A/N: Hi everybody! *smiles*
Hope you all are doing well! Thanks to all you folks out there who have followed, favorited, and reviewed- you continue to inspire me every day to keep writing. Thank you so much!:) This chapter is a bit longer and hopefully (a few) mysteries will be unveiled for you. I hope you all enjoy it!
Hartmannclan: Thank you so much for your kind words over the last couple of weeks, they've brought a smile to my face every time. I'm sorry about chapter 18 though...
UniKatFox: Thanks again for the heads up about chapter 3- tech's great except when it doesn't work, am I right?
ELClemons: Like father, like son, what can I say?;)
"Rey."
She looked up to see Ben standing next to her. Behind him stood his knights: Mela and Decha with the two men she hadn't met. Behind those stood the children, peering around the doorway with concern painted across their features. Rey held out her hand and slowly uncurled her fingers to show Ben the crystals glittering in her palm.
"I've chosen."
He hardly glanced at them. Instead, he reached out and clasped her shoulders with cold fingers. A shrill note of terror spiked through her at the way his grip dug into her skin. She could hear his fear and an anger he kept back beneath it. She couldn't tell if it was for her or Snoke or both.
"Rey-"
His thoughts flew through his mind, too fast for her to catch in their entirety, but it was the memory of his conversation with his knights that was close in both of their thoughts. She knew what he was about to ask her.
"Tell me what I have to do," she cut him off before he could finish. "I know we brought danger here with us. Tell me how to fix it."
"Mela will teach you this time," Ben said. "She's studied certain aspects of the Force to a depth the rest of us haven't."
Rey nodded as Mela stepped forward with a grave face.
"What do I need to do?" Rey asked, glancing toward the children at the door, the unanswered questions screaming in her head.
"I'm going to teach you how to conceal yourself," Mela said. "I'll be honest and tell you that it isn't going to be pleasant. To hide you have to almost completely cut yourself off from the Force."
Rey swallowed hard.
"Okay."
Mela took Rey's hands in hers and looked straight into her eyes.
"It'll be alright," she said. "Just follow my instructions. I'll be right here to help you."
"Together, Rey," Ben said, taking a step closer to stand at her side.
"Are you both ready?"
Rey nodded even as anxiety crept up from her stomach.
"Open yourself to the Force and tell me when you can sense it."
Rey closed her eyes. The music of the dark side was as near as the crystals in her hands and she let it flow through her like water, her fear guiding it as a stream in a channel.
"Ready," she said, pushing out a long breath.
"Reach out and gather the Force around yourself," Mela instructed. "Cover yourself with it."
Rey obeyed, twisting on the energy around her, incorporating its notes alongside hers until she sensed a muffling of the notes beyond herself.
"Push outward and manipulate the shield so it will repel all but the most basic aspects of the Force," Mela continued.
Rey's eyes snapped open as the music she'd grown to know and love vanished. She could see Ben's eyes taking on the glazed look they did when he was in the Force, but she couldn't feel him. Her head was empty of all but her own thoughts. It was an unexpected consequence and the panic that gripped her only served to strengthen the barrier between her and the music.
Ben? she called out in her thoughts, but there was no response.
It was as if he were dead: his music as silent as the songs that had belonged to the mangled bodies of the Resistance that lay cold and dead in a cave on Abafar.
"Ben?" she called, this time out loud.
"Right here, Rey," he said. "I haven't gone anywhere."
It was disorienting to be alone again, without the sound of his song in the back of her mind, or his thoughts bleeding over into hers. She remembered a time when the silence was all she wanted, but now that the time had come and she could not hear the otherworldly music of the Force, she despised it. It was as if she had lost a part of herself and it made the emptiness of the wound inside her gape wider.
"I can't feel you-"
"I know. I can't sense you either," he said, voice more uncertain than she'd ever heard it.
He held himself stiff, his uneasiness as contagious as if it had reached her through the bond. She found her own muscles drawing tight with the tension in the stillness around her. The awful sense of not belonging had returned. She was no longer a creature of the soundless world and its hushed and muted nature unsettled her in the very core of herself. Mela seemed to sense their moods.
"It's only temporary," she said, taking Rey's arm. "You can reverse it as soon as you leave, but it's a precaution we have to take. We can't take chances with Snoke on the loose."
