After a moment, Ben pulled back to look Rey in the face. "There's so much I haven't told you," he began. "About me. About what made me." A sudden suspicion hit him. "Or have I? In a dream?"
"No," she assured him. "You haven't."
"So dream me just made passionate love to you which I cannot remember and failed to talk about all the difficult things so I don't have to?" Ben surmised. She nodded with a sly grin. "That sounds like me. I think I hate him."
She laughed and tucked her arm in his as they walked back toward the main rooms. "You've made passionate love to me too," she stated, giving his arm a hug.
"I'm sure dream me is better than real me though," Ben said with a laugh. "I always was much better at theory than at practice."
"Not a chance. Dream you was just a dream—for both of us." She stopped and turned him to face her. "This—" she grabbed the front of his tunic and pulled him in for a kiss that ignited his body and his spirit, "-is real. I wouldn't trade it for all the dreams in the world. I crossed a metaphysical boundary in time and space for this. For you."
Ahead he could hear Rose and Poe discussing where to set up sleeping mats for the evening.
He took her hand, and in unspoken agreement, they ran deeper into the structure.
"This way," she whispered, tugging him toward a small door. She opened it slowly and a wave of cool dampness poured out of the room. An overgrown garden filled the interior, lit by a number of passive lights, the irrigation system still functioning. Everything was green and cool and lush—nothing like the desert surface of the planet.
Ben reached out with his senses to check for any other signs of life in the chamber. He felt nothing but her. But what he felt from her made the blood rush from his head to other parts of his anatomy.
She reached out her hand and Force-pushed the door closed, locking it in the process, a look in her eyes of wild, feral, untamed passion. In seconds he had her picked up and pressed against a wall of green vines, her legs wrapped around his waist. She tangled her fingers in his hair as he kissed her lips, her neck, her shoulder, pushing aside her tunic to cup her breast in his hand. She gasped as he took the hardened peak into his mouth, caressing it with his tongue. Her hand clenched in his hair and twisted in the back of his tunic.
He knew what he wanted. So he set her down again and knelt in front of her, pulling at her clothing. She shivered as he began to explore her skin with his lips, his hands, his tongue. He watched her face, listened to her breath, felt her pulse against his mouth. Then he focused his attention on one goal—to make her cry out his name in ecstasy.
He succeeded.
She clung to him, her knees trembling, as he brought her over the edge again and again, her breath coming in pants and cries. The energy between them rippled through the room. At last she sank to the floor against him, utterly spent. He pulled her into his lap and held her, enjoying the little shivers that still ran through her body.
"Thank you," he said softly as he rubbed the chill from her back and arms.
"Why are you thanking me?" she asked, snuggling closer into his embrace.
"You saw me. You believed in me. You came back to me." He held her tight against him. "You pushed past all my awfulness until you found the part of me that was really me. Saying I love you isn't enough."
"But you can still say it if you want to," she stated in a leading tone as she ran her fingers over his arm.
"I want you to marry me. Solo is a made up name, but I'm proud to have it. I want you to have it too. I already belong to you. I want you to belong to me." Ben said, his eyes never leaving her face. "Will you?" he remembered to ask. "I love you," he added for good measure even though it didn't convey anywhere near enough about how he felt.
"I know how you feel," she answered through the bond, her energy warm and enveloping. "Yes," she said aloud with a huge smile. "So when? Where?"
Ben kissed her to seal the promise and helped her to her feet. Then he was completely distracted by watching her put her clothing back into place. Once that was done, he answered. "I want it recognized by the Republic. Completely official. I guess Jakku's identity base is part of their grid. If not, we could probably request an off-system transfer of your ID."
He felt the dismay run through Rey even before the crestfallen expression registered on her face. "I don't have an ID. I was an illegally traded slave. Jakku's government doesn't know I exist," she replied.
"But you do exist," Ben said. "And we know who your family is. We just need to reconnect you to their records."
"Are you crazy?" She shook her head at him. "You're saying I need to reclaim Palpatine? Just imagine the issues people would have with their Jedi academy officially being run by Palpatine's granddaughter."
