A/N: Digital cupcakes this time for the follows/favs: thank you, thank you! And a special thanks (so digital cupcakes with sugar stars sprinkled on top) for those of you who left me a review: it's great to get your feedback! So this conversation between Rey and Leia needed to happen, I might actually have been more nervous than Rey for this one haha Enjoy~
Hartmannclan - chapter 27 - Jan. 22: I know, poor Rey! I thought it was symbolic for her to have to go back to waiting and staring at scratches on a wall apparently goes with that in her case haha I'm glad you're liking Rose; I definitely wanted to try and do her character justice and writing her somehow always makes me want to hug her too! Obviously I'm going to drag out Ben's impending doom as long as I can to give Rey a shot at convincing the Resistance to help her save him...but they are running out of time...! Thank you for being such a loyal reviewer, it's always a joy to read your reviews!
CHAPTER 28
She was nervous for what was to come. Who she was going to be reunited with. And she probably had every reason to be. She had little to no idea how Leia would respond to seeing her again. But waiting for that meeting felt worse than any of her imagined scenarios.
They had landed minutes before, the outdated transport nearly falling apart in the process. Minutes that felt more like hours. One moment, Rey was sitting down on her bunk, perched on its very edge and every muscle tense. The next she would jump to her feet to approach the door—holding her breath and listening—only for the invariable lack of voices or approaching footsteps to make her posture slump and have her irrevocably return to her previous position.
Rey only stopped the restless pattern because it reminded her too much of Ben's pacing—of the tight knot in her stomach that ached with her longing to know he was safe.
Every minute more that she had to wait like this decreased the chance that he would be...
The thought was enough to push her to her feet again and leave the bunk behind. Rey stared at the grungy surface of the door, chewing her bottom lip in frustration.
If that door wasn't opened within the next minute, she was going to blast it out of its frame!
The Force around her prickled the skin on the back of her neck and made the tips of her fingers tingle when it grew with her rising agitation, the air crackling as if with electricity. The door had just started to rattle violently at the intensity of her gaze when, with a strained sort of wobble, it slid out of sight.
Cradling her blaster—and looking as if she were used to keeping it close like that—Connix frowned at the strange behavior of the door, then quickly redirected her attention to her prisoner. Eyeing Rey with evident suspicion, she stepped over the threshold to make room for the person behind her.
"Uh. Hi. Me again." Rose slipped past, the hand she'd raised in greeting almost instantly wavering—her sprawled fingers wilting like flowers when the last two words prompted an arched brow from the Lieutenant.
"So that's where those extra rations went," Connix remarked, mouth twitching as she spotted what was left of the protein bars, as well as Rose's guilt-ridden look.
"Chewie treated her to his specialty, did he?" the Lieutenant asked knowingly, the embarrassed but amused snort of the engineer all the confirmation she needed.
"Better not tell him it went out of the airlock. Again," she advised Rose, who paled slightly at the prospect of inciting the Wookie's wrath but managed a brave smile nonetheless.
Facing Rey again, Connix's expression sobered, the tired wariness creeping back into the tautening lines of her face.
"Alright. Time to go."
She urged Rose into motion, gesturing to Rey with a terse flick of her chin without taking her eyes off the latter.
"You're going to take me to Leia?" Rey queried, wanting to know if her request had been granted—if Finn had made good on his promise.
She didn't doubt his honesty and sincerity, but she also suspected that a dwindling band of idealists wouldn't be that trusting in their darkest hour. Especially when it concerned welcoming back an alleged traitor and bringing her face to face with their leader.
Connix's jaw flexed as if she had to bite back her personal opinion on the matter. Rey coiled the muscles in her body, poising herself to make a run for it if she had to.
No one was going to stop her from finding her way back to Ben...
"On a few conditions," Connix eventually replied.
Movement in the periphery of her vision drew Rey's gaze to Rose who, right on cue, was pointedly waving a strap of fabric which she'd lifted up to eye-level. The frayed cloth rippled like an unimpressive banner a second longer before Rey caught on.
"Okay," she agreed, feeling the same grin that had appeared on Rose's face tugging at her own lips. Even Connix seemed close to rolling her eyes at the amateurish compromise, before she cleared her throat and increased the hold on her weapon.
"Just don't try anything," she warned, apprehension returning somewhat as she gave her unbound hands and ankles a gauging look.
"I won't," Rey answered her earnestly. Now she was this close to reaching her goal she wasn't going to jeopardize what could be the only way left to her to save Ben.