Rey glanced back to the children watching them. She couldn't hear their music, but she saw their uncertainty in the way their eyes followed their Masters and in the way they huddled close to one another.
"Why would he want one of them?" she murmured, low enough that they couldn't hear.
"A host," Mela said. "If he has abandoned his own body, he'll be looking for a new one. He needs one strong in the Force, but weak of mind. Younglings are naturally weaker of will because they have little experience in guarding their hearts and thoughts. We have several, on this ship alone, that show a natural power that would tempt Snoke."
"But he already has a body," Rey protested. "He possessed one of the troopers. We felt his presence on the Finalizer."
"A trooper that isn't Force sensitive," Ben said, hand bumping hers before his fingers closed around hers in a strong grip that somehow steadied her.
"The body won't be strong enough to contain the power of somebody like Snoke for long. He'll have to make another jump," Mela said.
Rey sucked in a breath and felt her body go rigid with fear. Ben drew a step nearer until she could feel the comforting heat of him against her side. In that moment she wished he could hide her- wished they could both hide- from a galaxy that seemed to draw tight around them. Ben's arm went around her shoulders, pulling her closer into him, whether it was for her comfort or his own, she didn't know. It was still strange to have someone else to cling to when she was frightened but she leaned into him, grateful for his warmth and the courage she gained in his presence.
"It's alright, Rey," he murmured. "We'll be alright."
"I know."
Her thoughts traveled back to the little group clustered at the door and she studied them carefully. They reminded her so much of herself when she had been around their age: tentative and curious, with a knack for getting themselves into and out of trouble. The thought that, if given the chance, Snoke would consume one of them, body and soul, made her stomach ache.
"Who are they, Ben?" she asked. "How did they end up here, of all places?"
Ben saw where her attention had fixed and sighed.
"Parvan," he said, beckoning the boy into the room.
The youngling jumped in surprise, then took a careful step over the doorway.
"Yes, Master Kylo?" he asked, hands twisting in his tunic.
"I need you to take the other younglings back to their lessons. I imagine your tutors have noticed your absence by now."
Parvan's face fell into a pout.
"It was only history," he said. "And the droid is so boring."
Rey saw the corner of Ben's mouth twitch upward.
"Just because it's boring doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile," Mela said, hand on her hip. "Back you go, and no whining or you'll have to sit out during sparring. Just because you're off your home ship doesn't mean you get to skip lessons."
Hala crept up and peered from behind her brother.
"Is Mistress Rey going to get to stay here?" she asked.
"For a little while," Rey answered. "You'd better go back to your lessons, though. I wouldn't want you to get into trouble."
Kylo ruffled the dark heads and gave the two a little shove toward the door.
"Go on. Obey your Masters."
Parvan looked over his shoulder and grinned. Hala took his hand in her smaller one and, giving a little wave, they walked together toward the door. As the group disappeared around the corner Rey turned to Ben, waiting. He rubbed a hand over his face before turning to his knights.
"Where do we start?" he asked, hands outstretched in a gesture of deference.
"The purges," said the dark-skinned man whose name Rey didn't know.
"That's as good a place as any," agreed the grease stained man Rey recognized from her time in the bond.
Ben was quiet, staring at nothing, mind clearly elsewhere. Rey touched his arm.
"Ben?"
He flinched, but came back to himself.
"What?"
"Who are these children?"
"An atonement," he muttered. "My attempt to right things that can never be put right."
"An atonement?" she repeated.
"They were taken during the purges," explained the dark-skinned knight. "We do not kill our own."
"Well said, Cy," said the grimy knight Rey now guessed was Taryn. "But not entirely true."
"Luke's school?" Rey guessed.
Not one word was spoken between Ben and the four knights that surrounded him, but Rey could see the anguish in their faces.
"Your brothers and sisters," she said.
She knew that story. Her words were a simple truth, yet when she spoke them aloud they seemed to grow barbs to tear at those already in pain. Guilt clung like a second skin, faces and voices of the dead still haunting the living.
"They were," Ben sighed. "And we would do anything to go back and change that day, but we can't. So this has become our reparation."
"Where do they come from?"
