Warning lights and alarm bells screamed in panic as the TIE's systems began to fail, one after another.

Kira gripped the shuddering yoke, teeth gritted, trying to keep the ship together. Whatever Ben had broken off or pulled loose jarred the steering alignments, making the autopilot execute one of the roughest and clumsiest atmospheric evacs she'd ever endured, which in turn damaged a fuel line. From there it was only luck that kept the TIE from disintegrating in the vacuum.

A hyperspace jump was out of the question. As difficult as reentry would be at this stage, it was a gamble she had to take. The other option was the burning, freezing embrace of empty space when the cockpit's integrity was inevitably compromised.

The scanners were flickering between readings, so they couldn't be accurate. The comms were full of static even if someone was near enough to hear her SOS. Instead, she reached out into the blackness of space and felt for the nearest planet. There, far ahead, a glimmer of life. The forest moon was further yet, the ship already having careened far out of its orbit, so Kira dragged the TIE towards the blue-gray marble of the ocean moon.

"Kriff, kriff, kriff," she hissed. Tirian's sabotage on Mustafar might get her in the end, though she was determined not to let that weak-willed traitor be the death of her.

The shields only lasted about five minutes into reentry, likely because the descent was more like a plummet than a glide. The cockpit began to overheat, sweat beading on her skin, and the canopy cocooned in brilliant incandescence from the heat.

Seconds, each a frantic eternity, were filled to bursting as Kira tried to salvage her course. With considerable effort, she managed to reduce the speed to a manageable rate and the heat shear began to ebb, just in time to see the stormy ocean rising towards her.

The moon's land mass was too far out to reach from this altitude. It was either a water landing, which terrified her more than she cared to admit, or maybe -

There it was. Ben had mentioned off hand once that the wreckage of the second Death Star had fallen to Kef Bir, Endor's ocean moon. Battered by angry waves, it was massive, even in pieces and half-sunk into the blue-gray waters. The sections underneath were crushed under the weight of itself, causing the whole structure to list. The main decks tilted at a 30 degree angle, but that could be to her advantage if she could hit one of the open landing bays near the wreck's equator.

It took every ounce of her skill as a pilot to bring the TIE in for a landing. The starfighter hurtled towards the Death Star. Blue and gray light swirled in a dizzying kaleidoscope outside the cockpit. Controls flashed. Alarms wailed. Acrid smoke burned.

"Ah!"

Blackness.

Disoriented, Kira opened her eyes. The world still seemed to spin. Pain blossomed where the X of the harness strapped her tight. She reached a hand gingerly to the back of her throbbing skull. A nice-sized knot sticky with dried blood on her head told her as much. If she managed to live to an old age, back pain from the whiplash was a given.

With a long groan, she unfastened the harness and shoved out of the cockpit, which was tilted almost upside down, treating her to a view of the crumpled metal that had cracked the transperisteel.

The wings were gone, shorn off like tattered feathers. The spherical body was lodged in a mess of support girders. Slowly, every joint screaming in protest, Kira worked her way out of the wreckage to the hangar floor, or what was left of it. The panels beneath her boots bent, the ghost of the Death Star moaned a deafening, haunting gasp as if in protest for disturbing its watery grave.

Sections had fallen away to create gaping maws, leeching the dim echoes of water moving far below. Reaching the outside through this hangar would be near impossible, especially with the further damage from her crash landing. The corridors and hallways held similar obstacles after decades of rust and neglect in the briny climate.

To escape she'd have to take another route to the surface. Navigating the Death Star would be treacherous, but the latent scavenger in her was adequately prepared for the task. Her weakened state wouldn't help, but the adrenaline from the crash flooded her veins, giving an edge to the fatigued tremors in her muscles.

Every surface was at a slippery angle, straining her balance, but the tread on her boots counteracted the slickness of the metal. Still, progress was tedious, and without a clear destination, it was hard to push forward. Mist wafted on the sea air, chilling her skin and leaving the faint taste of salt on her lips.

Maybe this was where she was meant to die. Her life from one ruin to another, scrabbling in the wreckage of a failed Empire from before her time. Crashing from the heights into obscurity, the arc of her life ending in rust and decay, as nameless and forgotten as she began.

But at least she wouldn't take Ben down with her. Or Leia. Or Chewbacca. Or Silyana, if she was still alive. Vader had told her to consider the cost, but she had already paid so much, she thought she'd given as much as anyone could ask... but the Dark Side was not anyone. It had no care or concern for her. Vader's vision provided a horrifying, frightening example of what surrender to the Dark Side was.

