CHAPTER EIGHT
She'd be lying if she said she didn't put a little extra care into her appearance today. It's not like she has a particularly extensive wardrobe, but she's made sure to wear her cleanest outfit, and has tied her hair up meticulously.
In the grand scheme of things, what Rey looks like doesn't really make a difference — what she says is what will be most important. But still.
She'd woken up with the rest of the base, devoured her breakfast, too antsy to really savor the meal at all, and headed straight to her training course, despite having zero intentions of actually running it.
She's fairly certain she could slip into Ben's room without anyone noticing. Though not as scattered as it all was that first day back, nothing on the base is fully organized yet. There's no set rotation of people on watch, no designated spots for anyone to be at any time. And there are still far too many new members present for there to be a way to keep track of everyone all the time anyways.
So yes, she thinks, no one would have paid attention or cared where she was this morning. She could have visited Ben, could have given him a pep talk — or gotten one from him, perhaps — but she's also fairly certain all her resolve to be level-headed and reasonable in the meeting today would have disappeared if she'd come in fresh off of seeing him.
And she needs a level head today. She needs to remember all of her arguments in favor of letting him stay, all of the words she's prepared outside of "Please, please, please." She has to think about facts and numbers and anecdotes — not about how her hand fits so perfectly in his, or the way even sitting in silence with him is comforting, or how every time she looks in his eyes she remembers the moment she thought he'd never open them again.
She resists the temptation to visit him, to make the most of what some cruel part of her brain imagines might be borrowed time, even though every cell in her body is begging her to go to him. Which is why, as she's standing in a sea of trees, she's utterly unsurprised to feel the Force bond snap into place.
"I'm not sure how far away you are right now, but I can sense your unease from here," Ben's voice echoes in her head.
And then, a second later, he's there in front of her. As always, she can't see any of his surroundings other than the bed he's sitting up in.
He looks considerably healthier than he did a day and a half ago — his hair is a mess but the bags under his eyes have shrunk and he's not quite as deathly pale as he had been.
"I thought you might come by this morning," he says, his mouth downturned in the faintest hint of a frown.
"I thought I might too, but…"
"You wanted a clear head."
Yet again, she wonders if he can actually read her mind. The thought would bring a smile to her face if there wasn't a tangle of nerves clawing away at her insides right now.
"You don't have to do this if you don't want to, you know," he says.
Rey would roll her eyes at this — she wants to — but his voice has gone so soft and his features have melted into something so vulnerable that she can't bring herself to do anything but look directly at him and say "I want to," as firmly as she can.
"I wouldn't blame you. If you'd rather not or if you just want an out. I promise I'd understand."
"Ben, stop it. I mean it. If I didn't want you here you wouldn't be here. I mean really, do you think I spent all that time trying to bring you back to life, and then convincing you to come here, just so I could ditch you at the first available opportunity?"
She doesn't mean to snap at him, she really doesn't. But she also doesn't understand how he can sense her every emotion, can practically read her mind, and yet he still can't comprehend how much she cares about him.
"Oh." He looks away from her and his brow furrows as he works his mouth in an oddly familiar way. And then he looks back, and there's something new in his eyes, some comprehension, some light. "You mean it."
"Yes," she sighs, "I mean it."
The corner of his mouth tilts upward.
"Okay then," he says.
The connection is about to fade out again, she feels it slipping before it does. But she knows, when she can see him like this it means she can touch him too. So she does the same thing she always does with him. She takes a step forward.
It doesn't seem to take as much effort on his part as it did before for him to reach his arm out, but Rey still notes the slight trembling of his hand.
She closes the rest of the distance between them with ease, but she stops herself right before they're close enough to touch.
This was exactly why she didn't visit him this morning. It would be too easy lower her mental defenses, to let herself go soft on a day she needs to stay firm. She told herself she didn't want to be distracted… but maybe that was foolish. Maybe no matter what she does, there will be a small part of her that's with him today. Maybe that's how it should be. They are stronger together, after all.