"Any place the First Order conquered. Snoke sent us out to kill, but we disobeyed," said Taryn, a self-satisfied smile on his lips.
"Our one rebellion," muttered Ben. "We stole them away and hid them here, out of his reach."
"But how did you keep the knowledge from him?" Rey asked. "Surely he searched your thoughts."
Ben's weary eyes trailed over the room, the faraway look returning.
"He did," he said, "and I sacrificed all of my secrets to keep this most precious one. We all did."
Rey stared around her at each of them, eyes traveling from Ben to his knights and back again. Guilt churned in her stomach. She had accused them of murdering in Snoke's name while they had all suffered to keep those under their protection safe.
"How many are there?" she asked.
"One hundred and three on this ship," Mela said. "More on the other two. Nearly four hundred altogether."
"Four hundred?" Rey gaped.
"There could have been more," Ben muttered. "We could have gotten to more-"
"We did what we could, Kylo," Cy said. "If we'd tried to find more it would have drawn attention."
"I know," Ben said, fists clenched tight at his sides.
Rey read the tension in his spine and his jaw and slid a hand across his shoulders.
"What you've done here," she said, gesturing around them, "is amazing. These younglings are safe here because of you."
"And now I endanger them."
Rey squeezed his hand.
"They'll be alright, Ben."
"I have full faith that he won't be able to track either of you now that you're cloaked," Mela said with a nod. "Stop being so melancholic, Kylo, honestly."
Ben's expression cracked into a sad smile as Mela rolled her eyes.
"You try ruling a galaxy with Hux at your back and a tyrant you cannot see haunting your steps, little sister," he said. "Melancholic is the least concerning of my moods."
"It's true," Rey smiled. "You should see him blow through a room after a visit to the bridge."
"I have," said Taryn. "It isn't pretty."
"You should have seen him after Snoke got done reprimanding him," Decha chuckled.
Rey's stomach lurched painfully. She knew something of that story too, and she instinctively glanced to the scars that branched up Ben's neck. She'd seen them- knew the way they continued over his back, coiling like the roots of a tree. Ben's face twisted for a brief moment before he folded the pain carefully away and his expression smoothed. He was hiding from those closest to him, she realized. They didn't know, and he wouldn't let them see.
But he let her see.
"He wasn't the easiest man to get along with," he said quietly.
Cy shook his head and there was a long silence as each sank inward, memories of old agonies etching their faces. It was Mela who pulled herself free first, with a shudder that seemed to throw her back to the present.
"That's ancient history," she said softly. "We look to the future, now."
She took Rey's hands in hers and smiled.
"A future that's brighter with you in it, little sister," she said. "You're one of us, now. And you've chosen your crystals?"
Rey blinked for a moment before she remembered the two crystals she still clutched.
"It doesn't seem very important right now," she said, about to tuck them into her pocket.
"It is important." Mela said as she opened Rey's fingers so the crystals lay exposed in her palm.
They glittered in the light and Rey felt the same strange energy warming her skin. They didn't pull at her as they did when she was in the Force, but there was still something enticing about them. A strange eagerness took her, and she had to fight down an overwhelming temptation to drop the barrier around her and reach out to them in the Force. A fierce desire to master and be master seized her.
"Did you have any difficulty finding them?" Mela asked, dragging her from the temptation.
"Some. The younglings said they would sing to me, but I didn't hear anything. I only found these by using the Force."
"They spoke truly, but also in ignorance. Kyber crystals only respond to the light side. Those of us who use the dark side have to use the Force to bring them under our control."
Ben stiffened at her side and she glanced at him just in time to see him clench his fists until the knuckles went white. She didn't need the Force to know that he wasn't happy she'd used the dark side to find the crystals.
"Will they still work?" she asked.
"There aren't any defects in their structure that I can make out," said Taryn as he stepped forward to examine them. "As long as you can bend them to your will, they'll be trustworthy servants."
"What do you mean, servants?"
"What else is a weapon but a servant?" asked Cy, pulling his saber from its sheath and tossing it in the air. "It'll be a good way for you to strengthen your abilities."
Ben's mouth made a thin line as he pressed his lips together.
"This won't be an easy task, Rey," he said. "This will take everything you have to give."
