Chapter 1

Deep, intense fear filled Rey's eyes as she witnessed what was happening on the battlefield. The First Order had just crumbled from within before a fight with the Resistance could even commence. Armitage Hux had been betrayed and killed...

By none other than Kylo Ren himself. The man who was now Ben Solo, returned to the Light. And now he was hunched over with a deep flesh wound, struggling and unable to get up.

Concern and distress flowing off her Force essence in waves, Rey rushed to his side. Drawing him into a tight embrace, she cradled his body close to her chest. Ben was sputtering, and it took great effort for him to speak.

"I... I didn't think... it would be this painful," he croaked.

Rey's eyes filled with tears as she gazed down at him, full of love. Yes, she was in love with him - she had stopped denying that ever since Crait. If this was the will of the Force, for them to be together for balance to be achieved even more, let it be... And now she began to panic, as she reached out to her love with the Force and realized -

"I can't feel you!"

Ben smiled at her sadly. "I gave it up, Rey. I had to. I had to save you. From Hux. Even if..." And he began to cry. "Even if now, I'm nothing."

Rey stared at him, speechless, her heart breaking for him. She shook her head, her tears falling on his upturned face. "But not to me." Whipping her face back to her flabbergasted friends in the Resistance close behind her, she ordered, no nonsense, "He needs a medic's care! And quickly!"

Finn nearly dropped the mobile transmitter as his hands shook trying to plug in coordinates, do research. Rendering a holographic projection, he pointed and held it out for Rey to see. "There. Polis Massa. It's an asteroid, actually, with a medical center."

"Polis Massa?" Rey frowned. "Is it close?"

"A parsec or two away." Finn rifled through some more stats. "It comes highly recommended."

"Going there might be his only chance," Poe spoke up, though his voice seemed to struggle, as if it pained him to do so. "He'll die if he stays here."

Rey and Ben looked at each other fretfully. For the first time since she had known him, since she had fallen in love with him, Ben appeared truly scared. "Come with me?"

Rey glanced back to the Resistance, then returned her eyes to him, her heart splitting in two. Pressing his hand to her cheek, she regarded him forlornly. "I'm needed here."

Ben's gaze shifted into hardened resolve, as if he had accepted a heavy consequence. "Then... I'll stay with you!" He started to get up, but Rey's gentle palm pressed him back into the earth.

"No," she cried. "You have to go!"

"But I can't leave you..."

"Ssssshhh..." Rey pressed a finger to his lips to calm him. "You never will. No matter what happens, I'll always be with you... forever."

And dipping her head, she kissed him - a long, slow, passionate kiss. Rey opened her mouth to him, and he to hers. Her tongue slipped in between the split to caress his, even as her palm cradled and stroked his cheek. Her eyes fluttered shut and she deepened the kiss; it was as if she was trying to pass her very breath, her very soul, into his body, if that would keep him alive just a little longer.

At long last, the couple broke apart tenderly. Rey could feel the abject astonishment from her friends behind her, but she didn't care; let them think what they would! Rey laced her fingers through Ben's and guided them together so that they rested on her abdomen. Bending her face quite close to nuzzle his nose, she then whispered in his ear:

"That night... when we touched hands... you and the Force filled my womb. A child of your bloodline grows in my belly. He will be great, like his father. But you have to live to see him." The tears shook her voice. "Ben, you're going to live."

Ben could not help but smile, even through his amazement, at Rey's pronouncement. And also he smiled at the fierceness in her voice. "Yes, Rey: forbid me now to die. I'll obey..." He winced as he took in a particularly arduous breath. "I will try."

"Do or do not. There is no try," Rey coached him, remembering the old lesson that Luke Skywalker, and Yoda before him, had taught her oh so long ago.

A medical unit was scrambled together, and the former Supreme Leader was lifted onto it. Letting go of his hand was the hardest thing that Rey ever had to do. Ben was hustled onto a freighter, and with a roar of the thrusters, it was blasting off into the sky, headed for Polis Massa. Rey waved it on with a plaintive raise of her hand in farewell.

I love you, Ben.