"And Kylo Ren," he added for good measure. "We are quite a pair. No one will come if they know."
"So they better not know," she sighed. Tears suddenly filled her eyes. "I'm better off to just stay a nobody."
He was taken aback by the depth of the hurt inside her, and he vividly recalled how he'd tried to use that against her in Snoke's throne room on Supremacy. "You come from nothing. You're nothing," his words echoed painfully in his memory. He'd never meant any words more sincerely than his next words. "But not to me." However, that was not enough.
He gripped her arms. "No. You're not nobody, Rey. Your parents loved you. They died to protect you. They were somebody—and not just because of Palpatine. You've got family out there- your mother and other grandparents. We'll find them. We'll find out who they are, I promise you."
She nodded. "But I still want to marry you," she said firmly. "I want to be Rey Solo."
"You will." He had never meant any words more sincerely. Again.
-0-
They spent the next three days surveying and meditating. On the fourth, they delved into a cavern system off what the locals called Beggar's Canyon and found a vein of kyberite that felt very familiar to Ben. He closed his eyes and communed a moment with his own crystal. "Yes. This is it," he declared in excitement.
The group split into two. Ben wanted to stay with Rey, but something told him he needed to go with Finn instead. So he and Finn headed deeper into the cavern system as Rey and Rose surveyed the other direction. Poe stayed at the front to keep his eye on the speeder.
"I've seen too many crawler tracks around here," the pilot declared. "It's not a good idea to leave anything unguarded. We'd come back and find nothing but scrap metal and grease stains if jawas got hold of it."
"How do you know when you find it?" Finn asked as they crept through the cavern, their lights bouncing off the iridescent veins of multicolored crystal that streaked the walls and ceiling of the passage.
Ben thought for a moment. "You just do." He paused and ran his finger over the vein beside them. "This isn't pure crystal. Not yet. Keep listening though. I feel like we're close."
"Listening?" Finn asked curiously. "Not looking?"
"It will sing to you when you get close enough. It is a living growing thing in the Force. Your spirit will hear it before your eyes see it," Ben said. "At least that's how it happened with me."
They traversed a shallow underground stream and crossed an old rockfall. "I've never been this deep underground before," Finn stated, a little anxiously.
"Okay. Stop here." Ben pointed to a wider spot in the cavern. "Sit."
Finn looked at him curiously, then sat down. Ben sat across from him and turned off his light. "Turn it off." He pointed to Finn's.
"It's really dark in here," Finn replied hesitantly.
"I know. Turn it off."
Finn's light went out. The darkness was absolute. Ben could hear Finn's breathing rate increase. "Now. Breathe with me. In. Out. In. Out," Ben instructed. He felt Finn begin to calm down. "Good. You don't need your eyes. Your vision will just trick you. Reach out with your feelings. Feel the Force around you, running through you."
Ben could feel the quiver in the air as the Force swirled around them. "Now listen."
A moment passed. Another. Then Finn rose and began to walk in the pitch darkness. Ben followed at a distance, using the Force to guide him, sensing the energy of the kyberite begin to coalesce. It was beautiful. He kept one hand on the hilt of his lightsaber, feeling it respond to the energy surrounding them—almost as if it was speaking to the cavern.
Ahead, Finn stopped. "It hear it," he said. "It feels warm."
Ben turned on the light to reveal the former trooper with his hand outstretched against the wall, a look of complete wonder on his face. Ben smiled excitedly and brought over some tools. Carefully, he helped Finn release the crystal from the wall, a pale white, very regular oblong stone about four centimeters long. Then he took several steps back as Finn cradled it in his hands.
After a long moment of reflection, Finn spoke. "It's me. It's the me I never knew. And it knows me too." Ben felt like a proud parent.
The Force surged behind him, and he turned to see Rey, her face filled with the same glow. "I found it, Ben." He stepped closer.
"You did." He felt her joy as he looked into her hands. Her crystal pulsed once in his consciousness as if greeting him. "I knew you would." Then he kissed her. The physical distance between them went to nothing as their lips met, as if they were standing side by side, not a mile apart. "See you at the entrance," he whispered. She nodded with a bright yet teary smile and was gone.