"I didn't expect it would be easy," Rey said. "But I'm ready. You know I'm ready."
Ben sighed and pushed his hair back from his forehead, misgivings obvious in his expression. It was strange how, even without the Force, she could still read his emotions as though written on the pages of an open book. She'd been bonded with him for far too long for him to be able to hide from her.
"You don't think I'm ready?" she asked, arms crossing at her chest.
"No, I just wish that the crystals would have called to you instead of you having to impose your will. The dark side is a dangerous master, as I've warned you before."
Rey tried not to let her growing irritation show, but it boiled near the surface. Without the Force, Ben didn't seem able to recognize her emotions, which only served to drive them closer toward full blown anger. Mela seemed to sense her darkening mood and laid a gentle hand against Rey's arm.
"Let's see if you're ready," she said. "We'll see if you can match one of us. What's your weapon?"
"A staff," Rey replied, shortly.
Mela nodded toward Taryn, who smirked.
"That's one of Taryn's better fighting styles. You can duel him."
Ben's face hardened.
"Mela-" he started.
"Let her try," Taryn said, his smug smile remaining fixed in its place. "I can take her."
"It'll be a good way for everyone to blow off a little steam," Mela said, giving Ben a look from the side of her eyes. "We're all wound pretty tight."
Rey saw Ben glance toward her before he gave a grudging nod of his head.
"Alright," he finally conceded. "But no blood."
Taryn didn't seem able to hold back his triumphant grin.
"Get ready to lose, little sister," he said.
Rey shoved her crystals into her pocket and clenched her fists, baring her teeth in a fierce grin.
"Don't be so sure," she said. "I don't lose. Especially not to a wrench-jockey like you."
"What makes you so self-assured?" asked Taryn.
"You didn't grow up on Jakku," Rey retorted. "I did."
They ended up in a large open room that was identical to the one in which Rey had waited. She stood still in the center of one of the white rings painted on the floor, fingers wrapped tight around a metal staff, staring across at Taryn. He stalked around the edge of the circle, watching her, shifting his own staff from hand to hand. Rey didn't move. She was good at waiting.
Without warning, Taryn leapt forward. Rey darted out of his way just in time, caught unprepared without the warning from the Force to which she'd grown accustomed. The staff whistled past and she felt the breeze on her face.
"I thought this was only a spar," she growled.
"You ducked, didn't you?"
She leapt back as he swept the end of his staff at her knees. It was difficult to keep up with him without the Force surrounding her. She hadn't realized how much she'd come to rely on it until it was no longer there. But she had to prove herself. Desperation lent her its aid and as she ducked and wove, striking out where she could and parrying blows when they came too close, her muscles began to remember their work. Her sparring with Ben had kept the skill near at hand, easy to reach in need. She began to gain back ground she'd lost, focusing on the offensive more than keeping herself in a defensive posture.
"You're better than I expected you to be," Taryn said, breathing hard, as their staffs met with a crack that echoed around the room.
"So are you."
Rey shoved him backward and struck out with her staff, landing a blow against his knee. Taryn swore loudly and spun on her, bringing his staff up and around faster than she could think. It caught her across the shoulders and sent her to the floor, gasping, air driven from her lungs. She rolled over and lay on her back, struggling to pull in a breath. Taryn held his staff an inch from her nose.
"Yield."
Rey stared up at him and tried not to smile. She'd been knocked flat on her back in the dirt before. She hadn't lost then, and she wasn't about to lose now. In a flash, she grasped Taryn's weapon and hauled herself to her feet. One hand keeping it pinned to her side, she swung her own staff, checking it a hairsbreadth from his ear.
"Yield."
"That's your loss, Taryn," said Cy.
Decha's eyes were wide and Mela let out a low whistle.
"That was quite a move," she said. "It wouldn't work against a saber, but it was brilliant for the situation. Where'd you learn to do that?"
Rey shrugged. In honesty, she hadn't learned it anywhere. She'd taught herself the trick after she'd lost one too many times to an older scavenger.
"I think it's brilliant," Decha exulted as he clapped her on the back before frantically apologizing when she winced.
Ben ignored the general chaos of congratulations and pulled her in against his side.