Kira wiped mist and sweat from her brow. The air moved more gently here, suggesting an open space. Peering up into darkness, she searched for the glimmer of gray light. Something flickered high above, perhaps a beam of watery light from a cloudy sky. The distance indicated some kind of tall shaft, maybe for a turbolift. Steadying herself, she exhaled and began to scale the wall, muscle memory finding the near invisible holds in the Empire-designed panels.

Maybe Vader experienced the price of surrendering to the Dark so that she didn't have to.

The climb warmed her limbs, but once she reached the outside, it wouldn't take long for the fog to seep into her clothes and chill her bones. Hypothermia wasn't the worst way to go; in the end it was just like falling asleep. It couldn't be helped anyway – she was lost, stranded, marooned far from any sentient life that could help her. The viable atmosphere on this moon was only prolonging her life.

Ben would hate her for it. Even now, he'd want her to live. But for what? She was sparing him, sparing them all. She couldn't live in the Light, that door had closed long ago. The Dark cost too much, and if Ben had seen what Vader showed her, he would understand.

It wasn't his choice. It was hers, and hers alone.

She pulled herself over the top into a space that might have once been grand or imposing, an audience chamber, perhaps. After catching her breath, she mounted shallow stairs towards the gigantic, shattered viewport. Traces of the Dark Side lingered in the seams, dripping like the steady tick of moisture that seeped through every crack. An Imperial Inquisitor had used this room, or Vader, or maybe even the Emperor. The Dark sought her out, and a piece of her wanted to take the comfort it whispered in her ear like the intoxication of glitterstim, but she shrugged off its touch.

The rolling waves crashed against the structure far below. Kira leaned out, the sea breeze whipping loose strands of hair to sting her eyes. The edges of the glass pushed against her ribs but she stretched further, far enough to catch sight of a familiar freighter skimming over the wreckage close to the water line.

Damn it. She reached out with her feelings to be sure, but they confirmed her guess.

It was Ben, and he was alone.

Idiot.

He followed her, of course he had. Had he seen her spectacular plummet through space? The fool probably thought he'd crippled her ship, not knowing Tirian had already done a number on it. And now he was here. Refusing to let her go because of some egotistical insistence that the world revolved around him, and thus every problem, every mistake was his to fix.

She followed , that simmering conviction plowing through the currents of the Force, making space for himself wherever he went. The arrogant fool.

After landing the Falcon on a jetty of sorts created by the wreckage,he started towards her, the beginnings of a relieved grin on his lips. "You're alright."

Weariness crashed down, bowing her shoulders. "You shouldn't have come."

"I was afraid you wouldn't survive a landing."

"Sadly, I'm quite resilient."

"You're freezing. Come on board, we'll find some blankets, and I'll make caf -"

"Ben."

He took stock of her then, noting the weary determination in how she gripped the hilt of her saber.

"Kira, what are you doing?"

She unhooked the hilt from her belt. "I don't have to do this."

"No, you don't," he said. "You can come and get warm, and we can talk about this like reasonable sentients!"

It was hard to meet his gaze, the nascent hope withering into desperation. She kept her tone even, calm. "Don't make this something it's not."

"You wouldn't kill me. I know you. I trust you."

"I would." She straightened, chin firm, eyes unwavering. "Understand, I wouldn't want to, but I would, in the end. That's the price of the Dark Side."

"You don't have to live in the Dark, we could be together!"

"I can't go back to the Light."

Ben attempted a scoff, but it was more like a sob. "I'm not the Light, Kira, Rey. I'm nothing. Please, just please, please, don't do something you'll regret."

"It's too late," she whispered. "I've seen what the Dark will do. Vader showed me. And I can't. I can't let that happen. This, us, has to end."

"No," he cried. "There's another way, we just have to find it –"

"I've already found it." She ignited the lightsaber at her hip, eyes not truly focused on the man pleading with arms outstretched. It lit with an angry buzz, the salty breeze causing the crimson plasma to spit and pop more than ever. "You need to leave, Ben. Now."

"No. No, you can't do this again. You – we are going to do this together." The light in his eyes edged towards hysterical, while in her heart, the spark of hope cooled to a hard, unaffected coal. "Force, don't do that. Don't shut me out. Please, Rey, please don't leave me. Not again."

"Get on the Falcon, Ben. You can walk away."

"You wanted me to come here!" he yelled. "You told me where you were. You wanted me here. You wanted me!"

"I was a fool." She spun the lightsaber with a flick of her wrist and started towards him.