"Was that Rey?" Finn asked. "Was she talking to you?"
"Yes. Could you see her?" Ben replied curiously.
"No. But I could sense her somehow. Weird," Finn stated, shaking his head. "I just feel like my connection to the Force has grown. Like I can focus or something."
"It has. That's why we had to make this trip," Ben said as they began to pick their way back to the entrance. "Like I said, a Jedi's lightsaber is more than a weapon. It's more than a tool."
Finn asked a world of questions about construction, which Ben gladly answered. He found himself very much looking forward to assisting in the build.
"Hey, where are you guys?" Poe's voice crackled over the commlink. "We've got company out here."
"Nearly there," he heard Rose respond.
He checked distance with the Force but Finn answered first. "We're still a ways out."
Ben raised an eyebrow. "You're getting good," he assured Finn. Then he felt for Rey. "How close are you to Poe's position?"
"Not far." There was a pause. "Ben, I hear shots."
"Get there as fast as you can. We're on our way." He turned to Finn. "We need to run." Their handheld lights barely kept up the pace of illuminating the hazards ahead as they sped to the entrance.
"Poe?" Finn called. "What's going on?"
Ben heard the ricochets of blaster fire over the commlink. "They've kind of got us pinned down," Poe replied. "They just showed up out of nowhere. I don't think they like strangers."
"Leave the link open," Ben called as they ran. Then he felt ahead for Rey. Not far now.
"Thermal detonator!" Rose shouted.
"Son of a bitch!" Poe exclaimed.
Ben's heart leaped. Then he felt Rey's manipulation of the Force and heard her. "I threw it back at them." He felt the ground vibrate ahead of them. Dust filtered down from the ceiling. They were maybe one hundred meters from the entrance now.
Another explosion vibrated the walls. "Damn it," Poe cursed. "They're throwing them above us where we can't see. Trying to collapse the cave."
Ben felt another explosion and another. Nearly there. He could see daylight ahead. Then the ceiling began to collapse. Instinctively, he used the Force to push Finn forward out of the rockfall, then concentrated on keeping the tons of material from landing on him.
"Ben!" he both heard and felt Rey scream his name. The entire mountain felt like it was coming down on him. He was out of time. He dropped to the floor and made himself as compact as possible, then pushed an envelope around him as hard as he could. Darkness descended, darkness and dust, and a rumble so loud he couldn't hear himself think.
Rocks fell around him, heavy and thunderous, piling on top of the dome of Force he called around himself. Somehow it held, even with the weight of the mountainside on it. But he had no idea for how long. He tried to get a sense of the way they'd stacked. Would they hold up as a makeshift cavern if he let go? Or were they loose enough to just fall on top of him, crushing him instantly? He couldn't tell one way or the other. All he knew was that the pressure was incredible. However, his primary regret was that the clearest path to that vein of crystals was gone.
The commlink crackled. "Ben! Can you hear me?" Rey called.
"I'm here, but I can't get out," he replied. "There is a lot of rock hanging over my head."
"I'll get to you," she assured him. He had no doubts of that.
He breathed and concentrated on holding up the landfall, coughing a little in the dust that still surrounded him in his little space. "Did Finn make it through?"
"I'm here," Finn replied with a grunt of pain. "Barely."
"Are you hurt? Rey can take care of you," Ben assured him.
"Not until I get you out of there," Rey stated. He felt her begin to shift the rocks between them.
"Look out!" Rose shouted as the ground began to quake again.
"Pull Finn out of here! Now!" Poe ordered.
The mountain shuddered convulsively as another layer collapsed. His little bubble of dome shrank around him with the additional rockfall that he struggled to hold back.
"Are you guys okay?" he shouted into the link, but only got static for a response. "Rey?"
He reached for her. Nothing. His heart pounded in anxiety.
"Rey, talk to me!"
A sleepy presence on the edges of his mind.
"Rey!"
A mountain hung overhead.
His energy began to wane with the effort of holding back the avalanche of rock that threatened to crush him.
"Rey!" He could feel her, but she was silent. Maybe unconscious? he thought.
