The next morning they were awakened by a knock at the door. Ben rolled out of bed and quickly pulled on some clothing. Rey sat up, the sheet falling away from her shoulders. She stretched innocently, but the sight of her sleep-tumbled hair falling over her breasts made him catch his breath.
The knock sounded again. He ran his hands through his hair and opened the door only a few inches.
"You don't answer your communicator anymore?" Poe asked. "We've been calling for the past hour. Rey said you were done here."
"Is that Poe?" Rey called from the bedroom. Ben turned to see her standing behind him, somehow completely dressed, her hair twisted up into a bun. "Sorry. I guess I turned it on silent during the meetings yesterday and forgot to change it."
"Well, we're here. You guys ready to go?" Poe asked, glancing back and forth between the two of them, a slight frown on his face.
"Sure," Rey said casually. "I need to go retrieve our lightsabers from security. I'll be right back."
Ben watched her stroll away, dumbfounded, his attention returning only when Poe cleared his throat.
He gave Ben a scathing look that said he knew exactly what was going on, no matter how nonchalant Rey had been. "Get your ass ready to travel, Ren. And so help me, if you hurt her, I will destroy you," he growled.
Ben towered a good six inches over Poe and outweighed him by 40 pounds. Kylo Ren could quite easily throw the pilot across the compound with a gesture. But for just an instant in the face of Poe's unwavering disapproval, Ben forgot completely that he had ever been Kylo Ren as he blushed to the roots of his hair.
He nodded and closed the door, then let out a whoosh of breath. He threw on clean clothes and tossed their few odd belongings into the bag Rey had brought, all the while cursing under his breath that he couldn't just put on a new mask.
Once he'd finished packing, he stood bag in hand and meditated for a moment, breathing and pulling up a wall between himself and the world, a wall he hadn't needed on Finalizer or on Kef Bir or even on Ahch-to. But somehow now that his job was done, now that all he had to do was live, he felt like a crab turned out of its shell. He had no role, no place, no purpose, no destiny. He felt exposed and vulnerable.
He opened the door to see Rey returning, Leia's lightsaber on her belt and his in her hand. She held it out to him, but he saw Poe step forward.
"Not yet." Poe glanced around. "Not here."
"Keep it for now," Ben instructed, though the crystal called to him with a new voice and all he wanted to do was hold it and let that changed energy synchronize with his.
Rey's eyebrows crinkled as she glanced back and forth between him and Poe. "For now," she finally agreed. "Just for now."
He nodded and shouldered the strap of the bag as they made their way to the Falcon.
The trip from Chandrila to Ajan Kloss was quiet. Rey displaced Finn as co-pilot to Finn's very evident relief. Ben didn't even go inside the cockpit. Instead he spent most of his time sitting at the game table in the lounge, trying not to remember Chewie teaching him to play.
"What are you doing out here?" Rey asked as she came and sat with him once they'd jumped to lightspeed.
"Too many memories in there," he replied, hooking his thumb back over his shoulder in the direction of the cockpit.
She nodded. "Poe told me that he threatened to kill you," she commented casually.
"He has plenty of reasons to do so," Ben said with a sigh. "But he'll have to get in line. I promised Chewie he could beat me to death first."
Rey laughed. He hadn't thought it was funny, but hearing her laugh brought a smile to his face. She spent the rest of the trip telling him all about the settlement at Ajan Kloss. "You'll like it. I know you will," she assured him repeatedly.
After a few hours in the major hyperspace lanes, the ship landed in the midst of a lush, beautiful jungle. Ben followed Rey down the ramp and into the settlement. As they walked past the various buildings, he became very aware of every eye that followed them, suddenly extremely conscious of his height and the fact that he'd unconsciously put on solid black when he dressed.
He looked like a damned Sith, he decided as a war broke out inside him. One part just wanted to duck and hide; the other wanted to surround himself with an intimidating cloud of dark Force energy.
Neither was an option. Instead he held his head high and walked quietly with Rey.
By the time they reached the new training compound on the outskirts of the settlement, the heat had begun to soak uncomfortably into his black clothing. "I need to change," he said. "Do I have anything else to wear?"
"You should. We brought everything from Ahch-to with us," she said. "Why?"
"For one, it is insanely hot here. For another, I feel like a walking holo-ad for the dark side. I just spent the past several days confessing to every single thing I did with the First Order. I don't need to remind everybody I see just who has shown up to live with them." He paused as they met a group on the path just outside the gate.
"Wow! Rey!" a young blonde woman squealed as she ran up to them. "I can't believe you're back! You look so good!"
Ben watched as Rey gave her a big hug and smile. "Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated," she said with a smile and a shake of her head. "I'd have never made it out of there without Ben though." Rey hooked her elbow through his.
"This is Ben?" the young woman's eyebrows raised. "I didn't expect you to be so tall."
