send him far away. He should be angry now, resentful... But he's not. Despite himself, if anything, he doesn't want this to end.
A gentle hand touched his face, a thumb sweeping over the long scar that marred his features. He hesitated, but eventually steeled himself to look at the person embracing him in the eyes. It was a pair full of forgiveness and hope. But most of all, those eyes spoke of a love that refused to die regardless.
"You know, Ben, when I saw first saw you in the Force, you were a glowing ball of light. My light. I'm sorry it became too much for you," the one who had embraced him said with a sad but understanding smile. "I'll be waiting for you. Come home, my love."
A final kiss on the top of his head, a long parting glance, and then she vanished, leaving him once again alone in the cold and darkness.
His eyes snapped open. "Mother..." he whispered shakily. Subconsciously a hand went to the crown of his head where she had left the kiss in his dream. He could smell the gingerbell, as if she was really here.
He got up from his bed and walked over to the wall with a clear glass panel. His quarter's equivalent of a window. He would have preferred it much larger, but it was better than nothing. In all honesty, it was redundant. There was nothing to see but the vast blackness of the galaxy, dotted with planets and stars, some inhabited, some no longer, and others uninhabitable. Often the stillness of the galaxy calmed him, but tonight, it threatened to swallow him up with an inexplicable sadness.
His thoughts went back to his dreams. Should he? He had never consciously attempted this before. But the face of his mother refused to leave his mind. Eventually he cast his hesitation aside, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He let himself tap into the Force, sensing the thrumming of its energy. He searched for that familiar connection, that one Bond...
All he arrived at was emptiness. That was when he knew.
"Mother..."
Under normal circumstances, she would have been excited to be in a place like Hanna City. After all, growing up in a desert like Jakku, there was nothing much to see except sand, sand, and more sand. Hanna City by contrast was a lush green metropolis, with water features at all the right places. Despite being in the Core Rim, Chandrila enjoyed the strange fortune of continuing to escape getting caught in the crossfires of the Resistance and the First Order, even though it was known they were letting in Republic refugees seeking temporary sanctuary.
The First Order too has been quiet after the Resistance's massive loss on the salt planet of Crait. Of course, there were moments in the past few months when TIE fighters would give chase, but the Falcon always made it through. There were rumors that an internal struggle was incapitating the might of the First Order to act. It might be wishful thinking on the part of those perplexed by the restrained conduct of the Order previously intent on destroying the Alliance and its bases, but for Rey at least, she thought it might not be too far off from the truth.
It was precisely this seemingly absent threat from the First Order which had brought the Resistance party to Chandrila, as a final request from General Leia Organa. It was a strange one, and Poe had protested. But Leia insisted in her final moments with a frail laugh, "I need to wait for someone at home."
When the Chandrila Senate House caught wind of their party and Leia's passing, they had offered to honour her with a procession, befitting that of a Senator who had passed, but to be done privately, in light of the threat by the First Order. Poe had muttered something about them being shameless in claiming Leia once again for themselves, after being the very ones who destroyed her political career. But the entire Resistance team - 11 people now left in all - had agreed in light of Leia's will. It was the least they could do for someone who had sacrificed so much of her youth and her life for the cause, who had lost more family, friends, and allies throughout her life than they could imagine.
So it came to be that majority of them remained behind in the Falcon, parked discreetly in the outer peripheries of Hanna City. Poe, Rey and Finn were the only ones to accompany Leia's hearse into the city towards the Senators Mausoleum. The procession was also to buy time for Commander D'Arcy, who had set out earlier to recruit some allies in the city.
It was a procession without witnesses. Or rather, one where the inhabitants of Hanna City were encouraged to either stay in their homes or avoid the area around the Senators' Mausoleum. Even the senators, with the exception of a junior senator presiding over the procession, were absent. The procession was really just the four of them. So much for honouring a former senator.
"We are not going to lay her to rest at the Senator's Mausoleum," Poe's declaration was an indication he found the procession more an insult instead.
The junior senator scowled at him. "That's not for you to decide."
"Yeah the same goes for you," Poe snorted back. "General - I mean, Senator Organa has left us a will. Lay her to rest at her home."
The junior senator replied cooly. "You are not in charge of her funeral here, the city is."
Poe was about to protest but Rey quickly elbowed him. This was not their place to dictate things. Poe glowered as he continued to accompany the hearst into the Mausoleum's entrance. To the trio's surprise, a small number of people had gathered inside. Many wore the senatorial robes, hinting to their identities as former and present senators. A few others wore their military uniforms. Nestled amongst them was Commander D'Arcy, who looked as if she was holding back tears as the group of people shifted to receive Leia's coffin in the designated mausoleum space.
The junior senator cleared his throat. "If anyone has any eulogies to deliver, I recommend you keep it brief." He glanced around warily before he continued, "Otherwise we may proceed with the burial and commence our departure from this Mausoleum."
His words were met with silence. To Rey's and Poe's surprise, it was Commander D'Arcy who stepped up to say, "There is none. Senator, please proceed."
The mourners in attendance each placed a stalk of gingerbell on Leia's resting figure. No one said a word, but many looked at Leia's peaceful sleeping face with a teary smile, and that was probably enough to convey all they felt about the former Senator of Chandrila and Princess of Alderaan. Rey and Poe were the last to pay their respects - they were also the ones tasked to place the marble lid on her coffin. As Poe rejoined Commander D'Arcy who was exiting the space (presumably to express his dissatisfaction with her decision to do away with eulogies), Rey stayed behind to place a wreath over the coffin lid. Her fingers traced the carved emblem of Chandrila on the lid as she whispered her own goodbyes, "Thank you, Leia."
No sooner had she said it, she felt a presence she had thought she would never encounter again ever since she closed the door of the Millennium Falcon on Crait. She sighed. The Force can be such a bitch sometimes. Her hand slowly slid to the blaster she kept hidden near her waist as she looked up to glare at him.
Surprisingly, the attention of the new Supreme Leader of the First Order was not on her at all, but at the coffin beside her. Could he see it? She watched curiously as he moved as if to reach a hand out to touch the coffin, only for it to be clenched into a fist and returned firmly by his side. He stayed like that for a while, before he reluctantly laid his eyes on her.
Without meaning to, her mind touched his. Or he let her into his - their Force Bond has always worked in ways neither of them fully understood. Snoke's death changed nothing, even though he claimed to have been the one to bridge their minds. In that moment, Rey saw everything Kylo Ren had struggled for years to kill along with Ben Solo. She saw his raging darkness, she saw the flicker of his light, she felt the intensified confusion, sadness, loneliness and despair consuming and radiating from him.
She wanted to call out to him, but she hesitated: who was standing in front of her now? Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order intent on wiping out the Resistance she had sided with? Or was it Ben Solo, mourning the passing of his mother?
Without breaking his eye contact with her, she saw his hand move to press a switch somewhere beside him. Before Rey could utter the name she had decided on, the door closed in her face, breaking their connection.