Ben jolted into conciousness, clawing at his chest and screaming. His clawing hands struck flesh that wasn't his own. He looked down at his chest and recoiled in horror. Rey was lying next to him, drenched in blood. Her blood covered hand rested limply on his chest. He reached out to her mind but all he found within was an empty black abyss.

"Rey!" He wailed and frantically gathered her limp body into his lap. "No! No! No! No! No!" He keened and began to rock back and forth unconciously. "Please, no! No!" He sobbed. "Wake up! Please, baby, wake up!" The power of speech failed him until the only sounds he could utter were heart-breakingly pathetic whimpers.

'Rey!' He bellowed into the pitch-dark void of her mind. 'Wake up!'

Captain Glissando didn't need the Force to feel the younger man's pain. Overcome, he dropped to his knee and squeezed Ben's shoulder firmly. "You were dead, son." Glissando said gently. "Had a hole clean through you. She brought you back." He tapped his temple, "Take a look."

Ben plunged into the weeping man's mind and found the memory in the space of a single heartbeat. Glissando's eyes were fixed on the gruesome crater where his heart belonged. He could hear the hiss of the opening door and his eyes jerked toward it.

Through the Captain's eyes he watched as Rey skidded to a halt just inside the door. Shock spasmed through Ben at the sight of her. She was covered in blood, yes, but that wasn't what shocked him... Her entire body was ablaze with pale white-blue light, red tendrils writhed along her skin. Her eyes were twin pools of bright blue shot through with tiny red crackles of raw energy. Those terrifying eyes landed on Ben's body and she shrieked so loudly that the sound sent the stunned man flying through the air for a few skittering heartbeats. When he landed he looked up he saw her on her knees beside the ruined body.

Ben watched through Glissando's eyes as she collapsed onto his chest, crying out his name, begging him to come back. "Ben!" She cried. "Come back to me! You promised you would! You promised me! You promise! Ben! Come back! Come back for me! You promised! Come back!" Her pathetic sobs had jerked hot tears straight from Glissando's heart. "Don't leave me here alone!" She begged, covering the wound with her hands unable to bear the sight of it anymore. "Come back! Come back! Come back!" Her voice faultered until only the sound of her devastated sobs remained.

He could feel the awed amazement that had stunned Glissando when, through the older man's eyes, he watched his corpse begin to glow, feintly at first but brighter and brighter as the light faded from her. When the only thing still glowing about her was her hands, she collapsed sideways trapping one hand beneath her chest and leaving the other still holding his heart.

As he watched the last of the light fade from her hand it also began to fade rapidly from his body. When it was gone he saw himself arch backwards, screaming and clawing at her hand.

He snapped back into his own mind.

'Rey!' He screamed into the darkness, 'Come back!'

A faint echo of his voice came drifting back to him from far off. His heart lept and hope flickered to life inside him. 'Rey!' He screamed again, and the echo came back louder than before. 'Please! Come back!' He begged. 'Come back to me, Rey! I came back to you, sweetheart! Come back to me!" He pleaded.

"Come back!" He bellowed. "Come back to me, baby! Come back! Don't you leave me! Come back!"

His entire body began to quake as a surge of power stronger than anything he'd ever felt before pulsed through him. It built to a level far beyond anything he could have ever dreamed of. It burned so hot that he felt as if his skin had ignited. He threw his head back and screamed her name as his skin burst alive with pulsing white-blue light. Threads of scarlet energy began to form across his skin.

He was so deeply embedded into her mind that he felt the instant that the spark of life was ignited within her. 'Ben?' Her voice called back to him.

"Rey!" He gasped, jerking her away from his chest so that he could look at her.

"Ben!" She rasped, looking up at him with a dazed smile. "I thought I'd lost you!"

He couldn't speak, he couldn't think, he could only feel. Hope surged through him as the pain receeded into the background of his shattered soul.

He could feel that she could feel everything he was feeling. Pure, unadulterated joy began passing between them, growing stronger and stronger as it was reflected between them like an object caught between two mirrors. Neither of them even tried to resist it, they gave themselves over to it fully.

Captain Glissando threw his hand up to shield his eyes and took several steps backwards as both Jedi disappeared into the glare of a pulsing, blindingly bright, white light.

Their bodies and minds were intertwined as their souls fused back together. The sheer joy of their reunion was more powerful than even the pain of their parting had been. For several minutes nothing existed for them but each other and the joyful bliss of their mending connection.

As the last bits fused together the light faded away.

A not so discrete cough from Captain Glissando startled them both so much that they flinched apart looking towards him in perfect unison. He made a look there motion with his eyes and a quick jerk of his head.

Without even needing to look it registered in their shared conciousness that they were holding each other in a thoroughly private kind of way. Both faces turned bright red and they scrambled to disentagle themselves from each other, exuding embarrassment from every cell in their bodies.

"My apologies." They blurted out simultaniously as they gained their feet.

"Perfectly understandable." Captain Glissando said, dazed by the events of the past several minutes.

All around the room people's shock blossomed into awe which soon became awe-inspired reverence.

"You…" Ben rasped then cleared his throat. "You have the bridge, Captain."

They rushed to his quarters but when the door opened Ben jerked to a halt. "What the Force?" He half shouted and flinched back half a step.

"There are some clothes on the Falcon that should fit you." She said, looking at the carnage within their quarters with stunned disbelief. 'We can go somewhere beautiful and safe where we can be alone until the conference.'

He reached out and caught his light saber as it lept into his hand the moment he was ready for it. He clipped it to his belt and reached out for his datapad.

"Please tell me it still has the wet bar." He said dazed by the state of the room.

"It still has a refresher." She said, sorry to disappoint him.

"That will have to do." He said absorbing, from her mind, the details of how the room had gotten into such a state.