Ben had no response to this statement.
"I mean when they all said that Han and Leia's son had been found with you on Exegol after being missing for so long, I just kept imagining somebody much younger," the blonde woman laughed. "Anyway we are so glad to have both of you home! If you need anything just let us know."
Rey made a quick round of introductions that Ben promptly forgot, still completely stunned by the cover story that had apparently been circulating. The group passed on their way, Ben still speechless.
"So I was trapped on Exegol for seven years?" he finally asked. "I'm not Kylo Ren?"
She gave him a hard look. "Do you think for an instant Han and Leia went around telling the world that their missing son Ben had become Kylo Ren? Only the people closest to them had any idea. And you've already made peace with most of them."
Ben's entire worldview shifted. "Snoke told me…" he began.
"They all know what you've done. You killed Luke Skywalker. You destroyed the temple and killed everyone in it. Do you think for an instant they will forgive you for that?" Snoke sneered at his weakness. "Leia Organa, daughter of Vader and mother of Kylo Ren! What delicious gossip for the Republic to devour! As if you could ever return?" His laugh echoed around the chamber. An unseen hand slammed Ben painfully onto the floor and pressed him against the hard stone so that he could not breathe. "You belong to me now," Snoke hissed.
Rey touched him on the shoulder. "That's the house," she said gently, pointing ahead to a small, low structure. "I asked them to put clothes and food in there. Change and I'll show you the training course."
He nodded and went inside, barely noting the furnishings, Snoke's chambers still vivid in his mind. He found the sleeping area and stripped out of the black, dressing instead in a light colored, sleeveless shirt and lightweight trousers tucked into his boots.
"That's a good look," Rey declared with a glint in her eye as he walked back outside into the sunshine. Then she held out his lightsaber.
Ben hesitated.
"It's okay," she assured him. "This is who you are."
He reached out and let his fingers wrap around the hilt. He just held it for a long moment, feeling the sleeping energy of the kyber crystal at its core. It was his. It was him. It was the same. It was different. He ignited the blade, his breath catching in his chest at the sight—dark, vibrant amethyst, 90% steady with only the occasional flicker from the flaw, the additional exhausts no longer needed.
He gave it a spin, feeling the surge of power as it swung through the air. He might need to keep an exhaust bleed, just to be certain it wouldn't overheat—nothing like before but still something to ease the pressure when the blade was put under strain.
"The course is that way." Rey pointed toward a narrow path that led into the undergrowth. "Run." She touched an interface she now wore on her forearm. A buzzing sound signaled the approach of a training droid. She smiled at him as if she knew some deep secret about him.
He just stared at her, unable to focus on the training droid until it zapped him in the shoulder blade.
"Ow!" His unconscious yelp made her smile even wider.
He parried the bolts the droid fired at him with only a small portion of his attention. The rest was centered on her.
"The course is that way," she repeated. "Now go! Run!" She made a shooing motion with her hands so he did. He ran.
The path led into the forest, at first just straightforwardly into the trees. He ran across the fallen leaves and soft dirt, a surface totally unlike the long halls of Finalizer. Life teemed around him—growth and light weaving through everything. The air filled his lungs with a freshness he never experienced on ship. When he encountered the first obstacle, a stack of fallen tree trunks, he misjudged the stability of the round logs and nearly turned an ankle before turning his tumble into a roll.
He brushed the dirt from his shoulder as he ran further down the path. The obstacles continued to be varied and challenging in a very organic way, forcing him to climb, jump, run, and dodge everything from swinging tree trunks to falling nets. He felt the presence of small animals watching curiously as he passed. The living Force flowed through him, empowering him and cleansing him of conflict and doubt.
An energy hung around the obstacles as well—mostly Rey's, but he also felt traces of his mother's presence in key locations. It felt both good and sad. Ahead he spotted a wide gap in the path, bridged only by a single narrow log. He debated running the log then decided not to trust it with his weight. Instead he picked up his pace and leaped the ravine into a three point landing, his breath heaving in his chest.
But before he could move, something artificial tweaked his senses. He stayed low as four training droids darted out of the trees, surrounding him. He breathed and focused, allowing the Force to flow through him to counter their attacks. The amethyst lightsaber felt so right in his hand, its energy strong and passionate. He lost himself in movement, grateful to use his blade in a place of peace rather than conflict. His usually savage, heavy fighting style grew more fluid and graceful as a sense of oneness came over him.
"Coming in," Rey yelled from the side, then slid beneath one of the floating spheres to join him, his mother's lightsaber in her hand. His dark amethyst flashed beside her lavender as the two of them easily fought off the darts of the droids.
"You made it not fun anymore," he complained.
"Oh, it's about to be fun," she declared. "Now, BB-8!"
