The day finally ended and the council adjourned, instructing him to be ready to return in the morning. He agreed and rose to leave, reaching for Rey through the Force, relieved when her mind brushed against his. "On my way," she whispered to him.
He walked out the door of the council building and gazed out across the grassy park that lay before it. He'd played there as a boy, he recalled, waiting for his mother to finish yet another meeting. The lawn had seemed so big to him, an endless expanse of grass to run on. It was sad to see how small it had become in his eyes since then.
He used to reach out with the Force-before he even knew what it was he was doing-and sense the grass and the trees and the little animals and avians that lived in them. While he waited for Rey, he closed his eyes and felt once more for those skittering feet and tiny wings.
Anger. Hatred. Vengeance.
Ben snapped open his eyes and spun toward the source of the emotions he'd felt just as the blaster went off. Reflex took over and froze the bolt mere feet from his face. It sizzled in the air as he stepped out of its path.
"Murderer!" screamed the shooter.
Ben pushed the bolt into the ground to dissipate harmlessly and began to walk toward the hooded figure. Another bolt sprang at him, but he was better prepared and merely deflected it away with a gesture.
"Monster!" The voice was high pitched. He expected the would-be assassin to break and run, but instead they continued to fire.
Ben considered disabling the blaster, then decided to let whoever wanted to kill him vent as much of their anger as possible. Only when he got within ten feet did he stop deflecting blasts and simply jammed the safety into the on position with a wave of his hand.
Then he held the shooter in place. Surely someone either heard or saw the disturbance. He didn't have long.
"I understand," he assured the young person in the hood. "Who did I kill that you loved?"
"My father was on Hosnian Prime when you blew it up," came the savage reply. Ben peered into the hood to see the shooter's amber eyes and speckled green skin.
"I can't tell you how sorry I am for that," Ben said. "But killing me here, now, is not the answer. My death won't bring him back. It will only make things so much harder for you." He reached into the young being's mind lightly. "Harder for your mother and your sister. They need you with them, not in prison."
"Rey," he called as he took the blaster from the young female's frozen fingers. "I need you to dispose of this. Quickly. Can you?"
Rey appeared before him. "Where did you get that?" she asked suspiciously, her voice taking on the odd echoing quality of their Force connection. She reached out her hand, and he passed over the blaster.
"I'm in front of the council building having a conversation," he replied silently. "Get rid of that thing and join me."
"You killed him," his would-be assassin hissed, unaware that he'd spoken to Rey.
"So you kill me. That makes you a murderer too. Are you a murderer-" he reached for a name "-Selra? Are you a murderer too?"
"How do you know my name?" she asked, suddenly frightened instead of fierce.
"I know a lot about you now," Ben commented lightly. He reached out to check her real motivations. Just how far gone was Selra on her path to violence? "I know how hard things have been for you since your father died. I know how alone you've felt, how grief-stricken your mother has been, how your little sister doesn't understand, and that you feel powerless to do anything about it."
Selra began to cry.
"Powerless people strike out in anger. I once had a teacher who taught me to give into that anger, to feed it and make more anger to fuel even more horrible acts of violence," Ben said gently. "That is the dark side. Feeding that darkness feels good for a little while but doesn't last. It leaves you empty and broken on the inside."
He released his hold on the girl and allowed her to take a seat on the steps. He sat down beside her. "Selra, you have to choose. If you strike me down in anger, I will always be a part of you, inside you forever. It's much better that you let me go. I deserve to die for all the things I did when the darkness drove me. I earned every punishment that could be heaped on me. But I don't want it to cost you your spirit."
A pair of security guards rounded the corner of the building, weapons drawn. "What's going on here?" one demanded. "We got a report of blaster fire."
Ben shrugged. "I didn't hear anything. Did you, Selra?"
She looked up at him, disbelief evident on her face. Then she slowly shook her head.
"Stand up slowly. Put your hands on your head," the other demanded. Ben complied and allowed the officer to frisk him. "No weapons," he declared.
"Told you we didn't hear anything," Ben stated.
"Shut up, Ren. I don't know why you aren't under constant guard as it is," the first one snapped. "Where's that Jedi that's supposed to be watching you?"
