Rey's saber cuts through the thorax of the last Praetorian guard, jutting harshly up the torso, the soldier slumping its total weight down onto her weapon. Angling the staff upwards, she hears the clicks of whatever encases its heart slowly being broken apart by the lightsaber, before turning off the blades and pushing slightly on its collapsed head, watching it fall in slow motion backwards onto the pile of its brethren below.
The whirring of the fan behind her swarms back in, along with the smell of burnt armor and flesh, as she slips out of the pensive calm that now comes to mark her fighting.
At first it is just odd, seeing the guards slain in front of her, as if she is looking at a Luggabeast skeleton for the first time, trying to figure out where the machinery ends and the being begins. These living souls that are not living, these sentients without sense, these creatures in masks.
But creatures in masks rarely ever are just that.
She fights the want to reach out, to take the masks off, to see what lies beneath. It's always like this, after. Even on Jakku, when survival meant killing, it was always like this. It's surreal to be faced with the delicacy of life, how easily it switches off, how little it takes to snuff it out. That someone like her, a nothing from nowhere, can be the one who snatches it away, and so easily, without benediction, without solemnity.
And then, it is terrifying. She hears her saber drop, feels the ground raise up to hit her knees. Without thought, she moves to touch the scar she was graced with three years ago by these Praetorian's predecessors, still gashed deep into her arm. It's silvery and smooth a top a snarl of matted scar tissue, a physical reminder of the first time she joined Kylo. Proof, something that made it real in the intervening years that separated them, something that told her it was more than just a fever dream what happened between them.
Looking down at herself, she checks for wounds that maybe thrum of the force had masked, but finds nothing. Nothing but the scars that were already there.
The terror rises. Three years ago, that same fight, with another, more skilled combatant next to her had almost been her end. The hiss of their weapons, still buzzing unkempt on the floor in front of her now, brings the images of the throne room back to her mind. The way she had struggled to remain upright, the scrambling to land any hits, the intensity of all of it comes back.
And now, they're all just dead, just like that. Her breathing had barely picked up at all. Praetorians.
None of it makes sense, none of the past three years makes any sense. Maybe it is all just a fever dream, maybe she will wake up cooling in a pool of her own sweat on Jakku and that will be it. She looks at her hands, still traced with faint scars from her scavenging, and for the nth time, she wishes she had a teacher, a real teacher.
Luke was a right bastard, but it would have been nice to make sense out of all of this with him, to be formally trained instead of just an amalgamation of bits and pieces scavenged together from texts and the ideas of other people about what a Jedi is.
It scares her, and it doesn't, the amount of unfounded, untethered power she holds. It is both harmonious and alien. Intimate and foreign.
And yet.
And yet.
She has found a home in it, in this ragtag combination of parts that has become who she is now. Gone is the girl with her innocent, earnest resolve to find her place in all of this. She has found it. It is confusing and it is hard and it is terror inducing, but he, Kylo, he is there to help carry the weight of it all now, and when she looks at him, she knows that is her place.
And yet, he had moved away from her, just then, he had moved away from her and towards them, her friends. He must have felt Hux closing in, must have needed to get to him, to finish this, right?
Right.
Lactic acid bubbles into her heart as she breaks back to the reality she finds herself in now. Pulling herself up by the rebar, she trudges through the bodies of the Praetorians, scowling, and avoiding their still lit weapons, until she is free enough to start running.
Hux can't get to them, he can't. Kylo knows it, and she knows it. They need to get there first.
On a straight away, she realizes she doesn't quite know where she is running to, lost in a frenzy of action with no actual direction. Settling, she closes her eyes, trying to locate them. The ship is groaning, loudly, as she slips in and out of the force, steeping in death.
Beacons, like an old airstrip, light up through the encompassing darkness of the force. The dead, their signatures burn like black holes through the fabric, hazy at the edges as their signatures decompose back into antimatter, but the living, they blaze as if in direct opposition to the darkness.