The little orange and white unit whistled from the side of the clearing, and six more training units darted out from the trees, weaving and attacking in tight waves.
"You call this fun?" he teased. "I've fought ten by myself before."
"Why?" she sounded horrified.
"I was in a bad place," he answered as the droids sent a curtain of bolts raining down.
A dart flashed through her hair as she spun. "I believe it. This is crazy." Despite her words, she wasn't even breathing hard.
She slid her free hand around his hip for guidance as she ducked low to swing her blade inside the nearest droid's close contact field, causing it to deactivate and drop to the ground. She parried a dart from overhead, then thrust the point of her lightsaber into the attacking droid's cutoff range, so that it dropped as well.
"Oh, are we deactivating them?" he asked with a smile.
"What else would we do?" she asked curiously.
"I cut mine apart," he admitted as he circled around her to catch a trio of bolts heading for her side.
"That's wasteful," she declared. "We don't have an endless supply of these."
"True. But I had a lot of issues to work out," he explained, putting a hand on her shoulder as he closed in to keep a pair of droids from separating them. If they got separated, it would be much harder to defend themselves.
Suddenly he was back in Snoke's throne room, fighting side by side with her against the praetorian guard. He remembered her fury against the red-garbed troopers. He'd been nearly choked to death that day because he couldn't stop watching her. She was fierce and beautiful, and he'd never wanted anything as much as he wanted her.
"I should have touched you that day," he said, his attention so deep into his memory that he almost missed a low parry and took a bit of static to his knee. "I should have touched you and let you turn me."
"Finish deactivating these droids and I'll let you touch me now," she responded, running her free hand around his hip again.
He reached out and with a single clenching motion, channeled the Force to press the deactivation button on each of the remaining droids at once. They dropped to the grass with a series of thuds.
"Ben!" she laughed as she extinguished her weapon. "That's not what I meant."
"I don't care what you meant. I only heard what you said," he teased as he ran his fingers into her hair and bent to kiss her neck and shoulder. When she gasped in pleasure, he pulled her even closer, his other hand at her hip. He leaned into the bond between them so he could feel her spirit as well.
Her fingers twisted into his hair as she pulled him in for a deep kiss, but the physical sensations of her touch paled in comparison to the intensity of her emotions. Her desire circled around and through him-a deep need to be with him, to belong to him, to own him in return, to have his name, to claim his family as her own, to make a family with him. For the first time, he understood that she wasn't just bound to him. She truly loved him.
He pulled back and looked into her eyes. "Are you sure?" he asked. "I don't know who I am or what I'm doing." He was still a black hole of need, desperate to keep her close to him, to cling to her presence. She deserved so much more than a drowning man.
"I don't know what I'm doing either," she assured him. "I'm supposed to be a Jedi Master with only a few months of training and a set of books I haven't finished reading." She put her hand on his cheek. "So much has happened in such a short time. I've only been back with you for a few days. It's okay now. We'll pull it all together. Just give it time."
"Don't let me drown you," he said softly. "I promise I'm going to get better."
"I know," she assured him, then hooked her arm in his and asked BB-8 to reactivate the training droids and send them back to the building they'd decided to use as a school. "So how are we going to find students?" she asked him as they wound their way back through the jungle.
"How long did it take you to realize Finn was Force-sensitive?" he asked.
"A while," she admitted.
"Really? I am surprised. I could sense something about him on Starkiller for sure. Maybe sooner," Ben stated, then immediately regretted bringing it up.
They picked their way over a large fallen tree. "In my defense, I didn't know I was Force-sensitive. Not until you." Rey shot him a mock-dirty look.
He wanted to flirt back at her, then realized what she was talking about. Interrogation. Then he remembered that he'd also pretty much tortured Poe nearly to death. And tried to kill all of them at least a few times. Thank the Force he hadn't succeeded.
She poked him in the ribs, and he realized he was frowning. "Get your head out of the past, Solo. It won't do you or us or them any good. You know that." She squeezed his hand as they walked. "Meanwhile, they all like you now."
He couldn't help his huff of disbelief. "I don't like me. There's no reason in creation they should."
"Anyway," she deliberately led him back to the subject, "how do we find students?"
He took a different tack. "Can you tell now that Finn is Force-sensitive?"
"Yes. There's something like a ripple around him." She looked at him askance. "So we have to go around observing people for ripples in the Force? That might take a while."
"I believe there might be an easier way, especially with the two of us working together," he suggested. "Do you mind doing a little dual meditation?"
"You can do that?" she asked curiously. "I assumed meditation was a private thing."
They entered the compound of the soon-to-be school. "It usually is. But two people can meditate together to do certain things, like discover information or find things." Ben held open the courtyard door for BB-8, who beeped a thanks at him. He couldn't help but smile. "I think we can probably work together well enough to find people, maybe even across the galaxy."
