A/N: thank you, thank you, thank you my friends Sarah ( bergersteen on twitter) and Nicki ( notnicorette on twitter) for your help :)
Finn had suspected something was wrong when he found a disheveled Rey hiding in some dark and deserted hallway of their base.
But when Rey lied about being alright, he was sure.
Now he stared between General and Jedi inside the unused meeting room nearest the hangar. Cold drops of sweat beaded on his forehead at the way Leia stared at his friend, as if she had swallowed a particularly rotten cup of juice. As if she fully grasped what had happened and it wasn't good.
"What's going on? Is Rey okay?"
Finn whirled around at the deep voice and saw Poe standing at the doorway, his hands holding the transparisteel door open. Rose stood behind him with furrowed eyebrows.
Leia still studied Rey, her lips pressed in a thin line. Rey, on the other hand, struggled to keep eye contact. Several times she held it and opened her mouth to speak, but then always decided against it and watched her feet.
The older woman waved for the two newcomers to come in.
Hard as this conversation would be for the girl, Leia was certain that inside the room were the people Rey trusted the most, and the people that would demand answers after that disastrous meeting.
Better to just explain things once.
"Shut the door," she ordered.
Rose did as asked, then she and Poe walked towards the tense trio.
"Rey, what were you doing?" the older women asked, carefully controlled.
The scavenger's cheeks burned as she gazed at the General.
Leia wouldn't budge. "I know you. And I know what you're not," she added before lowering her voice, "But you must understand that can be considered an act of treason."
Rey's stomach dropped at the same time the others took sharp intakes of breath.
"I can't control it," she croaked, her eyes watering sooner than she expected. She shook her head and grimaced against her emotional state. "I didn't choose this. The moment I realized what was happening, I left the meeting. That's why I left, I don't know what you saw-"
"Saw?" Leia interrupted with a blank look.
"Hello? Can someone explain what is happening?" Finn asked waving his hands in the air.
Rey turned to him, "I-"
"What do you mean saw?" Leia asked. "Did you see him?"
Rey looked at her, "I-"
"Him who?!" It was Poe's time to explode as he looked back and forth between them.
"Ben." Leia answered, glancing at the others before returning to the main topic.
The pilot's shoulders slumped before he looked at Rose. "Who the kriff is Ben?"
The technician shrugged and shook her head, but Finn looked at the ground muttering the name "Ben" over and over as if it would trigger a memory buried deep.
"Ben." He raised his head and stared at the two women. "Ben Solo?" His tone rose. "As in Kylo Ren?!" His nostrils flared, and Rey closed her eyes.
"You're seeing Kylo Ren? You were talking-"
Poe held his hands in front of himself. "Wait. Wait, a minute -"
"Can you all just shut up for a moment?" Leia spat.
They all complied reluctantly as she turned to Rey. The General's eyes were glassy as she transformed from the austere Resistance leader into the grieving mother she hid inside.
"I felt him. When you spoke in the conference room, I could feel him. And when we found you, it was as if he was right there beside me. I haven't sensed him that close in years." Leia paused, taking a breath. "But I did not see him, and I need you to explain what is going on."
Rey stared at her pleading eyes, then back at the hurt and confused expressions on her friends' faces. She sighed before pressing a palm to her forehead.
Nothing would be the same after this.
"We have a…bond. The Force connects us at random times, random places. I can talk to him and he, to me when it happens." She bit her bottom lip. "But we can't see much of our surroundings, just each other," she reassured them.
Rey wished she hadn't thought this through so extensively. That she hadn't reasoned with herself that she and Ben only caught glimpses of a few inconsequential objects through their connection, that it wasn't dangerous. If it was anyone else, they wouldn't think twice about it, they'd sever the connection without searching for technicalities. There was no need to play with fire, to wait until their Bond revealed too much and they were forced to close it.
And even then…
To admit the inadmissible, maybe even then she wouldn't close it. Maybe she'd rather leave, maybe she'd rather help from somewhere far away than live with the silence where his voice was supposed to be.
But this wasn't the right time to contemplate that, and since she doubted there would ever be such a time, she procrastinated and procrastinated until she didn't acknowledge it at all.
She gulped. "I never told him anything about the Resistance, and I never intend to."
At least that much would always, always be true.
"And you can see him?" Leia asked again.
In all her years, even with her limited knowledge of the Force, Leia learned that it took a great connection and energy to communicate a few words through thoughts. Yet here her son and this young girl were, manifesting physically to each other without even trying.