It almost hurts, the juxtaposition between the two, but she can see it all, lined up for her. Kylo is closest, but dimmest, then Hux and his guards, then four signatures she recognizes immediately as Poe, Rose, Finn and Chewie are offset from the huge star that must be Kalonia and her crew, ferrying the injured onto the Solace, their tired medical freighter, too dangerous to dock. She can sense the steady stream of transports back and forth from this ship, ferrying Troopers who are waning in the force.
Settling her attention back on her friends, she knows, knows immediately what they're doing, and also knows immediately how harebrained and cockamamie it is.
She can hear Poe's voice in her mind, "But if it works…"
If it works, the Resistance gets the survivors off safe. If it works, they've saved dozens, hundreds of lives. Lives that would spit in their face and spew vitriol, but lives. Lives like Finn.
They are the smoke screen, averting Hux's eyes from Kalonia, from the true operation, and Poe has decided to do it in style, parading all of the faces of the Resistance in front of him in a shiny package to distract the appearance-conscious General Hux.
Willingly, they are going to him willingly, this man who would gladly set himself on fire, self-immolate, if it meant that people would know it was him who won the war. They are delivering themselves to that man, willingly.
Part of her trusts Poe to know what he is doing, the other part knows without a doubt he has no clue.
They're getting close now, and she is still so, so far away.
She turns, and sprints, hoping beyond hope that it is not too late.
Everything is searing, the ship around him, the blood inside him, the force that runs through it all, it is all searing.
Kylo is limping behind Hux and the Praetorians, seeking out with the force so he only turns down a hall once Hux and his men have left it.
Through his link, he can feel the Resistance and Hux closing in on each other, like two missiles launched against each other in the night, nearing an imminent destruction both of them were built for.
Good. If they kill each other, both of his problems are solved.
Behind him, he can sense Rey's furious scramble. The Praetorians had fallen, he knew they would, knowing how strong she is in the force now. Not much could beat her now. He reckons, if he delivered her to Snoke today, it would be nothing but a flicker in her mind which would end him. This girl, this woman, his woman. Stuttering, he senses her as she feels out, trying to decide which direction to go. He makes himself as dim as possible to her, knowing there is no way she will get down here in time. Soon, it would just be them.
With that thought, his thigh muscle, being slowly eaten by the residual heat of blaster fire, seizes, almost crippling him to the ground. He grabs it and tamps down on it, increasing the pain exponentially, until he gets a hold of the muscle and violently rubs until the cramp stops, breaking him of all thought processes.
Hux is far ahead now so he picks up his limping to close the distance.
On the approach, Hux slows, as the Resistance must be within view. Kylo positions himself against a support beam, unseen to them, but having a front row to the action. He squeezes his leg, which lets out more black blood, before settling in for the show.
It is the Pilot, in his booming, larger-than-life voice, who talks first.
"Hugs, how are you? Long time. I can't say I like what you've done with the place, I passed by like 50 safety code violations on my way here. You gotta get someone to look at those."
"Ah, yes, General Dameron," Hux clicks his heels as he approaches, "Good to see you and your ilk are still so cocksure, even in the face of defeat."
Poe looks around, exaggeratedly, first just with his head, then his whole body, turning from side to side to take in the disintegrating ship around them, "Uh, you feeling alright, bud?"
"Never better General, why?"
"Well, for one, you're looking very pale, and all the rouge you have on to try to hide it," Poe's head ticks to the side, as if disappointed, "Buddy, we gotta talk about the rouge, your cheekbones, they're already magnificent, you don't need all that blush."
"I'm not wearing-" Hux sputters out.
"And second," Poe interrupts, "You have very clearly lost this war. We've come to discuss the terms of your surrender."
"Have you?" Hux replies, trying to regain his lost sense of composure.
"We have."
"You and?" the redhead looks around the the others, the Traitor, the Wookie, and the Other One. Kylo is watching, surprised at how calm they all seem.
"Oh, I guess you've never formally met. Hugs, this is Finn, you might know him as, what was it? FN..."
"2187," Finn's voice is cold and hard as he recites the letters of his former name, staring into the blue eyes of the man who ensured his continued slavery.