Just then Rey came around the corner. "There you are. I see you found each other," she said brightly, giving Selra a big smile. "What seems to be wrong, officers?"
"Master Rey." They both gave her a head nod. "Is he in your charge?"
"He is," she declared. "And everything is perfectly fine here." Ben felt the weight in her words.
"Everything seems just fine here," the officers repeated. "Go about your business." The two men turned and walked away without a backward glance.
"Shame on you for fooling those poor men," he teased silently.
"You be quiet. Who was shooting at you? This poor thing?" Rey replied.
Once they were out of sight, Rey turned back to him and Selra. "Now, just exactly what is going on here?"
Ben opened his mouth to explain just as the remaining adrenaline faded from his system. The world spun around him and his knees buckled as he fought the urge to pass out, suddenly utterly exhausted.
"Oh no you don't, Ben Solo," Rey reached for him both with her hands and the Force, cushioning his fall so that he sat on the ground instead of collapsing. "How many bolts did you catch?" she demanded.
"Maybe five?" he guessed as he put his head in his hands, trying to will away the blackspots that threatened to take over his vision.
"Can I go?" Selra asked anxiously.
"I don't think we need to turn you loose on the world right now," Rey stated firmly.
Ben opened his mouth to defend her, but Rey shushed him. "I agree with second chances in principle, but Selra here has some significant issues that have to be put to rest. She tried to kill you, Ben."
"I'm so sorry," the girl said softly.
"It's okay. I know you are," he assured her and reached out his hand. She took it and practically fell into his arms sobbing.
"It's just...I can't...There's nothing…" she stammered brokenly between breaths. "It's so hard. It's been so awful. I just wanted that awful to go away."
Ben held the girl and patted her back. "I know. We're going to get you some help."
Eventually, he recovered enough to stand up again, Selra helping Rey pull him to his feet. Rey took her name and contact. "Go home. No more blasters. We'll check in with you tomorrow and make sure you and your family get the help they need, okay?" Rey assured her.
Then she gave Ben a sidelong glance. "Are you sure she's safe to release? I mean attempted murder, Ben. Your attempted murder. I'm not okay with that."
Ben smiled at her. "I'm pretty good at getting information from people. She's not a danger for now. But someone does need to follow up to be sure she stays that way."
"We'll see you tomorrow, Selra," Ben promised. "You behave yourself."
"Yes, sir," she replied. Then she looked up at him again. "Thank you for not letting me kill you."
"You're welcome, kid." Ben stood with his arm over Rey's shoulders as Selra disappeared around the corner of the building.
"How did she manage to get a blaster and sneak this far into the secure area with it?" Rey asked incredulously.
"Force-sensitive," Ben replied. "Turned the wrong way, that one could become a deadly assassin. We've got to be sure she gets turned the right way."
"Jedi training," Rey stated with a sigh. "The galaxy needs the Jedi."
Ben sighed. "Jedi training has its good points," he conceded as they made their way back to what he hoped was their shared quarters.
By the time they got there, he was out of energy again. Rey helped him to bed. His eyes closed before his head hit the pillow, but he kept hold of her hand. "Stay."
He felt her lie down next to him. She wrapped her arm over his chest. "Always," she replied softly.
He slept.
-0-
After three more days of questioning, to his deep surprise instead of throwing him in prison the council released Ben back into the custody of the Resistance, now called the New Republic militia. Also, to his relief he no longer felt like a walking zombie. When he met Rey outside the council chambers, she was beaming.
"That's it! We're free!" she threw her arms around him excitedly.
"Not exactly," he reminded her. "I'm still technically a prisoner of the militia."
"I think the generals in charge will be happy to turn you over to my custody," she teased.
He took her hand and together they walked back. Maybe it was the relief that the days of exhausting interrogation were over. Maybe it was that his strength had finally come back. All he knew was that for the first time since he'd woken up on Chandrila, he didn't want to just collapse in exhaustion the minute he got back to the room.