"Just for a minute?" he asks.
"Are you ever going to get tired of asking me to take your hand?" she smiles.
"I guess the only way to find out is for me to keep asking," he smiles back at her carefully. All of his smiles are still so careful.
She laces her fingers with his, she notices that Ben's hand is warmer than it was the last time she touched it. A good sign.
She pretends not to notice the sigh of relief he tries to hide when she strokes her thumb over his.
Rey wasn't around when Poe assumed the title of Acting General. She missed his first days in the role, so if there was a shaky transition, Rey never saw it. But she doubts that there ever was any difficulty with the transition at all. What's far more likely, she thinks, is that he slid into the position seamlessly — or at least as seamlessly as anyone could in the middle of a galactic war.
He stands in the same place Leia used to stand in the command center, looking every part the leader as he faces the recently gathered crowd.
Rey is seated next to Finn right up front in the rather large semi-circle that's been formed. Pilots, mechanics, lower ranking officers, and dozens of other people whose jobs she couldn't even guess are gathered for the meeting.
It had been a small relief to realize that not literally every person on the base would be in attendance. Only those who are planning on staying to work as a part of the Resistance's main operations — rather than those returning to their home planets as agents of the cause — are present.
"Think of it as branches of a tree," Poe had explained before the meeting began. "We're the roots and the trunk, standing firm. But it's the branches and the leaves that can spread out across the galaxy the way we need.
There will be more meetings, a million more meetings, before all of those others depart. There will be strategies and plans, agreements, deals, and alliances to solidify. But this meeting only really impacts the people who are staying. Those who are either so displaced that they have nowhere else to go, or they have some vital skill that would be best served here.
So it's this group that Rey needs to convince.
In her years of solitude on Jakku she never developed much of a skill for public speaking, and even after joining the Resistance her role has been more about action and less about talking. She's done a good job, she thinks, at learning how to look after people other than herself… but defending them in a situation where a lightsaber will do no good? That's entirely new.
Rey forces herself to focus on the present, to absorb Poe's words.
He's already gone over the agenda with her so she knows they're not jumping straight into the "Kylo… Ben Issue" as Poe so uncomfortably referred to it a mere hour ago.
For now, all she has to do is sit and listen.
"— lost more than half their forces," Poe says. Rey's not sure what the start of that sentence was, but judging by the light applause scattered throughout the room, it must have been a good thing.
"But," he continues, "that doesn't mean the work is over. Let's go into a little more detail about our most recent intelligence."
Poe pulls up map after map, diagram after diagram on a holopad, talking through each one, explaining which planets are still occupied by the First Order, which are free, and which have been obliterated. The Sith Cultists may have been killed in Exegol, Poe explains, but they have reason to believe there are still loyalists scattered across different star systems and planets.
"If there's anything we've learned," Poe says as he closes out of a map of Mustafar, "it's that vigilance is key. You all know this already — the First Order rose out of the ashes of the Empire. It's up to us to act quickly, decisively, and with a united front to assure that something even worse doesn't rise from the ashes of the First Order."
Voices rise in assent, echoing through the crowd. Poe stands in front of them looking determined, confident, and every bit the leader he's become. Even distracted as she is by the nerves roiling inside her, Rey can feel the swell of pride emanating from Finn.
"Any questions before we move on to our next bit of business?" Poe asks once everyone's finally settled down.
"I have one," calls a man from the back.
"Go ahead," Poe nods.
For a moment, Rey's relieved, thankful for the slight delay in the task she knows is at hand. But the relief lasts only for a moment, and no longer.
"What about the First Order's Supreme Leader? We thought he would've tried to attack by now."
A murmur of voices runs through the gathered crowd, the result of too many people talking amongst themselves. Rey can't pick out any one conversation but the whispers of "supreme leader" and "Kylo Ren" and "monster" are unmistakeable.
The words sound foreign to Rey's ear. It's been so long since she's thought of Ben as any of those things. Every day it's becoming harder and harder to remember how she used to see him, before. But of course that's all he is to all of these people. That's all he is to the entire galaxy.
