**Last time on WO: Rey and Ben battled each other, and got hurt along the way. Things are looking pretty bleak for our favorite space couple.**

Ben heard voices and struggled to wake up. He was warm and comfortable, and it took him a few long moments to remember the events of the day before. He sat up and his head smashed into something hard and he was all the sudden covered in a sticky substance. His throat still hurt quite a bit but his arm was only a little achy.

He'd still been under the table that held the pools of bacta Rey's hands were submerged in. He arranged her hands gently in the liquid still in the bowls and looked her over. He felt sick when he focused too much on her hands, but the patches had healed her face. It looked just like she was sleeping naturally and he wished that her eyes would open and she would pull his face to hers and kiss him. But she didn't move, except for the rise and fall of her chest.

"We need to go Luke," he whispered, his voice seemingly unable to speak any louder. "I thought that after she woke up the first time we had a chance of getting her back, but then… Well, she could have killed me or I could have hurt her worse than I did. I couldn't bring myself to attack her full out. I was mostly just defending myself and trying to disarm her. I couldn't figure out how to make her sleep. But the sedatives and Mom's sleeping trick are only doing so much. The darkness is making her too strong. I just want her back."

"Your mom got in touch with Shara and Poe, they are going to meet us on Onderon in two standard days, which is about when I expect we'll arrive. We need to get stocks of meds, and Chewie is looking over the Falcon now, making some preemptive damage that will be easy enough to fix. We can say that Rey was our mechanic but she is unconscious so can't make the repairs we need. Is your lightsaber almost done?"

"Yes, I think that I can finish assembly on the way. But you can help me if I'm having trouble? I wouldn't ask and I want to do it on my own, but it's a special circumstance."

Luke nodded. "Meet you there in an hour?"

"Yeah. Mom can you stay with her? I need to go get my saber materials. I'll be back to carry her out."

"I can get a droid to wheel her out. You need to rest and heal as much as you can. We'll get her situated and get her meds," Leia said.

Ben wanted to argue, but once again, Leia had a point so he agreed. He felt bad letting someone else take care of Rey, but he also knew that his mom cared about her too. She was also the one with the most practice keeping her under. Ben hated to see her like that, Rey was so full of life and light normally. He kissed her forehead and left before he changed his mind. He walked to his room in a daze, knowing that he would have to get himself under control before they got to Onderon. So much was at stake and there was no room for mistakes. They didn't have a backup plan for releasing the hold the sith had over them, and he worried that it would take too long if they failed at this mission to figure out another way.

He gathered up his materials for his saber, and got some clothes for him and Rey. He hoped that they would be in and out pretty quickly, but you never knew if a plan would go sideways. They all wanted to only distract the Aki Aki, to avoid death at all costs. There were a lot of them and they had devoted their lives to protecting these types of artifacts at the temple. He had half a mind to just go to them and beg, but he didn't really think that would work. And if not, then everything else they were planning would be for nothing. He found himself staring blankly at the wall, and tried to shake himself out of it. He tried again to send healing to Rey but it felt like as futile an exercise as banging his head against the wall. He swallowed hard, forgetting for a minute that his throat wasn't right. He had avoided looking in the mirror. He knew that despite Luke's healing that it looked gruesome. His mom flinched, probably unaware, when she looked at him. She always tried to hide her emotional pain whenever he was injured. Leia was just more used to Ben's damage being self inflicted. So to see Rey's small handprints around his neck must be a shock. Ben had never injured himself there before either, so it had even more impact than something she'd seen before. He finally pushed himself to his feet, and set off to meet everyone at the Falcon.

Everyone was bleak when they got settled on the Falcon. Han and Chewie were in the cockpit, getting the ignition sequence ready and coordinates entered. Luke and Leia sat together at the table, looking over some Jedi texts. Ben settled Rey in his parent's quarters with a med droid hovering in the corner. Ben sat on the foot of the bed, surrounded by saber parts. Ben had been working on meditating with his crystal for months now, and he felt like it was almost complete. He was terrified that he would construct it and it would be red. He always tried to be calm, thinking about Rey, and the balance of the force. But with the sith being in his head for so long, he didn't know if that would cause it to be a reflection of the darkness within him. But there was no time to keep being afraid. If it was red, then it would still work and he would need a saber going into the temple, regardless of color.

His first priority before spending a lot of time with the meditation was to make sure that the emitter matrix was complete because the last thing he needed was for it to explode the first time he used it in combat. He resisted the urge to just have Luke look at it, instead he looked over his notes from the texts and made sure that they looked the same. Rey could tell him.

He also knew that hers would already be finished if she had any interest in making one. Luke had offered a crystal for her to use. Usually padawans went on their own journeys to find their own, but with Rey's health issues, that wasn't feasible. Rey would never tell him if she just wanted to find her own, if she wasn't ready because of her lack of official training or if she still didn't feel like she belonged at the academy, striving to be a Jedi. Ben tried not to pressure her about it. Though he really wanted to know if she was going to stay when they were able to take care of breaking the sith's hold over them. He would follow her anywhere, if she would have him. But she never would open up to him about her plans, and he always tried to hide that pain from her.

They had no luck at locating her parents so far, and he was inclined to think that the memory where they had died was the most accurate. Because if she wanted to go back to Jakku to wait, he thought that lifestyle might smother them both. He wanted more for her, and while he would love her no matter what, he also doubted that she would let him follow her if that was the path she took.