However the closer they got, the more nervous he grew. He never dreamed he'd be where he was. He'd never allowed himself to hope that somehow she'd be able to cross back over to him. He'd never imagined the possibility of a life at all, much less a life with her.
She'd stayed with him each night. She'd slept next to him. She'd eaten breakfast with him. She'd bathed and dressed in the same rooms with him. But there had not been anything else between them. He wasn't sure if there should be, if she wanted there to be.
Now on the way back to dinner and an actual evening together at last, Ben was very nervous indeed.
They made small talk about their plans for a Force training academy-Ben couldn't bring himself to apply the word Jedi to himself, for all that Rey most certainly was. Selra was already enrolled as a student, Rey having begun her training the next day while Ben was with the council.
He was excited about the future-their future-and basked in the glow of Rey's light as she enthusiastically planned their next steps over dinner. She'd already laid claim with Poe to a building on Ajan Kloss.
"It has room enough to house twenty students," she stated enthusiastically. "And a smaller house for us."
"For us," he repeated.
"It's not very big, just four rooms, but that will be a palace for me," she declared. "I lived in an AT-AT. Just being able to eat in a room that is not the bedroom will be glorious."
"So how many bedrooms does it have?" he asked nonchalantly.
"Just the one. So any guests will have to stay in the main hall with the students," she replied between bites of dessert.
He must have broadcast something because she suddenly speared him with a look. "What?" she asked. "Is there something wrong with Ajan Kloss?"
"No. Sounds perfect."
"The building?"
He shook his head.
"The house?"
He couldn't answer her. Instead he ran his finger over the back of her hand, allowing her to feel the conflict inside him.
"You're worried about us." She sounded mystified. "About what we are together."
He nodded, still unable to speak.
She got up from the table, still holding his hand. "Come sit with me." She pulled him over to the small sofa and sat next to him. "When I came through the barrier back to you on Ahch-to, I knew what I was doing. And when the first thing you did was collapse on me, I have never been so scared."
She blinked back tears as her memory flashed into him through the link.
She knelt over him weeping. "Don't you die on me, Ben Solo. Not now. Not ever. You stay with me."
He understood the pain in her voice. He'd felt it on Exegol. He'd felt it on Nera—that sense of devastating loss each time he'd been forced to let her go.
"It's my fault you're here and not on Ajan Kloss now," she admitted. "You were completely unresponsive and I was pretty much hysterical about it. So Rose and the guys decided you needed the medical facilities here." She closed her eyes for a second and took a breath. "I couldn't feel you, Ben. For the first time since Exegol, I couldn't feel you in the Force. I was terrified that I'd come back to you only to lose you."
She gripped his hand tighter. "Then you came back to me. I could feel you there, just very deeply asleep. Rose thought you'd died when she came in and found me crying again over you," she laughed and her tone was self-deprecating, but she wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye and sniffed. "I don't really remember anything but this huge relief."
"Basically, I had a few days in the medical unit before you woke up to think about things. And I had a taste of what it must have been like for you all that time after—" she paused "—after I left you on Exegol. We belong together. We always have. Even when I thought I hated you, I needed you," she declared.
She leaned against his shoulder and wrapped his arm and hand in both of hers, but avoided eye contact with him as she continued, "Then I got to dream with you. It was wonderful. We went so many places. We…did so many things." A faint blush crept over her cheeks. "I got to know you, really know you. It's why I had to come back. It wasn't fair to you. You kept telling me you don't remember your dreams."
"I don't," he slipped his hand over her knee.
"But I do. I know how you feel about us. About me." She looked up at him. "I love you too, Ben," she whispered and reached up to place her hand on his cheek.
Their lips met once, gently, as if the two of them were testing the waters. Then a second time. By the third, they'd both surrendered all restraint, desperately seeking even more contact, hands pulling away clothing, never losing touch with one another until they'd made it to the bed tangled in one another's embrace.
They lay there, skin to skin, suddenly quiet in the depth of their connection.
The light of the Force suffused into him. He felt peace. Belonging. Wholeness. For the first time in his life, he didn't feel broken.
But their connection was always about balance—her light to his dark, her dark to his light—and the passion he saw in her eyes belonged to the best kind of darkness.