"Allow me," Rose mumbled, something apologetic in her posture as she approached, awkwardly brandishing the strap of fabric.
Rey gave her a half-smile to put her at ease—being blindfolded was a small price to pay if it meant they'd take her to Leia.
Besides, she thought to herself, she would still be able to perceive an impression of her surroundings without her eyesight.
The rough fabric itched the bridge of her nose and she couldn't help wrinkling it in response as it was slid over her eyes. Rey reached out for the Force instead, calling upon it to expand her senses beyond herself.
As Rose guided her by the elbow, walking just behind her, she peered at the enclosing, dull brown before she realized her foolishness.
Looked like she still hadn't fully learned Luke's first lesson...
She immediately closed her eyes firmly, trying again. This time the Force rolled away from her like a probing wave, relaying the relative positions of the walls hemming in the winding, cramped corridors and painting in her mind's eye the moving, living, breathing shapes of Connix, Rose and others still on board the transport.
Most of their shapes weren't vivid or clear—they were hazed and strangely colorless, barely tangible presences on the periphery of her own being. Rose and Connix's signatures, on the other hand, revealed their emotions and thoughts with enhanced clarity: the subtlest coiling or flutter of energy betraying apprehension, grief, and a doggedness that came with their mutual zeal to survive. There was something else there too. Something both of the women escorting her shared. An overpowering willingness to protect their cause. A willingness, even, to perish in order to achieve that goal.
Like Ben...
Rey winced, stopped in her tracks as if she'd received an electric shock—the toe of Rose's boot clumsily bumped against her heel. Her fear of Ben's similar conviction to sacrifice himself constricted around her heart like a vine so that all it could manage was a few strangled and panicked throbs. Rey bit her lip, tears staining the blindfold—she could feel it moisten against her lashes.
She couldn't let him buy her freedom with his life...
"You okay?" Rose inquired tentatively, the hand holding her elbow increasing its grip to steady Rey's paralyzed body. "Maybe you didn't eat enough—"
"I doubt that. Those protein bars could've fed an army for a week," Connix chipped in, sounding a tad resentful.
"Something tells me it would've been better if we'd run out of those instead of caf," Rose muttered under her breath.
There was the sound of fingers drumming pensively against the side of a blaster, the muffled chink of Rose fidgeting peevishly with her pendant, then a snicker.
"Fair enough," Connix conceded, her tone a mix of apologetic and amused weariness. Rey could feel Rose almost jump out of her skin at the remark, her fingers briefly digging in her flesh. Clearly, she hadn't expected the Lieutenant to have heard her grumbling.
"There was plenty of caf aboard that shuttle. Help yourselves," Rey suggested dryly.
There was a meaningful silence in which she knew the two women exchanged looks.
"We'll have to pass on that one," Connix eventually refused, adding a little uncomfortably, "But thanks for the offer."
"If Chewie hears about this I think he might go back and retrieve it," Rose remarked with an almost dreamy hopefulness.
"And keep all of it for himself," Connix amended, dashing the wonderful prospect.
"No. No, he wouldn't. Not all of it. Just—"
"—99.9 percent of it."
They finished in unison, the phrase evidently often used by both. It was hard for Rey not to feel her own spirits lift for just a heartbeat at the sound of it. Then the seriousness of the situation dropped back down on all of their shoulders as if someone had interfered with the gravity settings.
"Better get going," Rose said gravely. Next instant Connix let out a stifled grunt of effort and a half-muttered curse as she unclamped a reluctant lever somewhere nearby. The familiar sounds of pneumatic valves and compressors hissing and groaning made the transport shudder as a ramp was lowered.
"Wrap up," the Lieutenant recommended sardonically. Before her implied meaning sunk in, Rey was hit by a freezing blast of wind. It howled around and through the transport—rattling the very ramp they descended.
It was nearly impossible to retain her hold on the Force—the net she had cast with it to get some idea of her surroundings scattered in the unexpected transition. All Rey felt was the bitter cold attacking her body like knives. One or both of her two companions might have said something to her or each other but the violent gusts of wind tore any words to shreds and filled her ears with a relentless roar.
Her dress whirled around her as if many hands tried to pull it in opposing directions. It was difficult to walk as well, her boots slipping now and then on a substance a lot more yielding and unpredictable than sand. Then she recognized the sensation. The wet and frozen pinpricks barraging her exposed skin forcibly bringing back memories of a snow-covered pine forest and the enemy she'd left behind to bleed to death.
Ben...
A deeper cold coursed through her body, bleeding from their weakened bond and chilling her heart.
