Hello and welcome to my latest contribution to the trash compactor of a ship that is reylo. This fic is a sequel to 'Don't say a prayer for me now save it til the morning after' which details how Rey brought Ben back to the light. Hopefully this fic will be entertaining in it's own right, it's a lot less angsty, includes more characters and all in all takes on a different tone to my last reylo fic. It's also not quite so polished, I'm sorry I just really couldn't stand to keep doing rewrites again and again, so please take it as it is and I hope you'll enjoy it all the same. It begins the day after the last chapter of 'Don't say a prayer for me now save it til the morning after'. Comments are appreciated as always. Thank you xx
"General this is very difficult to explain, I promise you, it'll be much easier if you just join me." Rey spoke through tight lips, feeling too many mixed emotions involving conflict, betrayal, embarrassment, the list went on.
"Rey I have every care and sympathy for you always but please understand I can't simply drop everything at the base and run to you because you ask me to, especially when you can't even tell me why." Leia's voice crackled through the communicator laid upon the table before Rey.
Her face turned worried as she looked over at her companion sitting across from her, she shook her face ever so slightly, she couldn't do this.
With a sigh Ben picked up the communicator from the table a spoke into it. "Mother." He hung up.
Rey wanted to burst out laughing if it weren't for the seriousness of the situation. "She's coming." was all she could say.
Ben nodded and sighed again. They both knew General Leia would be with them as soon as it was physically possible for her to do so, but no matter how fast she got there they still had a long wait ahead of them.
Rey stood up from the table. "Do you need anything?" She asked Ben as she passed him.
He shook his head.
"I'm going to meditate."
He nodded.
She went up onto the rooftop. In just over ten minutes Ben joined her, finding her standing on one foot with her arms stretched upward, he seen her do this before went they'd had long enough time together. She didn't greet him, she didn't stir, he didn't expect any less from her. Ben sat down near her, asking her to let him it, she obliged, letting him feel the newfound light she'd given him.
They were on Corellia. Rey could often find peace here, away from the city but on a civilised planet so that others could find her if she was needed, she'd had that conversation with Master Luke and General Leia many times after running off to some uninhabited part of the galaxy, claiming to seek the force, usually to meet Kylo. Up in the mountains and forest, they were in the old family home of a pilot who donated it to the resistance as a safe house.
"She'll be here soon." Rey said quietly, standing back on two feet. She retreated inside, Ben silently followed her, they'd learned long ago when speaking was and wasn't necessary between them.
Before long they heard the growl of a ships engine landing. Ben couldn't decide if he'd rather have the ability to speed up time or slow it. Eventually, after what seemed like a millennia in his mind, there came a knock at the door, Rey went to answer it.
Leia stood at the front door in her resistance uniform, breathless, her jaw set.
"General..." Rey stuttered, all this time waiting, all this preparation and now she found her mind empty. "…I"
"Where is he?" Leia cut in, her voice sounding soft and harsh at the same time.
Rey blinked, still trying to acknowledge that this was actually happening, then she nodded. "Follow me."
In Leia's mind two images came to her when she thought of her son, the first of a young child with a dark mess of hair and dark eyes and a face smiling up at her, the second image was of a tall masked figure cloaked in darkness. When she entered the room she found herself facing a man that embodied both. He wasn't a child anymore, there was resemblance to the child she'd known but he was a man now, and yet the creature that Kylo Ren had been wasn't there either, this man was her son.
"Ben?"
"Hello mother."
Leia practically melted, Luke vanishing, Han leaving her and then dying, all that she'd handled, she hung her head high and stood tall and forced herself through it, but not this, not Ben.
Rey felt herself intruding and crossed the room, stopping briefly as she passed Ben. She looked up at him, enclosed her fingers in his and squeezed.
"Thank you." He whispered under his breath.
The corners of her mouth twisted into a smile, she nodded and exited the room.
As mother and son talked Rey sat in the kitchen staring at the surface of the table and contemplating whether or not to have herbal tea or warm milk, everything seemed so surreal, all the harshness she'd faced in her young life and now she couldn't decide whether or not to have a drink. She was interrupted when the door finally opened, Rey looked up expecting to see Ben she instead found herself facing General Leia. Rey caught a glimpse of Ben, his head turned away, before Leia closed the door. The General stood tall and fierce as always before Rey but there were the remains of tears in her eyes.
"He told me everything." Leia began.
"General…"
"He loves you."
Rey gulped. "I know. I love him."
Leia nodded slowly, understandingly and somewhat sadly as she sat down across from Rey. "You know him. I feel terrible right now. All those years without him, I barely know the man in that room, my own son, but he knows everything there is to you, and I can only assume you likewise."
"If it's worth saying general, I feel terrible also." Rey admitted.
"Why?"
"I lied. I lied to you, and Master Luke, to the whole resistance in fact, basically I betrayed everything that I'm supposed to stand for in favour of one man." She felt bitter and pathetic saying it, she always let herself believe that as a jedi she was better, but she knew it wasn't true.
"One man who you saw hope in." Leia said. "And you succeeded at all costs. You brought him back to the light. Rey, I'm not saying you haven't done wrong, you betrayed the resistance and disobeyed you training, but you saved my son, so to me you are forgiven."
"And Ben?"
Leia sighed. "I don't know yet. This isn't over."
Rey straightened. "No, you're right. The first order are still out there. And Snoke, Ben told me, Snoke has to be stopped, and we're going to do it together."