And right now, the burden falls entirely on Rey to change that.
It's time, then.
"I'm glad you brought that up." Poe shifts his gaze to her just for a second before returning to looking at the man who asked the question. "That actually has to do with our next issue up for discussion."
"Is he in hiding? Did you find him?" sounds a voice somewhere on Rey's right.
She's not sure when it happened but she's realized she no longer feels entirely connected to her body. Her heart is racing, pounding in her chest with an intensity she's only ever felt before mid-duel. She's still sitting, but she can't feel the chair beneath her, and the room feels at least twice as hot as she knows it must be.
A hand on her knee brings her back to herself. She looks up at Finn who gives her what almost looks like a smile — it's meant to be reassuring at least — and squeezes ever so gently on her knee.
"Well, he's—" Poe hesitates. "He's not missing. And he's—"
"He's not going to attack," Rey feels herself stand up before she even thinks to do it. "He's absolutely not going to attack."
"How can you be so sure?" This time the question comes from someone she knows — Beaumont Kin. "If we know where he is we should strike before—"
"There's nothing to strike. He's here." The words come unbidden out of her mouth. This is not how she intended any of this to go. "He's here on the base and he's not going to attack because he's on our side now."
Rey is used to silence. She's used to the still quiet of her dwelling on Jakku where the only sound at night was the distant howl of the wind as it snapped across the desert. She's used to the way the world falls away and disappears when she's deep in meditation, connected to the Force in mind, body, and soul. She's encountered enough silence — in her hut on Ahch-To, in the Falcon rewiring a faulty breaker, in those few horrifying minutes on Exegol when she thought she truly was doomed to be alone — that she's used to it.
But nothing could have prepared her for the heavy hush that falls over the room when she finishes speaking.
The tension is thick in the air, unrelenting in its silence.
Her legs are moving on their own accord now.
Poe steps to the side, allowing Rey to take his place as he slides closer to Rose.
"What do you mean, he's here?" a voice from the back shrieks.
"So it's true, then?" the first man who spoke asks. The accusation in his tone is clear.
It hits Rey — and she's shocked it didn't occur to her sooner — that this isn't just Ben's reputation on the line… it's her own. The uncomfortable pallor that's fallen over the room isn't just saturated with shock, like she had first assumed. It's tinged with something else… betrayal.
She's brought one of the most notorious, most dangerous men in the galaxy into their midst and only bothered to explain why to a handful of people. In some of their eyes, that might make her just as dangerous.
"He's being held in a private room, under surveillance," Poe offers. He doesn't bother to mention that Ben couldn't physically leave that room even if he wanted to.
"He turned," Rey says. She takes a deep centering breath, grasping at the steady sense of calm she has practiced reaching within herself to find so many times. "Before the final battle, before even I made it to Exegol he turned. He abandoned the First Order, he left the dark side behind, and he has no intention of ever returning to it."
"How can you be so sure of that?" someone asks.
She's told the story enough times — the whole ordeal with Palpatine, the moment she knew Ben was on his way, both of them dying and bringing each other back — that she doesn't find herself tripping over her words or reaching for her next sentence. It's smooth, detailed, and if she didn't know herself, she'd think she was actually comfortable speaking in front of a crowd.
"It could still be a trick, couldn't it?" Commander D'Acy asks.
"It couldn't. I—" she tries to think of how to put this without sounding like she's making it up. She knows no one on the base fully understands the Force.
Now is not the time to explain the dyad or the bond or the seeing him when he's not really there — she knows, somehow, that all of that would confuse the issue. But she also knows that in all the time she's been with the Resistance, she's never given them a reason not to trust her. She's never lied, never broken a promise. She's proven herself at every opportunity and she's certain she'll prove herself a hundred more times before the galaxy is finally, fully at peace.
"I see everything in his mind," she settles for saying. "I feel everything he feels. We're… connected. If he wanted to trick me, I'd know well before he did it. And if that ever happened — and it won't — of course I would alert everyone who needed to be alerted."