She needed to find him... And find him fast!
Rey straightened her back, fists clenched in determination. Then the icy torrent clashed with another, warmer one, and Rose's hold on her elbow increased as she guided her up another ramp. Next moment the wailing of the storm was sucked out of the air and she could hear the sputtering hiss as the ramp closed behind them, the immediate silence disorienting.
At first, she could only hear Rose and Connix panting along beside her as their boots thudded on the worn-down floor of what felt like the very same transport. The three of them were still catching their breath when Rey could distinguish voices: a dark mutter coming from the left; a distrustful but intrigued whisper on her right. There was also a shuffling of feet and rustling of fabric as if more had joined them or had simply flocked together for a peek at their marooned enemy.
Trying not to feel unnerved by the flurry of energies around her, Rey did her best to filter them out—morphing the hostility and curiosity into background noise. And then all of it instantly muted when her mind brushed against a steady thrum: subdued but powerful.
Rey inadvertently blinked even though she sensed rather than saw the source of light she had stumbled on. It was partly dormant, like the few rays of brightness that used to trickle through the crevices in her fingers when she'd held up a hand to shield her eyes against the glare of the desert sun.
Leia...
The thrum quickened for a split second, beating in tandem with her own racing heart, then it calmed again, reverting to its unfluctuating rhythm.
Rey smiled to herself, rueful but strangely pleased. If only Master Skywalker could see her now: blindfolded and undoubtedly still at blaster-point as she was brought to his sister—both of them already sensing the other even before she had been delivered to the Resistance Leader.
If only that brief touch of souls had indicated Leia's inclination towards forgiveness...
A humming buzz of voices drifted towards Rey, momentarily quieting her spiking nerves. It grew louder until a door slid back and all talk ceased at once. The atmosphere thickened the moment Rey stepped over the threshold and she could sense the ripples of animosity and suspicion moving towards her through the Force. But there was a softer note there too. A familiar note. Two familiar notes.
Maybe Finn's presence would help her case with Leia…
Rey felt Rose reach up to untie her blindfold but a low voice with such a unique timbre it could belong to one person only, prevented her.
"Let me. After all, I take it I'm the reason she had to wear that?"
There was the sound of people moving out of the way to make room.
"Can't hurt to be careful," Connix replied a little defensively.
Leia gave her trademark, husky rumble in the back of her throat in approval—her fingers loosening the untidy knot pressing against the back of Rey's skull. "True. And it's not like you took the scenic route. Not enough scenery for there to be one."
Her worried sarcasm reverberated between them as the blindfold fell away and Rey blinked to take in the face close to hers. Leia looked exactly as she remembered her. And yet she was wholly different. There were more lines in her face—or maybe the ones that had been there were simply more pronounced. There was a tiredness in her expression that told of grief for so many and worn for so long it had become a second skin. Her hair had been tied back in a coiled bun—some of the tendrils twisted in such a way it resembled the hint of a crown—and its organic shape contrasted with her cut cheekbones and aquiline nose.
The hint of strands a familiar black running in and out of sight between silver gray made Rey's heart miss its first beat. Then she stared back into eyes the exact shade of umber as Ben's and her breath caught in her throat. She couldn't look away, feeling completely stunned as it dawned on her fully—perhaps for the first time—that she was his mother.
At her intense gaze, Leia's eyes grew wide as if in understanding of her realization. Her lips trembled ever so slightly—mouth halfway to opening as if she was going to say something—before her dark brown eyes glinted with a sorrow too intense to put into words. Rey didn't doubt she already knew exactly why she had come. What she was going to ask her.
"Leia..."
The utterance was nothing more than a hoarse whisper but it was enough to dispel the moment between them. Leia blinked, not quite succeeding in undoing the sheen of tears. She turned away from her and made for the only viewport. The handful of people in the stateroom watched their leader intensely as she appeared lost in the swirling mass of white—outside snow and wind continued to battle for dominion.
"Scenery or not," said a sudden, resonant voice, and Finn stepped into the center of the room, "poor visibility has its advantages."
His words had an enviable lightness to it and it visibly touched the others—somehow spreading through the cramped compartment like a reviving Bacta shot.
"That it has. It sure makes looking out of the window predictable," Leia conceded as she leaned on a cane Rey only now noticed between the folds of her robes—the ease with which she and Finn communicated indicative of the trust between them. Chewie growled appreciatively, tossing his head back and baring his teeth.