Her eyes widened. "Have you done this before?"
"Yes. Dual meditation is usually done by a master and student. Generally to teach the student something about the Force," he explained.
"So you meditated with Luke?"
"And Snoke." The admission hurt. So had Snoke's lessons in the Force. He shrugged it away. "I think our connection might be strong enough to reveal potential students—probably the ones the Force wants drawn to it first."
The gathering room of the school was fairly sparse at the moment. There was only one large rug and a stack of floor pillows in one corner, enough to seat maybe seven people. On the entry table, Ben noticed a box and headed over to open it. A note labeled "Rey" lay on top so he stepped aside.
She opened it and read. "It's from Finn. He says these are my personal belongings. He and Rose made a run to Coruscant and they expect to be invited over for dinner when they get back. Poe wrote, 'Me too' on the bottom." She laughed. "Does this place even have a kitchen? Can you cook? I can only open rations."
He laughed. "Not really. I haven't had to cook for myself in a very long time."
She opened the top of the box and squealed, "The Jedi texts! And my bag! I thought it was lost on Exegol!"
Ben watched her pull out ancient book after ancient book, his eyes growing wider with each reveal. "Are those what I think they are?" He stepped forward and reached out a hand, then pulled it back. Those books weren't his to touch. "Luke looked for those forever. Let me guess. They were on Ahch-to."
"In a huge, ancient tree," she stated. "We need to find a very safe, very special place for them."
"I agree. They should have something to say about meditation techniques," he noted.
"Probably. I haven't been able to study them like I wanted," she said sadly. "They aren't very readable."
"That I understand. Try reading Sith texts sometime. They're fifty percent lunatic ravings, fifty percent evil ritual, and one hundred percent incomprehensible," he declared with a sigh.
"Why in creation were you reading Sith texts? You're no Sith." She gave him a hard look.
"You know why. Sith Holocrons. The map to Exegol." A sick headache began to grip his temples.
"Same thing here." She sighed. Then she took both his hands in hers. "No more Sith texts. Anything we need to know going forward, we hunt down in those," she nodded at the stack of old books. "Deal?"
"Deal." However, Ben had no intention of ever touching them. He was no Jedi. Rey would be the researcher going forward.
She turned her attention back to the box, pulling out her bag. "I can't believe they found this." She began to dig through it. She laughed when she pulled out the old Jakku ration pack. "See what I mean. I can only open rations! Why on earth would anyone keep this?"
"Because you had it," he replied.
Rey's eyes pierced him. "You. You took it from Exegol. From Luke's ship. After I…"
He suddenly remembered something, and he used that memory as an excuse to evade her gaze. He wasn't quite sure he could handle revisiting that day with her. Not yet. "I'll be right back," he declared.
He ran to their house and found the trunk from Ahch-to. He knelt in front of it and opened it. The item he was looking for lay carefully packed in between the blankets, put to bed almost.
He took it out and held it for a moment. "Time to go home," he whispered.
Rey was placing the Jedi texts onto a bookshelf she'd dragged in from another room. Her eyes softened when she saw the little doll in his hand. "I wondered where that had gotten off to," she said softly. "She went everywhere with me. My only friend."
"After Exegol, she went everywhere with me." Ben handed it over. "I gave everything else back to your friends, but I could still feel you in her."
"Really?" she asked curiously and held the doll in her hands and closed her eyes. A moment passed. Then she said, "Ben, I feel you." He watched her commune with the little doll, growing more uncomfortable with each passing second. Grief clouded her face, a desperate unyielding grief. Tears began to flow from her eyes.
"Don't do that, please," he began as he reached out for her.
"Oh, Ben," she said with a sob. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea. I'm so sorry, Ben." She threw her arms around him and wept against his shoulder, wept for him, for his hurt, for his loss.
"It's okay," he assured her. "It's over. It's done. You're here. I'm here." He held her and comforted her until the storm ended.
NOTES:
I got to thinking that it was way more likely that Ben's identity as Kylo Ren would be a super well-kept secret. Nothing bad on Han and Leia but gee whiz, talk about put a serious negative on the whole Resistance general thing if everybody knows that your son turned out to be the top servant of the bad guy. Plus nobody else really seems to know about any connection between Leia and Kylo Ren, mostly just Rey and she's not talking to anybody.
So if only a select few know anything about it, it makes it so much easier to just tell another cover story to ease Ben back into society. Feel free to disagree! My feelings are not hurt one bit! But for me, the struggle Ben has inside himself to integrate is much more interesting than him trying to convince every single person in the Resistance that he's changed. The big dogs on the New Republic council are satisfied by his disintegration of the FO. In fact, I wouldn't have put it past Poe to try to insinuate that Ben was their spy all along, not Hux. I mean Hux is history. Why not use it? But since all this is from Ben's POV, he has no clue.
