Day 4, continued

"No…" she saw him fall. "Ben!"

Leia was next to Rey, she had gasped.

The fighters still hung in the air…the cruisers had not moved since Ben had made the order.

But it was as though the moment was frozen as she watched him run his light saber through General Hux.

She ran to him…blood pooling beneath him.

"No…no…" she looked around. "Help! Help me…!"

Leia was there now. And many of the lieutenants were there, looking on. One had brought a stretcher for the injured man. Leia knelt down and felt his pulse. "He's still alive," she stood. "We need to move him to the carrier."

"How?" asked Rey.

Leia smiled. "We will lift him." She looked at Rey very deliberately. "Come, child…" and Leia raised her hands, summoning the Force.

Rey had never seen Leia work with the Force before…but she was effortless in her execution.

She helped her lift him onto the stretcher, and they began to walk back to the carrier.

"Where are you taking him?" a lieutenant was behind her.

"To the carrier," Rey said.

"You cannot. He is our Leader, and we must take care of the body…"

"He's not dead!" she screamed.

"Then we will tend to his wounds."

Rey sighed. "Follow us," she said. "You can make sure that we are doing right by him," she was nervous…the longer they dallied, the more danger he was in.

They walked along, bringing Ben with them…

And when they reached the carrier, he seemed even more pale.

"Are you serious?" Finn was standing at the top of the ramp.

"He's my son, Finn," breathed Leia. "Prepare the Bacta Tank…" she called to one of the pilots next to him.

Rey followed Leia to the tank in the lower chamber…and the healers readied it for Ben's submersion. She watched as they lowered him after a few minutes. "Where will he go next?" she asked.

"Recovery. There are special pods in the ship just there…" Leia jerked her head indicating another place. "Now. Let's go. We have much to discuss…"

Rey swallowed, but followed her. She knew that everyone there would be angry with her. And she didn't know how long this cease fire would last.

They entered the command center, and she looked around. She smiled weakly. "We will need to speak with the First Order, and all of those others…"

"From Nal Hutta," supplied Poe. "We seem to know more than you, and you've been here…how long?"

"It's been…" she thought. "Four days."

"Four days," repeated Finn, who just emerged. "Not terribly long for you to turn to the Dark Side."

Rey looked at him. "I haven't…Finn…you know me better than that."

"I don't know you at all."

This hurt her, and her eyes stung. "Well, I haven't done anything like that. But I have seen things…I understand things differently now."

"Hm. Like…maybe the dark isn't so bad?"

"No. Like maybe it isn't so clear. Maybe we all have a bit of dark and a bit of light…and sometimes you have a little bit more than the other…but you can choose how you live and what you do, and even if there is more dark than light, you can choose the light that's inside of you."

Finn stared at her. "And Kylo Ren has the light inside of him?"

"His name is Ben," she replied.

"He killed Han Solo! He tried to kill Luke Skywalker! Rey! What's wrong with you?…Little children…" he gesticulated. "Everyone in the Jedi Temple…"

Rey swallowed, looking down. "People change."

"No. Only our reactions to people change, Rey," and he shook his head. "I need to be done with you. For my own good," and he left the room.

She watched him leave, and felt terribly alone.

"He's been worried about you."

Rey looked, and Poe was there. "I know."

"He's feeling conflicted, and he's lashing out."

She nodded. "What's he feeling conflicted about?"

"Lots of things, I guess. Rose. You," he paused, looking down. "Me."

"You?"

"It's not important."

"Is…is Rose awake?"

He nodded.

Rey shifted. "Well. I'm glad."

"What have you been doing, anyway? You were there, and then you were gone. Just like that. And no one knew…Leia wasn't saying much…"

"I've been…busy. And searching for answers. And…trying to figure things out."

"Well, we've been looking for the First Order."

She smiled. "I know," she paused. "How did you find them?"

"Tip off. Someone from the Outer Rim …"

"Nal Hutta?"

Poe shrugged. "I'm not sure."

Rey nodded. She had heard Ben talking about the place with some of his generals. He had been betrayed.

…and just then, the radio rang out.

This is a message from the armies of Nal Hutta. We understand that the Supreme Leader of the First Order to be on your ship. We demand that you release him to our representatives, or we will commence an assault on you and your forces. They will be at your door in half and hour.

It went dead.

She looked at Poe, and Leia entered the command center. "I'm assuming you all heard that."

"What do we do?" asked Rey.

"What do you mean?" began Poe. "We turn him over!"

"Careful, flyboy. That's my son you're talking about."

"He's the Supreme Leader of the First Order, General. With all due respect, we must act. There is a truce to be had here, and the First Order is nearly finished…."

"If you think," Leia began. "That simply handing over Ben will stop the First Order from destroying us? We are sitting ducks here. We need to leave."

"They'll follow us. We can't hide from the First Order and Nal Hutta forever…" Poe sounded quite certain.