For a single moment Rey could imagine belonging here, with the three of them—her path twisting back to cross theirs. It seemed right. But things were far from right. She hadn't come to rejoin the Resistance—to stay and wait for better times when they could grow and strike at the First Order again. She had inadvertently ended up in their midst only to leave them behind again as quickly as she'd come. The stab of guilt was old and familiar. But her restlessness to get to Ben was infinitely stronger—a crushing current drowning an intermittent pulse.
And she had lost so much time already...
"I need to speak with you—" Rey started urgently, addressing Leia's profile—but an Abednedo wearing an orange flight suit interrupted her.
"I still think this is a bad idea."
Rey could just pick up Rose's grumbling sigh of "Here we go..." before it was swallowed up in a general murmur of assent. A woman with shoulder length curls nodded at the pilot and approached Leia, her tawny uniform crisp and a humble officer's insignia stitched over her heart.
"If I also may protest again, General Organa. Instead of returning with your brother—she allowed herself to be taken prisoner by the First Order. How are we to know this was really against her choice? The evidence of her high position alone would contradict it."
"I think we should let Rey speak for herself—" Finn protested but was cut off.
"Maybe she wasn't a prisoner," the pilot suggested, his suspicion obvious in the way his mouth tendrils trembled.
"Yes, prisoners usually don't get crowned Empresses," the old man that had been a part of Connix's boarding party spoke up.
"So far she has behaved a lot better than other First Order prisoners we've had the pleasure of hosting," Connix shot at him with her usual cynicism and Chewie nodded in fervid agreement, the belt slung across his tall shape glistening willfully in the dim light.
"None of whom were part of our organization prior to their capture. That does complicate the matter," the officer with the curls emphasized.
"Yes, it does. And traitors usually don't return without a reason either," a Togruta that had been at the back of the small group chimed in—her montrals gleaming accusingly as she stepped forward.
"Or maybe we've become so jaded that we consider someone unarmed and stranded in a lifeless shuttle a danger to us rather than someone in need of help," Finn argued, his voice firm but admirably calm.
"But she's not just someone, is she?" the pilot spoke up, his helmet swinging wildly in the crook of his arm with his fervor.
"Bringing the Empress here is akin to the same treason she herself committed in the first place. We might as well have broadcast our coordinates on the Holonet. The First Order is sure to find us now. We must leave," the old man insisted, his frame trembling as he accompanied his words with staccato gestures of his hands.
"And go where?" Connix asked, sincerity mixing with resignation. "We've tried increasing our numbers. We've called for help and nearly half of us are still out there in search of it. Maybe we just need to face the fact that we're stuck here for the time being."
"That's not how you win wars," the pilot retorted bitterly.
"Win wars? Look around you, C'ai. We're in no position to win any wars. Not until we've updated our transports. Bolt by bolt if we have to. Not until we've come up with a vision we can actually make happen. Not until we've listened hard enough for signs that Poe and the others are alive and trying to get back to us. There's no point in showing ourselves when the few allies we might still have all look the other way when the First Order squeezes the last bit of life out of us."
Connix's words left a deadly silence in their wake and most cast their eyes down dejectedly. But Rey felt Rose stir behind her and sensed her resilience in the sudden torrent of the Force coming from her even before she voiced it.
"It doesn't have to be that way. Maybe the longer we wait the slimmer our chances get of making a stand. Why can't now be the right time?"
Another silence—both paths present like unseen, clashing tides that pushed and pulled at everyone in the room.
"We already took a vote on staying," Finn eventually stated, his voice betraying his own uneasiness with the decision if the apologetic look he threw Rose hadn't already.
"We did," the curly haired woman confirmed a little stiffly. "Moreover, we are here to reach a conclusion on what to do with our... our guest."
Her attempt at diplomacy was received with both careful consideration and unmasked scorn. C'ai exchanged a meaningful glance with the old man.
The Togruta shook her head in evident annoyance—her lekku shifting irritably with the movement. "By all means interrogate her, I'm sure she'll spin a convincing tale," she remarked, crossing her arms and tilting her head in mock anticipation so that the meager daylight filtering into the room made her green skin pale and wan.
The officer in the tawny uniform frowned thoughtfully, her forehead wrinkling in the process. "It is true we know nothing of her current motives. Nor that we can trust her to tell the truth. It could well be a trap—"
"Leave us."
All heads snapped as one to the lone figure in front of the viewport.
"General?" the officer asked, the look of dumbfounded incredulity on her face reflected on most of the others'.
"You heard me, Commander D'acy," Leia repeated. There was no anger or reproach in her tone—but it did carry a finality that escaped no one.