They're not fully convinced; she doesn't even need to use the Force to feel that. But she wan't really expecting this to be easy, was she? She didn't really think it would be a quick chat and then she'd be back in his room, lacing her fingers with his and telling him the good news.
She's used to battles, but not ones of this nature. She's more suited to solving disputes through a lightsaber, or a staff, or on rare occasions her fists. She's not used to having to use her words, to seek diplomacy, to deal in politics at all.
But right now, her words will have to be enough.
"I'm not naive," she says, bracing herself for who knows how long this meeting might go. "I know who he was and what he did, but he is not that person any more. I'd put my life on it. I have."
"I can vouch for him too," Maz stands up — or perhaps she was already standing — and makes her way to the front of the crowd. "I've talked to him, looked in his eyes. I can see it. Leia spent her final moments reaching out to the light she knew was still in him. From what I can tell, she was right."
Rey throws a grateful smile Maz's way before turning back to the rest of the crowd.
"Everyone here came from somewhere else," she says. "We all have pasts, some far less spotless than others. But we choose to trust each other, we've welcomed every person who wanted to fight and given them the chance to prove themselves. Ben has already fought for all of us, he wants to keep fighting as long you let him, and I'm just asking you to give him a chance to prove it."
"She's right."
Rey wasn't expecting to hear Finn's voice at all during this meeting. She had assumed he would stay quiet, silently supporting her no matter which way it went. She thought at most, if it came down to a vote, he'd side with her. But she certainly didn't think he would actually speak up on her — on Ben's — behalf.
"I was a Stormtrooper. My whole life, until one day I wasn't and I defected and I joined all of you. Jannah, her whole crew… they all left the First Order. And they came here and we trusted them. Hell, even General Hux — who tried to kill me personally multiple times —spied for us and saved mine and Poe's lives in the end. How many of us wouldn't be here today without his intel? People can change, is what I'm saying."
The room is no less silent than it was minutes ago, but there's been a shift. Rey can feel it just as surely as she can feel the ground beneath her. The mood in the room has changed, become more open, more accepting. The momentum has started — she just needs to give it a final push.
"The Resistance has always been a place for hope, for second chances, for redemption. We don't deal in absolutes like the Sith did. We don't value brutality over mercy like the Empire and the First Order did. What sets us apart, what makes us stronger is our ability to forgive and look for a brighter future. We'd be doing ourselves a disservice, we'd be letting our own mission down, if we turned away from that."
Her words, as it turns out, are enough.
When it's clear that Rey has run out of words — when Chewie and Maz and Finn have all nodded their agreement that Ben is not only not a threat, but an asset to the Resistance — Poe puts it up to a vote.
And to Rey's great shock and utter elation, almost everyone agrees to let Ben stay on the Base.
"With restrictions, of course," Poe reasons. He rattles off a list of places Ben won't be allowed to freely roam and meetings he can't sit in on, but Rey's heart is beating too quickly and her eyes are filling up with too many tears for her to focus on anything but standing upright.
She'll ask Poe to go over all the details again later. She'll need him to, since she still needs to relay it all to Ben. But for now it's enough just to stand here and bask in the knowledge that this isn't the end, that despite the universe's seemingly constant attempts to pull them apart, she gets to stay by Ben's side for the foreseeable future.
Rey offers only one condition of her own: she insists that the two of them be put on the same missions.
Poe agrees without any argument.
"I'll be curious to see your double-act in action," is all he says in response.
Unfortunately for Rey, the meeting isn't quite over yet. She yields the floor back to Poe, makes her way to the empty seat next to Finn and sits down — an impressive feat of self-control if she does say so herself, considering the way her body is practically vibrating with anticipation of seeing Ben again and telling him what's happened.
Her stomach has finally finished unfurling all the knots it tied itself into this morning. Her head is already swimming with the possibilities of what the coming months might look like for her and Ben.
Her hand practically aches to hold his again.