Rey nodded, and Leia's eyebrows shot up to her hairline.
Rose, who had been silent during the exchange, asked in a low voice: "How?"
"Snoke. He's the one that did this…he bridged our minds. He believed he could use our weaknesses in his favor, that it would bring me to him."
She didn't know how to tell them that he was right, how to explain why her weaknesses would bring her straight to Snoke, to Ben. And she silently begged they wouldn't ask.
"But it didn't work." Poe beamed as if guessing the end of the story. He slapped the table in the middle of them. "Holdo killed him, and you came back to us."
The Jedi's breath hitched. That was a lie she couldn't keep up anymore, even by omission. She pressed the heel of her palm above her brow. "That was-" Ben, Kylo, she didn't want to use either. Taking a deep breath, she gripped the back of the chair in front of her and stared at her knuckles as they whitened. "That wasn't Holdo."
Finn raised his stare from the floor to her and Leia creased her forehead as Rose and Poe chorused a "What?"
Snoke was right. The phrase was there, ready to leave her lips.
"I went to the Supremacy. I went to meet him," Rey revealed with a catch in her tone. "I went to meet Ben. I thought I could turn him, that he could help bring the First Order down when Luke refused." She stared at the former princess, maybe the only one who would understand that hope. "He brought me to Snoke, as Snoke predicted. And he ordered Ben to kill me but-" she shook her head, the memory an ocean of red and fire. "He killed Snoke instead."
The background noise of drills, wrenches and hammers echoed around the white room as Rey's pulse thundered against her ears
"We fought the praetorian guard together, and we won." With eyes burning against her will, a tear finally spilled down her cheek. Apparently, she was still as weak as the day she believed she could turn Kylo Ren. "But he didn't want to come home, he just wanted to watch it all burn." She took a shaky breath and looked ahead, at anywhere but at them. "So, I escaped to the Falcon, and I met you on Crait. I have been working to take down the First Order ever since."
"So how does it work now?" Poe crossed his arms in front of his chest. "He shows up to you in that big mask with the red lightsaber, demanding you tell him-"
"He doesn't wear the mask anymore," she replied out of reflex. "Hasn't worn it in years," Rey trailed off, realizing too late that wasn't even the point of the question.
Finn laughed, drawing all attention to him. "Years," he muttered with bitterness. And for the first time in their relationship, Finn glared at Rey. "What I'm taking from this is that you have been lying for years, Rey." He stepped closer and pointed his index finger at her. "You're my oldest friend and you've been keeping this huge secret." He grimaced. "All this time we've been trying to take out the Supreme Leader, and you have been talking to him-"
"It's not-"
He shook his head and leaned away. "- And we know nothing about it, like how many times does it happen?" He placed his hands on his hips and tapped his foot on the floor. "Is it a monthly thing, or a daily thing, huh? Are you pretending every day or just every month?"
Rey tried to speak, but he continued, "Is he trying to convince you to go to their side?"
"Whether he is or he isn't, it's not going to work," Rey snapped.
Finn froze and Rey flinched, realizing that was as good as an admission that, yes, Kylo tried to recruit her. And she constantly let him, just as much as he let her do the same.
The former stormtrooper shook his head again, looking at her as if she was a stranger.
"Finn," Rose said, reaching for his hand. But he turned around and left the room instead.
The scavenger watched her oldest friend's retreating figure get smaller and smaller, walking among the workers, the ships and the smoke. He didn't turn back once, and she barely registered Rose whispering that she was going after him.
And then there were three.
Poe looked at her incredulously, all wide eyed and with his eyebrows scrunched, and Rey couldn't decide what he felt. Maybe he couldn't decide either.
And Leia…Leia was a storm. Her feelings expanded in the force, in waves of darkness and light, strife and hope.
"Well," Ben Solo's mother said as she clasped her hands together. "We'll continue this conversation later. I need to brief the council on our plans for the moment, we have kept them waiting for too long." She frowned before turning to Rey, "I hope you understand, but you'll sit this one out, dear."
A/N: aa-haaa don't kill meee
A few comments: I know Finn is harsher than we are used to (there's a reason for that, which will be explored. No, it's not because he's jealous, relax). And I know Poe is calmer than in many stories - but personally after TLJ I understood that Poe went through his brash leader arc and learned how to deal with things more calmly now. To me, on episode IX we can either get a more angry/reactive Poe, or we can get a more balanced one - I chose the second for this fic, because it was what I wanted and needed.
About Leia, I know many of you are excited about that…. More to come, of course. Be patient, padawans.