He cleared his mind, and focused again on the parts in front of him. He tinkered for a few hours, and he knew that it was complete besides the crystal. And his doubts about the matrix. But he'd compared his work to the drawing so many times it had started to look like a foreign language and he was sure that he was overthinking it. But it was something physical that he could do, instead of mediation and trying to focus his mind and pour himself and the essense of his force into the crystal. If he was being truthful he was also terrified that if he interacted with the force again while meditating that he would draw on the bond again and he would mess things up even more than they already were.

He'd been so intent that he hadn't really been paying much attention to time. His stomach growled and when he got up his back and arm ached from the position he'd been in, alternately watching Rey and working on his saber. He gave her a glance and her breathing was still shallow like she was deep under. The droid had given her meds not that long ago, Ben knew, even with his skewed sense of time.

He went out into the main hold and they were all huddled around the Dejarik table. Chewie was winning, like he always does. He would get defensive, but everyone knew that he cheated. They had never caught him, but the amount of times he kicked ass at the game suggested it wasn't all skill. Leia turned and smiled at him. "She's been calm, I haven't had to send as much calm to keep her under, but the med droid is also doing its job, if a bit too well."

Ben returned her smile and picked up a ration bar and flopped down at the table, surveying the game. If Han could manage to outmaneuver Chewie for a few turns, he had a chance to win. No likely, but a chance.

"Do you want my spot?" Leia offered, but Ben scoffed. She was the worst of the bunch. Sabbac, on the other hand, she could run you to the ground. Which is probably why Chewie didn't want to play that often with her. He was a sore loser.

"Any luck in there?" Luke asked.

"Yeah. The matrix is still giving me an issue, but I am pretty sure it's right and I am just overthinking it. I need to do some more mediation on my crystal and then I can power it up and see what happens."

"I'm sure that you might be overthinking the crystal as well. You've been fretting for quite a long time and you're not giving yourself enough credit."

Ben blushed at the compliment. He used to resent that Luke didn't give him as much praise and attention as the other padawans, but he also recognized that Luke was trying to be fair with their family connection and it was a hard balance. "Maybe," he whispered noncommittally. "I'm going to take a shower. Mom, you've got Rey?"

"Of course. I'll go check on her now," Leia said.

Ben couldn't help but ask. He knew that his mom was diligent with Rey, not only to protect her but the whole family. He sighed as he got in the shower. The hot water felt good on his bruised and taxed body and he just stood there for a while. He finally washed his hair and body and found some of the clothes he'd packed.

His hair was still dripping when he went in to join his mom and Rey. Leia had Rey on her side and was doing something to her hair. Leia didn't look very comfortable the way she was contorted, but she has a smile on her face, so Ben didn't comment. Ben often wondered if Leia ever wished for a daughter to share this kind of thing with.

However that line of thinking would snowball into other thoughts. He also didn't know if they avoided having another kid because he was so troubled as a kid. Being critical about it rather than emotional, he figured that he was unexpected and they never tried again because of their lifestyles. He tried to dismiss, especially lately, the nagging sensation that they would have done anything to have another child, anyone to replace him, but anytime he mentioned something like that to Rey, she pointed out that it was the sith trying to isolate him. Ben had no proof otherwise. Leia and Han loved him the best they could and he was always well taken care of.

Ben sat back at the edge of the bed and picked up his crystal. He'd moved the rest to the side table before he left to get food. He took a deep breath and stared at it, determined.

"Do you want to be alone?" Leia asked softly. "I can stay with her, or I can go back out."

Ben considered, biting on his lower lip. He wasn't sure he wanted to be alone, especially with how his last mediation went. "Will you stay?" he asked. "And Mom? If anything feels… off. Or if I hurt Rey… Put me under, please?"

Leia met Ben's eyes and hesitated. "Of course," she finally said. She hated to do that to anyone, much less her son, but things couldn't go wrong if the dark influenced him as well. They both might be compromised.

Leia was quiet as Ben crossed his legs, clutching the crustal in one hand. She tried to do anything but stare at him, because she didn't want to distract him. But it wasn't often that she got to see him with his guard down. He still looked tense and withdrawn, but some of the worry and strain melted away. She tried to find and compare his nose, his ears, fingers and the shape of his mouth to the little boy that clung to her and Han and wanted to do everything with them. He had grown so much and had been through more than his fair share of troubles in his short life. But he was strong, he had so much love to give, and she could see how he was towards Rey. Leia was so grateful they had found one another, current circumstances aside. Rey understood him and accepted every part of him without condition. She saw the gentle but moody and ever the kind hearted boy that Leia so treasured. Rey brought out the light in him, and it gave Leia a sense of peace that she didn't feel often. More than she would like to admit, she lay in bed and worried if the dark would overcome her son, either mentally or physically like it almost had the year before. It haunted her walking in to see him so pale in pools of his own blood, flowing from the wrists he'd cut, the blade still dangling from his fingertips.

He sat perfectly still, no emotions crossing his face, but Leia monitored both her son and Rey constantly. Looking for any disturbance or fluctuation in the force. Either that Ben was answering the dark, or what Leia felt as Rey would begin to come to awareness. It must have been hours, and the constant use of the force was not something Leia was accustomed to. The strain was getting to her and she was just about to call for Luke when Ben's eyes opened.

"I think I'm ready,'' he said. With no further preamble, he stood up, fit his crystal into the hilt of the saber and powered it on.

It lit up and it's blue glow imminated throughout the room, reflecting from Ben's eyes and illuminating his proud smile.

**Silly author's note: When I named the chapter I almost couldn't resist writing: Stop. Saber time. Can't touch this…

Anyone else?**