"Well, maybe we should worry about that later."

"You can't just do that. We can't put this off…"

Rey cleared her throat. "We are in the middle of a parley."

They looked at her.

"I mean…maybe we should stay and see what they want. Maybe we can negotiate a truce…wouldn't that be better? Like, long term?"

"You trust the First Order and Nal Hutta?" Leia was incredulous.

"Well…trust might be reaching a bit. But I think it's worth seeing what they want."

"I can tell you," began Poe. "They want our ships. Our weapons. They want us to surrender. They want us to die, so that their path to domination is cleared."

"That's what Snoke wanted," Rey protested. "Things are different now."

"Why? Because of Kylo Ren?"

"Well, yes."

"He's in the Bacta Tank barely alive; and even if what you say is true…even if he wasn't looking for intergalactic domination, his generals clearly are."

Rey tried to overlook the 'barely alive' comment, and she swallowed to steady herself. "Let's buy some time, then. Wait to see what happens with Ben. If he's better tomorrow, maybe he could talk to the First Order. Remind them who is in charge…"

"He's here with us, Rey," Leia gently reminded her. "With the enemy…that won't be looked kindly on."

"Ben said that there were representatives coming from the Resistance and that he was negotiating. Maybe he could just claim that as …."

"They don't know who he is?" Leia sounded surprised. "They don't know his true identity?"

"I don't know. Did the Empire know Darth Vader's?"

"It wasn't wildly known, no…" Poe said. He shrugged after Rey and Leia looked at him crookedly. "I paid attention to those stories."

"No one calls him Ben but me. Maybe they don't know…" Rey sounded excited a bit.

Leia seemed to be weighing her options. "He's unconscious, and it's unclear when he will be well enough to wake…let alone talk…tomorrow might be too optimistic."

"Then we need to buy some time," Rey said.

"How?" Poe responded in a huff. "How the hell are we going to do that?"

"They said that they were sending representatives…" Leia began.

Poe and Rey nodded, and they both moved closer to her.

"We could meet them at the mine instead of our ship here, and discuss the things that the First Order was doing here on Crait. Maybe we could see just where they were going with things. And that might entice Nal Hutta enough to wait a bit longer…"

"I'll go," Rey said.

"You should probably not," replied Leia. "They know you."

"All the more reason to."

"Poe will go with Finn," Leia ignored her. "They will assess the situation and Nal Hutta's willingness to negotiate. In the event that they are willing and able, you and I will accompany them on the next trip, probably tomorrow."

Rey nodded, understanding that she had been silenced. She played with the hem of her coat, only just realizing that she still had it on. "I'll go then, and wait to be summoned when they return," she nodded to both Leia and Poe, anxious to leave before Finn arrived.

She felt how impossibly huge this was. It could mean the end of the First Order and some semblance of peace in the galaxy. It could mean that Ben's vision was good and true…even attainable.

She swallowed, thinking of Ben.

She thought that she should see how he was, even if he was unconscious.

Rey went into the bowels of the ship and through a vacuum sealed door. It popped when it opened for her.

There were a few healers in the room, and Ben…standing in the Bacta Tank, submerged and floating, a device around his head to help him breathe, and the wound from the laser, on his lower left side. It had burned a hole clean through him…

But it was looking a bit better, she thought.

He had killed Hux. Killed him, as he advanced on her and Leia. She stepped toward the tank, her eyes on him.

The healers stepped aside. "You know this man?" one of them asked.

She nodded, eyes still on Ben.

"Who is he? We don't recognize him."

She looked at the healer now. "His name is Ben."

"Is he a soldier for the cause?"

"No," Rey said, looking back at him. "He's my friend."

She had pulled a chair up to the tank so that he wasn't alone. The healer had all said that he would need another few hours in there before moving to the healing pods. And once there, he'd be in much better shape. A few hours…probably a night's rest, and he'd be ready to get up.

He was strong, they said. He'd be fine. He just needed to get through his time in the Bacta Tank, which was always the most tricky part of healing.

"Ben," she said, knowing that he couldn't hear her. "I'm sorry that you're hurt. It was awful…seeing you fall," she swallowed. Then she looked up at him. "I've been thinking about hope. Our last topic, if you recall. And I've decided that hope is even more elusive than I believed. It's not so much that hope is naïveté. It's more like it's necessary to keep you from going insane. Hope that everything will be all right is what keeps people from going insane. Or killing someone," she paused. "Or killing yourself," she added softly. "And I know desperation now. I know what it feels like in a way I've never before. I don't want you to die, Ben. And I never realized that I could want something so badly as this…" she stood and went to the tank. "Please get better," she whispered, touching the glass softly.

They scared her slightly, these realizations. She walked back to her chair and slumped in it, rubbing her face.

"I'm waiting for Poe and Finn to return from the mine so that they can tell us if Leia and I are able to travel there safely. If you were here…they'd listen to you."

And the silence pressed against her ears in response.