"Finn!" he called into the Force, hoping Finn was conscious and strong enough to hear him. "Are you there? Are you guys okay?"
Faintly, so faintly, he heard a reply. "Ben? Is that you?"
"Talk to me, Finn! Are you guys okay?"
"We got hammered. Everyone's alive. Poe's hurt but conscious. Rey's out but breathing. Rose is checking on her. Are you okay?" Finn sounded exhausted and in agony.
"Yeah. I'm fine," Ben lied, feeling the weight of the world pressing against him. "Tell me again Rey is okay."
"Rose says she's breathing steady and her heartbeat is good. She took a bad blow to the head though," Finn answered after a pause. "I'm getting really tired, Ben. I don't know if I can keep talking like this."
"It's okay, Finn. I'll keep trying to wake Rey." Ben began to feel the first twinges of fear—for Rey, for his friends, for himself. He was running out of resources there in the pitch blackness. At least he couldn't see how far away the rockfall was, he decided. But like an idiot, he reached up instead. His fingers met rock only a few inches above him.
"Rey!" he called. "Please wake up!" He sent some energy her direction, only to feel his hold on the earth above him slip just a little. "I don't want to leave you like this. Not like this." The rough surfaces of the rock faces began to brush his forehead and shoulder. He wondered if he should just throw whatever energy he had left into Rey and let the rocks fall. His other choice was to be slowly crushed to death as he ran out of strength.
"Ben?" She was there, lying on the ground beside him. Even in the dark he could see her, his vision not physical but spiritual.
"Hey. I'm here. It's okay," he replied softly. She was so weak, but she was there. "I love you. You know that, right? You know I love you."
She reached out her hand to him. "Take my hand," she whispered.
His shoulder began to ache from the pressure against him and he barely had room to move, but somehow he managed to touch her fingertips. He felt her-just like he had that day on Supremacy while she was on Ahch-to, the day he saw her parents, the day he saw them fighting together side by side. He felt her warm, hope-filled presence, so much light inside her. He glimpsed her future—bright and fruitful, so many good days and good things, so much happiness. He saw her baby yawning sleepily up at him, a head full of dark hair.
She smiled at him. "We'll name him Han," she whispered. "Join me."
He inched his fingertips up her hand, to her wrist, to her elbow, to her shoulder and with the last of his energy threw himself to her out of the darkness and into the light of the dusty cave, rolling over her body as lightly as possible, but feeling as if he'd fallen from the top of the mountain to her side.
Rose gasped, but Rey just smiled at him. He lay there, panting with relief and exertion, his hand in hers. "I didn't know we could do that," he said at last. Rey nodded, then winced. "How is she really?" he asked Rose. "How are you? How is everybody?"
"Everyone is okay for now, but not going anywhere," Rose answered. She had a huge bruise forming on the side of her face and cradled her elbow in her hand.
Rey could heal people. She'd healed him. Could he do it too? He laid his hand on Rey's forehead and gave her what he could.
"That's better," she said after a minute. "Save it for Poe and Finn. I'm okay."
"Have you got anything left?" he asked her.
She shook her head. "Not for a while. How about you?"
"Only a little. I was pretty much holding up a mountain there." A momentary flash of claustrophobia hit him, but he forced it away with a deep breath. That would have to be a nightmare for another day. "Let me see what I can do for them."
Poe looked like a bantha had trampled him. Blood ran down his face from a cut on his head and he sat against the wall, his eyes closed. Ben was glad to see that he was breathing. He knelt beside him and placed his hand on the pilot's shoulder.
"Where the hell did you come from?" Poe asked, blinking away the blood in his eyes.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Ben answered, tentatively trying to use the Force like Rey had. It was one thing to give her some energy. It was something completely different to try to heal someone. He tried to sense the same pathways his body recalled Rey using on Kef Bir. It was not easy. At last he felt something shift and Poe breathed a little easier. "Better?" he asked.
"Yeah. What did you do?" Poe looked at him curiously.
"Something Rey does. I'm not good at it though." He rose and went to Finn.
"You hanging in there okay?" Ben asked.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Finn retorted. "Pushing me out of the way instead of yourself. You idiot. You could have died in there. You nearly did."