"You too, Chewie," Leia addressed the Wookie kindly when he took a demonstrative step towards her. He let out a soft, prolonged yowl, cast another, concerned look at the Princess and then plodded after the others trickling reluctantly out of the stateroom.
"Here."
Rey almost shrank away from the sudden touch when Finn draped his leather jacket around her shoulders—its lingering warmth at once seeped into her cold skin and reminded her of her shivering body. Behind him, Rose gave her a little smile of what could be encouragement. Even Connix nodded in her direction as if to say something between 'You're on your own' and 'Good luck'. Then the three of them disappeared along with the others.
Cherishing the soft leather enveloping her, Rey took a few determined steps towards Leia. Her posture was still as regal as ever—despite the weight of command—and only the barely perceptible slant of her shoulders betrayed how much it cost her to maintain the appearance of unwaning strength. The stately robes she wore aided the facade. They, like the sober but elegant dress it partly covered, were creaseless—a single golden bracelet and two onyx and cobalt rings the only dignified sparkling among the solid gray.
"Yavin Eight," she remarked tonelessly the moment Rey stood beside her, both their gazes scanning the bleak outside world.
"Yavin's eighth moon. And everything the fourth wasn't. Instead of lush and clammy jungles we've upgraded to wastelands ravaged by blizzards," Leia elaborated in lighthearted cynicism, eyes narrowing in an attempt to make out a horizon somewhere. Anywhere. "It's not much, but it's far enough from prying eyes."
Rey could see why it would be. With its pitiless, gloomy tundras, the moon hardly made for a popular holiday destination. Now the snowfall was letting up slightly, she could finally discern a little more than a wall of whirling white. There were patches of long dead tufts of grass, showing brown here and there among the drifts of snow, and a range of jagged mountains ran all around them—their purple rock blended surprisingly well with the scarlet crystals from Crait which crusted the mining vessel she spotted at the foot of the nearest mountain. Together with the one she was on, that didn't make the three she had seen escape when she and Ben had been forced to follow Luke Skywalker to the mineral planet.
Two rusty transports were all that was left...
A chill that had nothing to do with the local temperatures made Rey look up at the cloud filled sky instead. It didn't improve her sense of foreboding when she found a huge, black bird circling ominously among the downy, billowing shapes.
"Avrils. Don't cause nearly as much damage as the Raiths." Leia nudged her chin over her shoulder. Rey flicked a look back into the room just in time to see a long tail of some kind of rodent whisk out of sight as it burrowed into a broken console—the many wires that poked out all looked like they'd been chewed on more than once.
"I suppose we should thank the stars that the Purellas are hibernating right now."
Turning to face the viewport again, Rey frowned at the mention of yet another adversary.
"Giant, human-eating spiders," Leia elaborated, something close to diverted irony embedded in her words.
"Rough neighborhood to harbor a Resistance," Rey couldn't help but observe, instinctively holding on tighter to the jacket slung around her shoulders.
"Less rough than out there," Leia pointed out sensibly, gaze shifting to the stars they could not see. "Rose is right in essentials—we can't afford to wait too long—but I'd take the local inhabitants of Yavin Eight over risking exposure right now—"
Leia furrowed her brows as she effortlessly picked up on Rey's troubled expression. "But maybe you're going to tell me to revise that strategy."
Rey nodded slowly, bracing herself to look back into the intimidating woman's inquiring eyes. "I can't stay here. I have to go back."
To Ben...
It was as if Leia had heard her thought—knew the words she hadn't spoken out loud but which were there, hovering between them.
Leia's thrumming energy in the Force flickered, like a flame suddenly growing in warmth and strength. Then her hands folded themselves more sternly around the cane's head and the hope lighting up her eyes was repressed by a darker, harder brown as grief took over.
"He's not gone," Rey said, not caring that she sounded desperate and naive.
Leia lowered her gaze to the knuckles that had gone white around her cane, not answering, but asking instead, "What happened, Rey?"
"There's no time—" Rey began impatiently but was interrupted.
"What happened?" Leia repeated, her tone so sincere that Rey couldn't do anything else but give in.
"The Force connected us. On Ahch-To. I saw light in him. He showed me Ben was still there behind the mask of Kylo Ren. Is still there," she corrected herself, wincing at her misphrasing. "I had to try and turn him. It would mean the end of the war. It would save the Resistance. We did stop Hux from getting all of you after...after Ben killed Snoke instead of me. But in the end, it...it wasn't enough. The General has too much support within the First Order and with the help of some of the Knights of Ren he managed to outmaneuver us eventually. We had to run but—" Rey cursed inwardly, fingers digging into leather as her voice broke.