"No." His chin came up and fists clenched at his sides. "No. Be reasonable. I'm not going to do this."

The fiery blade sliced the air before her with a hungry vrmmm-vrmmm, the red light glinting in her eyes. But he refused to move, even once she was within striking distance. Kira raised the blade under his chin.

"I don't want to," she whispered over the distant roar of the waves. "But I will."

His nostrils flared, but otherwise he was still. She shrugged and turned away, then pivoted back with lightsaber extended in a death blow.

Years of honed instinct and a reflexive connection with the Force made it difficult to resist the urge to defend oneself, and Ben was not the exception. Her blade crackled against his sapphire, earlier despair hardening to fury. She smiled grimly. Ben also didn't want this to end. He wanted answers, as always, and wouldn't let her get away without giving it to him.

Ben countered her every attack, fury limning every familiar parry and strike. It wasn't the vicious, all-out duel for blood they'd engaged in before, and certainly not the playful form practice from their distant youth. Reluctance stood between them now, even as the sparks off their blades marked each blow in the air.

Kira was already exhausted. The days – had it been weeks? – since Hux's coup had worn her down to the bone, physically and mentally. Her strength, even bolstered by the guidance of the Force, was waning fast. She didn't have the energy to win this fight, let alone persuade him to leave her be.

The idea, when it sprung into her mind, was horrible. But with her muscles trembling with each movement, it seemed the only option.

He'd hate her. He'd never forgive her, or himself, but maybe it was the only way to end this, quick and clean. The alternative was dragging everyone down in the flaming wreckage of her pathetic life.

It was so simple, just a flick of her thumb to disengage the sputtering lightsaber as she raised it against his defensive stroke. She didn't watch as the sapphire blade continued its trajectory, keeping her eyes fixed on the snarl curling Ben's lip.

Heat bloomed in her abdomen, then came pain. She watched as the anger drained from his face, replaced with horror. Both lightsabers fell from loose grips, clattering unlit to the metal decking.

Kira's knees gave out. The jolt as she collided with the ground had her gasping. Wet warmth spread from the ragged hole in her side, but she didn't dare look. Her fingers clawed at the clammy cloth of her shirt.

"Rey." His voice cracked over that one syllable, as though it carried too much weight. "Rey."

Death had been a frequent passing thought. But dying, that was different. There had been times when she thought she was dying, and maybe that had been true. She certainly hadn't been living.

But now that she was really, truly dying, now that life had a definite time limit, she didn't take any second for granted.

She memorized the warmth of Ben's palm wrapped behind her neck and his thumb pressed against her cheek. Studied the quiver of his lips and the twitch by his eye. Pondered the strength in his arms and the gentleness of his hands. How long had it been since he'd held her like this? The memory of a dark cave and twisting her ankle flickered in the back of her mind. His embrace had been warm then, too.

One of those hands held her side, over the wound, but it wasn't until his moss brown eyes slid closed in concentration that she felt the flow of power between them.

It was too late, though, just as she had said earlier. The life was slipping away from her, dispersing into the vastness of the Force, her luminosity dimmed and lost in the grand web.

They were fools, the pair of them. Had been, since the beginning. And that was how they were going to end.

Salt water splattered across her face.

Kira gasped. The clothing clinging to her shivering skin was soaked through, but confusion overwhelmed that observation. This wasn't like any afterlife she'd imagined, and neither did this seem like the dispersion of her consciousness in the Force. Each second was too real, too present, too... wrong.

She sat up and cleared the damp strands of hair from her face, unaware of smearing her own blood across chilled skin. But her side... her side didn't hurt, even as she coughed and bent over. Numb fingers felt for the wound.

It was gone, though the scorched hole in the cloth was not. Beneath, her fingertips slipped over unblemished skin. She lifted her eyes from the nonexistent injury, and that's when she saw him lying on his back beside her, unseeing gaze fixed on the gray sky, an arm across his body as though reaching for her.

"Ben." Her own voice sounded distant, so far from the hollowness carving into her chest. "Ben!" Curling her body over to shield him from the spray, she grasped his face in both hands. She fumbled for a pulse in his neck, a breath from his lips, but he was carved from ice, an unnatural pallor settled into his skin.

"What have you done?" she groaned, but for once he didn't have an excuse or an apology or a plea to needle her guilty conscience. The thought he's gone, flickered through her mind, but that was inconceivable, impossible, irreconcilable.