"That's the thanks I get for saving your life," Ben commented with a laugh. "What in creation makes you think my life is worth more than yours?"
Finn gave him a very hard look. "I'm a nameless trooper. No family. No huge Force powers. No big destiny to fulfill. I mean you should have at least thought of Rey."
Finn was wrong and he told him so. "You aren't a nameless trooper. Your name is Finn. You have a family. Us. You've got Force powers of your own and a great destiny ahead of you. But you're right about Rey. I never want her to feel the way I did without her."
Ben placed a hand on Finn's shoulder and tried to help him heal some. His ankle was a mess. After a moment, Ben began to feel lightheaded so he sat back and breathed. "The truth is, I didn't think. I just acted."
Finn looked up at him, some of the pain wrinkles in his forehead easing a bit. "Ben, I am beginning to think you might be a good man. This worries me."
Ben laughed. "No chance. I'm still a tragic disaster." He hauled himself wearily to his feet and went back to where Rey sat up next to Rose. "I might have helped a little, but I really think you all need a med unit. Have we got any medpacks on the speeder?"
"I don't know if we still have a speeder," Rose replied. Rey still had her head in her hands.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked her.
"I'm exhausted and my head hurts," she answered. "But yeah, I'm okay."
He reached down to her cheek just to double check, sending his senses through her the best he could. Her energy was pretty much depleted from fighting off the raiders and keeping the rest of them alive, but he couldn't tell how bad the blow to her head had been. He gave her a little more of his life, aware that black spots kept floating into his vision as he did.
She grabbed his hand. "Stop that. You're no use to us unconscious, Ben. I'm fine. Just tired. Now go check on the speeder."
"You know why I have to keep checking," he stated softly. "Are you? Now? Or was that from someday in the future?"
She shrugged. "I'm not sure. But right this minute I am fine. Now rescue us, okay?"
He stood, wavering only a little before steadying himself again. He headed to the entrance, keeping a sharp eye out for trouble, his Force senses feeling numbed from overuse. A pair of very large banthas strolled aimlessly at the end of the valley, their riders nowhere to be seen. The speeder was still there and appeared untouched. He rummaged through the storage compartment and found a medpack, but someone had already cannibalized the bacta from it. Great.
It took several minutes, but he finally got the rest of the group loaded into the speeder and headed back to Mos Eisley. "Anybody leave anything behind at the Lars house that they absolutely have to have?" he asked.
"What about your great-grandmother's holodisk?" Rey asked.
"In my pocket. Have you and Finn got your crystals?"
At their affirmative, he announced they were leaving the camping gear behind for another day and heading straight back to Ajan Kloss to the medical facilities. "I won't feel good until there are med units crawling all over you guys, filling you with bacta," he announced, "somewhere less rusty-looking than Mos Eisley." He glanced around and added, "No offense, Granddad."
At the hangar a trio of droids popped up from their resting positions and assisted him in getting everyone on board. BB-8 chirped and rolled about anxiously, so Ben assisted Poe to the bunk in the back to give the droid plenty of room to fuss over him.
Rose was the most ambulatory, especially once he'd helped her get her arm in a sling, so he asked her to co-pilot. He slipped into the pilot's seat and began the pre-flight check as Rose requested departure clearance.
Guilt over being in his dad's place quickly gave way to necessity as he and Rose finished takeoff and started plotting the route back to Ajan Kloss. "How's the starboard thruster holding up?" he asked her.
"Looks good. That last repair Poe and I made seems to be holding together really well," she answered. "I just want to get everybody back to Ajan Kloss. I'm worried about them."
"Everybody's okay, Rose. We all made it out okay," he said gently.
She smiled back at him, but he could still see the worry in her eyes. "For now at least."
"Once we make the jump to lightspeed, I'll go check on everyone. I'll make sure everyone is hanging in there," he assured her.
"Thank you," she replied and let out a ragged sigh.
A few seconds later, the nav computer beeped a confirmation of the coordinates. Ben threw the hyperdrive into gear with a deep sense of relief, sending the stars shooting around them in a ballet of speed and light.