"Well done," he said. "Just be careful not to bring your old habits into a saber battle. It's a good way to lose an arm, or worse. It'll be something we can work on together."
Rey nodded, his praise and the promise of time alone training with him soothing the pride his admonition had wounded. She would have to remember the wisdom of his words, though she doubted she would be tempted to grab hold of a saberstaff if she were in the same position.
"What would you say to a duel, Supreme Leader?" Cy asked as he sidled up on Ben's other side and stuck an elbow into his ribs. "It's been a while and Rey's victory has inspired me. Let's see if I can finally best you."
Rey saw Ben's jaw clench as he turned to his knight.
"Don't call me that."
"Only trying to bait you," Cy chuckled. "Come on, your Supreme Leadership. Let loose once in a while."
Ben's hand was already at his belt and reaching for his saber. He drew it, thumb playing over the ignition button.
"Say it again," he challenged.
In response, Cy smirked and began to circle him in a half crouch, head on a pivot to keep Ben in sight. Ben kept still, but his narrowed eyes never left Cy's frame. Rey saw him tensing to spring, but Cy struck before he could. The knight's red saber arched through the air on the level of Ben's neck. Ben twisted out of the way, blocking the swing with his weapon. The sabers met with a sharp buzz and their light flared.
Just as quickly Cy stepped back, putting distance between them. It was Ben's turn to go on the offensive, darting in from the side, thrusting his saber at Cy's stomach. With a turn of his wrist and a step to the side, Cy sent the stroke wide.
Back and forth they went, trading blows, neither getting close to landing one on his opponent. Rey could not look away as the speed and power behind the weapons began to intensify. She gasped and half ducked when Ben checked Cy's saber an inch from his face.
"Don't worry Rey," Mela whispered. "They're well in control of themselves. They aren't even trying right now."
"Have you ever seen them lose control?"
Mela shifted and glanced at her from the corner of her eye.
"Once, yes. Many years ago. Cy has a nasty scar from that battle."
Rey winced as another of Cy's blows came a little too close to Ben.
"How often do they injure one another?"
"Less now than when Snoke made them duel as boys. Usually only bruises."
There was a grunt from the ring and Rey looked up in time to see Ben stumbling backwards after a kick from Cy.
"Now they're getting into it," Decha crowed at her side. "Come on, Cy, you can take him."
Both combatants ignored the call, minds focused solely on the battle at hand. Rey held her breath as the sabers started to flash faster. Cy had the advantage of strength, that much was clear as he used it to drive Ben around the circle, but Ben had speed. He darted forward and backward, spinning out of striking range with a grace Rey knew well from her battle against him and the one she'd fought at his side. Even without the Force, he was a formidable opponent.
Cy had just shoved him backward again when Ben turned and ducked under a sweeping blow, driving his saber up so Cy's was trapped between the blade and the cross guard. He gave a sharp twist and Cy's lightsaber flew from his fingers, spinning through the air to crack against the floor. Ben stood, breathing hard, and held his saber a few centimeters from his knight's neck.
"You almost won that time, Cy."
"You'd better work harder, or I will next time," Cy said, shoving Ben in the shoulder.
Ben let out a short laugh and shoved him back and Rey had, again, the strange feeling that she was seeing Ben as he had been as a child, years ago before Snoke had broken him and turned him into a shadow of himself. She watched from a distance with Mela as he and his knights traded friendly jibes and congratulatory slaps. The boyish, lopsided grin he wore stirred something inside her and an answering smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
"It's good to see them like that, isn't it?" Mela asked quietly. "I wish Jai and Corann could have been here too. It would have been good for them."
"He's so different when he's with them. A good different."
Mela's smile was thin and faint.
"He used to be like this all the time," she said. "He was the gentlest, most curious little boy I'd ever met."
She laughed and ran her fingers through her hair, shaking her head.
"He found a convor chick once. It imprinted on him and for a whole summer he carried that little thing around in his pocket until it got too big and flew away."
Rey stared at her, trying to imagine Ben caring for a baby bird for an entire season.
"We were all different then," Mela continued, wrapping her arms around herself. "Snoke broke us. One by one. Kylo first because he was the one he wanted, but the rest of us weren't far behind. We became slaves to what we hated."
There were tears in her eyes when she looked up at Rey.