"Right, you know him, your former co-worker. I mean, as much as someone kidnapped as a child and forced into a brainwashing program to serve as disposable labor and expendable parts in a war machine can be considered a co-worker, I guess." Poe squeezes Finn's shoulder before moving to the Wookie, "And Chewbacca. You know Chewie, right? Legend, this guy. Master smuggler, Rebel Hero. They write children's books about him, you know? Maybe you've read them?" Poe smiles as he walks further, his voice and his face falling when he gets to Rose. All levity is gone when he introduces her, "And this is Rose, you don't know her, and you never will."
Poe walks back to his original spot before talking again, "Well…" Poe drags the words out, as if waiting in anticipation for something.
"Well?" Hux clips back.
"Aren't you going to introduce your friends?" Poe looks to the two Praetorians which flank Hux, his eyes moving over each of their covered forms.
"Ah, right, how rude of me. Guards!" At the shrill of Hux's voice, a dozen Stormtroopers, their armor blindingly polished, as if for the one event, march in unison, surrounding them. Half border the four of them, squishing them further together, while the others line up perfectly next to Hux, his Praetorians framing him.
"I kinda walked into that one."
Rey's hair whips around her face, loosening gradually out of her buns, when she finally finds an opening amongst the never ending hallways. This ship, while bearing most of the hallmarks of an Empire-built ship, is uniquely maze like, and it occurs to her that may be purposeful, this being Kylo's flagship. He knew this was coming. He had been preparing.
There is an impossible wind that seems to be coming from directly in front of her, throwing her off kilter. Edging towards it, the tiny hallway opens into a expansive cavern, too high for her to see the top of, and too deep to see the bottom. She stands on the precipice of it all, a speck amongst this technological marvel. It's a reactor shaft, she realizes, bigger than any she had seen before, but all it reminds her of it Mustafar now, and not the skeletons of ships she had grown up amongst.
She peers over the edge, and sees it, a walk way, maybe hundreds? Thousands? of meters below. It floods her mind until she sees the movement she already knows is there, just beyond, on the other side of the crevasse.
They're all just dots, but she is so well acquainted with all of their forms that she can tell it's them.
Her friends, flanked by Stormtroopers, stripping Poe, Rose, Finn and Chewie of their weapons. Their movements, all of them, are stuttered, not fluid and easy, and it is odd to see the action, but not be a part of it, to not be able to help.
Reaching out, she feels the feverish work of Kalonia and Pava, getting transports out with outrageous speed.
Her back straightens at their commitment, at this stalling. It's either brilliant or the worst idea Poe has ever had, likely, though, it is both.
Why isn't Kylo there yet? He is so dim in the force, it only serves to scare her further. She takes one final look at her friends, hoping it is not the final look, and resumes running.
"Tell me, General Dameron, how does it feel to finally be at the end? To know, once and for all, that your precious hope has been extinguished? That the Resistance is finally at an end? To look into the eyes of the new Supreme Leader of the Galaxy?"
"I mean, I feel a little gassy, but that could just be that vegmeat we ate last night and have nothing to do with this."
"Hit him," Hux, devoid of any of the joy he had in questioning Poe, commands, and a bone crunching smack of blaster heel meets Poe's face.
The tension in the room rises tenfold, as a greasy smile permanently plasters itself across Hux's face.
It takes Poe more than a few moments before he recovers, holding his face and doubling over.
When he does, laughter bubbles up from his form, as he stands tall, spitting blood. He smiles, the trademark Poe smile, his teeth coated in red, before wiping his mouth to speak, "Honestly, Hugs? Honestly, I feel great. Better than ever, because I know something you don't. You want to know what it is?"
Hux stares forward, not willing to give in, but he does, because he always will, "What's that?"
"I know that we're not the Resistance. No, we never really were, despite what you think, despite how caught up by appearances you are. The Resistance is out there, in the hearts of every person who you have oppressed or enslaved. Every person who has ever felt the injustice of your organization, and trust me, that's a lot of people."