Death was so much worse when you were in tune with the Force, and it became another way to perceive when the heart had slowed to stopping, the lungs had ceased to expand, the mind had fallen silent. It was empty, a black hole that didn't let her escape, no matter how hard she resisted the inevitable.

"Ben, answer me!"

His head merely lolled, an arm falling to the ground with a lifeless thunk. It was enough to send Kira scrambling away with an anguished scream that cracked the heavens.

He was dead. He was dead because of her. He was dead because he saved her. He was dead because she wished for death, and she'd gotten it.

The Millennium Falcon waited for her, an anchor of familiarity in the midst of the waking nightmare. She fled from the shell of him, boots skidding on the ramp, and slammed into the wall. Slapping the control to seal the hatch, she staggered like a newborn fathier towards the cockpit.

It was a blur, whether because of the tears obscuring her vision or the numbness in her fingers or the fixation of her thought, playing on a loop: the dead stare of once warm eyes.

Shock was beginning to sink in and the Falcon was in the exosphere when the scanners chimed an alert. Dragging unfocused eyes to the instrument, she took several moments to register what it said.

It was the karking First Order fleet.

Hux's entire division was strung out in a distant orbit of Endor, but they quickly rerouted towards the ocean moon, as though they knew where she was. Which, maybe they did.

With shaking fingers, Kira powered down every system except for the bare minimum life support. The Falcon drifted, continuing its slow orbit like any other natural satellite, undetectable at this distance. To pick up her individual heat signature, they'd have to be much, much closer.

They didn't get nearer. Instead, they dipped towards the ocean moon's surface. Squinting, she caught just the smallest black specks against the oxygen-rich blue atmosphere – trooper transports – as they ran towards the Death Star's wreckage. Or more likely, the TIE Whisper's wreckage. At this range, their scanners would pick up the TIE's transponder and draw them down. How they'd tracked her here, though, she couldn't guess.

Kira didn't dare reach out with the Force. Tirian, arrogant imbecile that he was, was likely a part of the hunt for her aboard one of those Destroyers, and he might sense her presence. The comms receiver, though, used minimal power. She knew the channels, the codes for decryption.

The voices blaring from the speaker startled her after the complete silence.

TZ-34 squad reporting, landed on the wreckage. Squadron moving in to inspect the area.

Proceed, TZ-34

First Order vessel, classified identifiers, located. No lifeforms.

TZ-37 reporting, west northwest of the crash site, scanning the sector. May be picking a life signature.

Proceed to investigate, TZ-37. Precautionary measures. Take any sentients into custody.

Roger that.

Returning to transport. Positive ID on prisoner.

A prisoner? Who else had been there with them? The planet was uninhabited, and certainly the Death Star wreckage was unlivable. Had someone come with Ben and disembarked before she found her way to the Falcon?

Relay positive ID on prisoner.

Positive ID for Ben Solo. Securing prisoner aboard transport.

Roger. All units, return to bay.

He was dead. She had seen it, the life gone from his body.

He had healed her, given up the last of his life force so that she could live. Right?

But now, now that her head was clearing, now that she wasn't faced with his empty eyes and silent heart, she realized the place where they were joined in her mind, the bond, was not void.

He was still there, on the other end. Dormant, faint, almost imperceptible, but present.

She had kriffed up.

She almost wished he was dead. This new guilt burned an acidic gut wrenching hollow. Jerking away from the comms panel, Kira dashed for the fresher and emptied her stomach in violent heaves.

Hux had Ben. If the redheaded bastard didn't know who Ben was, Tirian would recognize him. Ben was weakened, helpless, still unconscious. Whatever designs Hux had – the beginnings of that train of thought caused her to retch again, pure bile painting her throat and tongue with fire. She spat into the sink, furiously wiping the stinging tears from her eyes, and glared at her reflection in the clouded mirror.

Vader had told the truth. The Dark, it took everything, and once she'd begun the journey into darkness, there was no escaping the price.

Ben liked to pretend that things were his fault, but this, she knew, was undoubtedly her doing. All the things she'd been running from for years, that she'd tried to deny and evade, had caught up with her, but Ben was paying the price. He didn't deserve that, not after what she'd done to him, what she'd tried to do.

She'd have to begin to make things right. And that would require more pain, refracturing the bone so that it could set and heal properly. It would hurt, but she had no other choice.

Kira pushed the hair, still damp with saltwater, back from her face. She was going to make this right.

A/N: Thank you to AngstyWriter for being flexible with my forgetfulness and beta'ing despite the time crunch!

What did you think? 👀 I'd love to read your reviews! Next update is next year! Jan 3, 2021 CST