"Be— He stayed so you could escape," Leia filled in, not able to say the name of her son; a faraway look gathered in her eyes as she saw the past more clearly than the present.
Rey nodded, still not trusting her voice to work now her throat burned with emotion and tears spilled over her lashes. Leia reached out, the Force around her strong and wavering at the same time as she placed a hand on hers and squeezed it. Then it slid off and grasped her own folded around the cane again, her face turned away as if that one gesture, that one moment of shared hurt had cost her too much.
"I'm not done," Rey stated demonstratively, a furious sense of urgency rushing through her veins again, chasing away the helplessness. "This isn't over. Not yet. Not when you are still here trying to survive and rebuild the Resistance. Not when there are stormtroopers who want to end the First Order too. Not When Ben is at the mercy of that power-hungry monster because...because of me."
Leia didn't stir at first. In fact, she appeared so deep in thought that Rey wasn't sure she had even heard her. Then she made an indistinct sound in the back of her throat and nodded as if to herself before turning back to face her.
"I'm glad you're alright, Rey. That you came back. You're safer here than you were there."
Rey practically scowled at the woman next to her in her confusion. "I'm not staying. I can't," she said, angrier now.
Maybe brother and sister both had a tendency not to listen when the message was too difficult to accept.
"Most won't want to let you go now you've seen our impressive hide out. Our overwhelming numbers," Leia said, suddenly business-like and detached. "Some want to use you as leverage, no doubt. A few might even be inclined to let the hostile climate take care of you."
"I don't want to have to fight you. Any of you. But I am leaving." Rey experienced yet another pang of guilt as she said it, the Force simultaneously infusing her words with her resolution and making her skin tingle.
"Rey—"
She shook her head, not allowing Leia to try and convince her to change her mind. "Don't do this. Don't give up on him—"
"I'm his mother," Leia answered through gritted teeth, her eyes flashing with a pained sort of pride; that one resounding truth implying how she couldn't give up even if she wanted to, if everyone and everything told her to—if the entire galaxy demanded it.
Leia looked away again, the brown around her pupils wavering with unshed tears as she tapped the cane irresolutely on the floor. "You really believe you can still save him?"
Rey was the one to place a hand on top of Leia's now, stilling the restless rhythm reverberating through the transport's weather-beaten hull as she did. "Yes. I believe that."
She only just managed to suppress a sense of panic and failure as she remembered how her growing darkness had partly thwarted her attempt to bring him back to the light. It didn't matter now. How could it when if she didn't act now Ben would—
Don't think that!
"By yourself?" Leia probed in good-humored skepticism, yanking Rey's thoughts back to the present moment.
"I could use your help," she confessed, not daring to hope that she would receive it. "It's why I activated it."
Rey flicked a meaningful look at the beacon concealed under a gray sleeve so that Leia shook it free, her fingers wandering cautiously over the pulsating blue.
"His father already tried... What makes you think I could do better?"
The raw hurt tore at her own heart, perhaps more so when Rey couldn't hear even a trace of resentment. But there was doubt there.
"I don't know if you could," she told Leia honestly, shrugging as if it was irrelevant and putting every ounce of conviction into her next words. "But you do."
Leia's eyes widened, her frame trembling, and she leaned more heavily on the cane as she let out a shuddering sigh.
"Help me save Ben. Before it's too late." Rey held her breath as she waited for Leia to say something, give her a sign—any sign—that she would help. That she would come with her.
But when Leia at last nodded the evident sadness that accompanied it sent a shock of cold dread through Rey instead of the relief she was expecting.
"What is it? What do you know?"
It took Leia an excruciatingly long moment before she spoke, "We might have even less time than you fear."
"What do you mean?" Rey asked anxiously.
"There's something you need to see," was all Leia said, not meeting her eyes as she made for a console built into a battered and littered desk. The holoprojector roused from its slumber with a mechanical whine and then a decorative and grand hall burst to life. The image broke up every other second so that it rippled like water as it hung suspended between them.
Rey didn't need to read the ribbon of text streaming at the top of the Holonet broadcast to understand what she was seeing. The leather jacket fell off her shoulders as she took a hurried step closer, her heart racing as her eyes found the forlorn figure surrounded by a hostile sea of people.
"Ben..." she uttered in a horrified whisper, fingers tempted to caress his image as it shimmered an eerie, heart-wrenching, life-less blue...