"My name was Neoma then," she murmured.
"Why don't you still use it?"
"That name belonged to a girl who saw wonder in the light that clung to her. All I see now is death and darkness. The dreams that felt like a gift are a curse now."
Rey didn't know what to say, so she stayed quiet as Mela scrubbed at her eyes and let out a long sigh.
"That's why we've done all of this," she said, gesturing around them. "To protect the younglings from being exploited by a galaxy that only sees them as a potential to gain and keep power, or worse, as a threat to that power. Like Kylo said, it's our way to make amends."
"I think I understand," Rey said quietly. "And you should know that this is a good thing that you're doing."
"It's never felt like enough," Mela said, a weary smile on her face. "I'm not sure if it ever will."
Rey was just about to reply when she heard the chime of a holopad. Ben reached into a pocket and pulled it out, scrolling through several messages. He paused on one and stared at it for several seconds. His face, flushed from battle, drained of color even as she watched. His movements lost some of their freedom and she watched his shoulders take on their usual tension. Exhaustion stole back into his expression. Before her eyes, the childlike Ben Solo transformed back into Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the galaxy. Something in her chest squeezed tight around her heart.
"Ben?" she asked.
"Just a message I was waiting on from Hux," he said. "We should probably go back. I need to check into something."
"It can't wait?" asked Decha.
"I wish it could," Ben muttered.
Cy shook his head and threw an arm over Ben's shoulder.
"Well, if you have to go, take care of yourself," he said. "Watch your back. Comm if you need anything."
"Will do."
Mela seized Rey in a fierce hug, pressing a kiss against her cheek. Rey tensed at the touch, then slowly relaxed when the knight didn't let go, her arms wrapping tentatively around Mela's shoulders.
"Be safe, little sister," she said. "May the Force be with you."
There was a flurry of warm embraces from the other knights, and then she and Ben were free. Together they walked down the corridor towards the hangar. Rey glanced back to see Mela twitch her fingers in a wave. Rey waved back and gave her the smallest of smiles. The thought that she could come back to this ship and not only meet these people again but be welcomed by them was entirely foreign. If she were honest with herself, it made her a little nervous. It reminded her of something that she couldn't quite place: like something she was on the very point of remembering when it slipped away again, back into the darkness of forgetfulness.
It almost reminded her of the affection she'd felt for Finn and Poe and the rest of her friends in the Resistance. But they had cursed her and turned their backs before they died. They had betrayed her. She couldn't afford any more entanglements like that. She couldn't afford any more betrayal. Her heart had to remain closed to everyone.
Everyone but Ben.
Ben was the only family she could allow herself to have because she knew him, and he knew her better than anyone else in the galaxy. But her love and trust were two sides of a double-edged sword and she knew in her deepest of hearts that if she lost him, she would lose her world. She refused to risk her heart on anything less.
Back on the Silencer and several minutes into hyperspace, Rey unwound the dark side from her song and flung it away as though casting off a robe. The music of the Force rushed back to her, low and beautiful and sending its familiar vibrations through her bones to reawaken her. She could sense Ben's presence in her mind again. It was as though she had been holding her breath underwater to surface at last and gasp in life giving air. The closeness and stifling silence had been more terrible than she'd anticipated. It was a relief to listen again, even if Ben's anxiety shrilled in her ears.
"Ben?"
"I'll tell you when I know more," he said, reading her question in her thoughts. "It's just a report that I need to look into."
"Whatever it is, it's got you upset. Can't you tell me?"
"Not until I know more. Don't worry about it, I'm just being paranoid."
Rey was tempted to push harder for information but decided against it. She was so tired of worrying. She closed her eyes and leaned against the hull of the ship, listening to the intoxicating music of hyperspace. The excitement of the day and her lack of rest finally caught up with her and her head began to bob. In the seconds before sleep claimed her, Rey thought she heard something. It was a soft, gentle note, almost indiscernible from her own and Ben's. As quickly as it came, it vanished and she wondered, with the muddled thoughts of a half sleeper, whether it had been only a trick of her tired mind. She settled herself more comfortably against the wall and slipped into a sleep without dreams, forgetting entirely that single, strange note that had whispered to her in the silvery light of hyperspace.