"Ossus," he said, as they stood together on the solid ground.
"You've been here before." It wasn't a question. She knew it to be true.
"With Luke," he replied with a nod, as if it were obvious. She supposed it was.
He looked around himself, at the ruined temple and the trees bedecked with birds, now returning after the turmoil of the collapse. He didn't seem to understand what had happened, how he'd gotten here. Rey thought of the moment when she'd felt him arrive on Exegol. The Emperor had said that he was the only family she had, but then – just then – she'd sensed Ben. She hadn't known where he'd come from or how he'd arrived, but he was there with her, her true family. And she'd come back for him too.
"How did you find it?" he asked her, as if echoing her thoughts. Rey remembered then too what she had done with her things. She turned and looked, for a moment unsure if the collapse of the temple had taken with it her precious items. The tree was still standing, much to her relief, and beneath the shrub her bag. She picked it up and pulled out the sacred text, its worn leather cover a bit dusty from its hiding place. Wordlessly, she handed it to him.
He turned over the book in his hands, a smile playing on the corners of his lips as if he'd caught sight of an old friend across a room. He opened it, balancing the spine in one broad hand and flipping through it with the fingers of the other, until he came to the spot he'd apparently been looking for. He picked up the slip of parchment between the pages and turned it over, skimming the words on both sides.
"Were you with him when he was working on that?" she asked, gently. She didn't need to say who she meant.
"Who?" he asked, momentarily lost in a memory. "Luke? No, no: this is my hand."
The beautiful, elegant hand, with looping strokes and careful precision – of course it was his. Of course it belonged to the educated, urbane prince and not the earnest farmboy. Again she wondered who Ben might have been if only things had gone differently.
As if he remembered then that they were together on Ossus and not wherever his mind had wandered to, he looked up at her, his eyes clearing from misty nostalgia.
"We should go," he said, closing the book with a snap. "The planet's not inhabited but that doesn't mean it's safe."
She gestured at the Hope, some fifty paces down the hill. "It's not much but it's got a working hyperdrive." Ben looked at it appraisingly; indeed, it was no Silencer, but beggars can't be choosers, he seemed to think, and he'd certainly known bigger hunks of junk; he turned his gaze back to her. For an instant she thought he might kiss her again. Everything about him was so intense, a constant smolder of emotion and churn of intelligence, his hazel-green eyes glittering in the sunlight. The thought of being in his arms again made her heart race and her breath catch. Instead, after an instant, he handed her back the book; she received it and slid it into her bag, and slung the bag over her shoulder. She nodded at him, ready to leave this place behind.
Ben stepped back just a little bit and Rey realized that he meant for her to lead him. She ran her eyes over him, the black knit shirt with a singed hole in the chest and covered with a layer of fine dust, his hair a mess, and his eyes seeing only her. She would not lead. Rey took his hand in hers and tugged him gently to walk beside her down the hillside. It seemed almost unreal and certainly surprising that he was here with her truly enough that she could feel even smell the scent of his skin as he walked so close beside her. Everything that was most impossible had been made real.
The gang plank of the Hope lowered obligingly when she pressed the activation button as they approached. She shrugged and urged him to enter with a motion of her head, and Ben had to duck down to fit through the doorframe. She raised the ramp and turned the lever to seal the door. She looked around the little starship, seeing its one little room with new eyes. Everything she had in the world was here, her one little bag, her few garments, and the sacred texts. In the corner stood the cargo boxes she'd only cursorily glanced into. She barely had any food left – not that there was so much as a table at which to eat. The air was cool and damp because something was leaking somewhere and she hadn't been able to find where.
Ben's face was unreadable as he looked around. She'd seen his quarters on his command ship; surely he'd be disappointed now. He touched an exposed panel of wiring, the sort of jerry-rigged jumble she couldn't even take credit for, and said, drily, "Seems safe."
Rey lifted her eyes to his, wondering if this was Ben Solo's sense of humor. It surely had been his father's. Though his mouth remained inscrutable his eyes crinkled slightly, giving away the joke. Her dear, sweet Ben: he was going to have to learn how to laugh again.
For her part, Rey let her face break into a wide grin despite the edge of nerves that threatened her. "I'll get us up then."