Rey awoke in her berth on the Falcon, Ben scowling down at her. You need a teacher.

Rey opened and closed her mouth, swallowing to moisten her dry throat. She blinked sleepily, and when she reached out for his face, Ben took her hand in his and pressed her fingers to his lips. I thought I learned a lot on Eurillis.

Maybe, but you were so drained with the effort that you fell off the top of the barricade.

Rey sat up, alarmed. What?

The youngling with hair like fire, Tuuva, saw you fall, and she caught you with only inches to spare.

How did I get here?

Ben glanced into the corner of her quarters, and when Rey followed his glance, she saw Rose curled into a deep chair, one leg dangling over the arm, the shoulder of her shirt damp beneath where her full lips were parted in a quiet snore. When you went back to the encampment with the Sisters, she insisted on leaving the safety of the Falcon and following you. She waited in the dark below the barricade, and was the first to reach you when you fell. Ben continued dryly, I think perhaps she has decided not to kill you after all.

Rey smiled. I'm grateful. She loves easily, but feels betrayal deeply. I hope she can find a way to forgive who I am, Rey glanced back at Ben, who we are, together. Have you ever seen the Force used that way?

Ben released her hand with a squeeze, and leaned back. With many minds linked as one to channel the Force? Never.

Rey looked askance, picking up a circuit board she had been rewiring in the hopes of salvaging the Skywalker saber. What do you think would happen if we tried it?

Ben's brows drew down and he frowned. We're not going to try it. With the amount of raw power that we could summon between the two of us? It could kill you; it could kill both of us. Rose groaned softly in her sleep, and Ben looked up as she stirred. You should rest. Let's try this again in a few days on Vorthos.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Though the circumstances in each system varied wildly, over and over again they found that in the decades since the First Order had abandoned regular oversight over its troops in their outposts, the storm troopers' loyalty had reverted to the people they were charged to subdue. It would take months, or perhaps years, before the Rebellion would be able to urge these people into full, open revolt, if ever, but in the mean time, the handful of Alliance survivors were safe. In return for menial concessions on his part, Ben was able to find ways that would significantly increase industry and production that would make it look as though he had actually tightened the First Order's grip on the systems and cemented their compliance. Hux would be unable to complain.

For their part, the Rebel Alliance was forced to accept Rey's negotiations with the Supreme Leader, even if they didn't understand their nature. Finn, however, treated her with increasingly sullen resentment and mistrust, and Rose continued watching Rey like a hawk. Oddly, as more systems were found to be receptive to Rebel alliance, General Organa became more distant from Rey, throwing herself into the minutia of maintaining the balance between the new factions that they were rapidly allying themselves with. Rey was hurt and confused, assuming that as the negotiations were more successful, her closest friends would have found themselves more and more at ease with her link and alliance with Ben. Rather than feeling closer to them, she was finding herself more and more estranged. At the end of each day, she was beginning to dread her return to the Millennium Falcon.

Rey squished up the ramp of the Falcon, wringing water from her clothes. The rain on Tallus Sept was a constant phenomenon, and the native population accepted it without question, not even donning a coat when heading out into the deluge. To better fit in, Rey had abandoned wearing one too, but her skin was becoming raw from the constant chafing of sopping clothes.

Finn glanced up irritably from the makeshift comms console Rose had rigged up on one side of the cargo bay. He had returned hours ago from the garrison, and the coat of his First Order officer's uniform steamed over an exhaust conduit that ran behind the console. "You could at least let us know if you are going to be negotiating with Ren all night. We've been waiting for you to return for hours." He leaned over and flicked a switch. "She's back finally. Lock 'er up."

Rey struggled with the bands that bound her hair back, trying to rip them out of her sodden hair so she could squeeze out the water. Glancing up at Finn, she answered, "The ortuu hunters demanded an audience with Ben this afternoon. They want to expand their fishing territories, and I've been trying to convey to them for hours that if they go any further south, they are going to trigger the mines the First Order dropped into the ocean when they first conquered Tallus Sept. Didn't you get my communiqué?"

Finn shrugged noncommittally. "It came through."

Rey struggled out of her water logged boots and threw them irritably aside. As she strode across the cargo bay, Finn leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed as he watched her come, his lips pursed and pushed out belligerently as though he had been waiting for her to come back just to have this argument.

"Why are you so angry? I thought this is what you wanted? I thought you wanted to rebuild the Rebellion and create peace in the galaxy!"

"I do! I just didn't think it would mean that I'd have to spend my days back under Kylo Ren's heel in a damned black uniform again!"

Rey looked down at Finn guiltily. "I know it's hard, but you have to know that you're the key to making all of this work. We can't do this without you. No one else knows what you do about the First Order. No one else will be able to gain the trust of the local garrison commanders like you can. No one else knows their protocols or etiquette or can even properly button up their ridiculous uniforms properly. Without you to coordinate the local garrisons, this whole plan would fall apart."

Rey could feel that Finn grudgingly appreciated her appraisal of his importance to the rebirth of the Rebellion. "I don't object to coordinating the garrisons." Finn jabbed a finger in the vague direction of where Ben's shuttle had landed. "I object to him."

Rey squeezed one of Finn's tense shoulders through his still damp shirt. "I know, but there's nothing I can do about it. We are bound together through the Force. You have to see that Ben's doing everything we've asked of him."

Finn looked up at Rey and clasped her hand in his. "For now. While it suits him. What it looks like to me is that he is tearing you slowly away from us. When we are on the ground, you spend every minute with him. When you're here, you spend most of your time like this," Finn tipped his head to the side and rolled his eyes back expressively, mouth agape, "listening to whatever he's whispering in your ear."

Rey's brows drew down, and she frowned. "I didn't ask for this, and either did he."

Finn looked away in thinly veiled disgust. "Maybe not, but he's making the most of it." He reached out and tapped one of the console displays, cycling through the encoded dispatches that poured in around the clock from the various garrisons. He glanced back at Rey cynically. "He's not Hux, but what we're doing here, it's hard to tell if we are destabilizing the First Order or just solidifying the power of the Supreme Leader."

"I thought what the Rebellion wanted was peace and order. We're trying to create that here, one system at a time."

Finn glared at Rey. "The Rebels want to live free. These people aren't free; they are just as securely shackled by the First Order as ever, only now they feel a little bit better about it. Just whose side are you on?"

"I'm on the side of peace and freedom and balance! We can't just jump into a fighter and blast our way through this problem. It's going to take time and a lot of talking to rebuild what was broken."

Finn stood and snatched the First Order officer's uniform off of the exhaust conduit. "That may be, but we're supposed to building a Rebellion to crush the First Order. You'd best be careful that you're not building up Kylo Ren's empire instead. Good night."

"Wh—uh! Finn, wait!"

Let him go.

"This is exactly what he's complaining about!"

Ben's silence was deafening, and he retreated behind a barrier in his mind. Ben!