Hux shifts uncomfortably, his stalk straight spine writhing a bit, before catching himself.
Poe notices his shifting and smiles again before continuing, "No, we're not the Resistance, and when we die here, as I'm sure we will, as I'm sure you and your guards will ensure, the Resistance will not die, because you fail to understand that the Resistance isn't just a few people, it's an idea, one that will live on far beyond the walls of this stupid ship." Poe face is resolute now, the lines that run across it deepening, making him seem so much older, "The First Order though, the First Order will die here, on this ship, in this little part of the Galaxy, and become nothing to history. Your soldiers, they're being ferried to our ships as we speak, willingly. Your cause is weak, mayhem and destruction and power seeking always are, in the face of good. The First Order, it's just you now, and even if you escape, even if you make it off this scrap, it will die a small death in a small way in a small place, like you."
Hux smiles, "Quite the orator, Dameron. Too bad that little speech will die here, with you, it really was quite something. Completely erroneous and wrong of course, but something."
The expression that smothers Hux's face, Kylo has seen the look from Hux before, the look of complete smug confidence. He takes a survey of the situation, squeezing his bleeding leg to try to alleviate some of the sting.
It's then he realizes, this is a firing squad. This is a firing squad and the Pilot hasn't figured it out yet.
"You were right about one thing, though. Your death, it is coming." Hux allows his confidence to swell, his heels clacking as he takes a step, then another, towards the Resistance, "The punishment for our enemies, Dear General, is quick. Maybe too quick, too merciful for thieves and murderers like you, but somehow, to die like the common fodder seems right."
It's then Dameron knows, Kylo can see it in his face. Dameron looks from side to side, taking inventory of those around him. Kylo does the same: the Traitor, the Wookie, the Other One. Dameron slowly puts his arms out, as if to corral them behind him, to protect them. Kylo can see the Pilot whisper, but there is no doubt, not from any of them, nothing but resolve in the face of their own martyrdom, an act Hux is too dumb to know he is leading.
Kylo's eyes snap to Hux. He has no idea. All he knows is that, to him, this is winning. There is something like pure joy at seeing these members of the Resistance wither away from him. It spreads across the redhead's face, a sickening smile curling his face into something sinister and odd.
"Ah, so we understand each other then, General. I thought we might. Line them up!"
The Stormtroopers jut out from either side, moving closer, but before they can reach the group, the Resistance members line themselves up, standing side by side, all their heads high and not a tear in sight.
"Ah, obedience. I didn't expect that from the scum," Hux smiles, as if in on some sort of joke with the guards, but none of them react with him.
They're all silent, something rare for the Resistance leaders, even Kylo knows that.
Their hands, the four of them, start to move in unison, just slightly, and Kylo thinks that maybe this is it, maybe this is the plan. The troopers notice the minute movement, and the room around them echoes with the clicking of blasters as they all tighten their grasps, waiting for invisible weapons to be drawn.
Instead of seeing them reach for impossibly hidden weapons though, Kylo sees something that makes his blood run cold and hot at the same time. They all, instinctually, reach for each others' hands, linking themselves in a chain. They stand still, holding hands, staring down the barrels of countless blasters, waiting.
In front of him, he sees a family.
Kylo hears his breathing pick up, but he doesn't know why. He looks down to his wound, festering, and maybe, maybe there's an infection. As he thinks it, he is flushed, his body alight in warmth, and all his senses flood. There is a sound to it, almost, like his skin is crackling and cracking off, but nothing is happening. Intellectually, he knows nothing is happening, and now he can't even look at them, at their hands joined, at what that must be like. He knows, though, doesn't he? He knows what that is like.
There is a weight in his own hand, but there isn't, he knows there isn't, but it's there and he's crying. He can see himself, so little, his hands both so warm, one enveloped in his father's calloused hand, the other, his mother's delicate soft fingers. They're swinging him down the walkway of the Falcon and he is laughing. They are all laughing.
He tries to push it out, he tries to find the dark center, but he can't, all he can feel is the love. And then it's not even his own love, but some deep ancestral love, and he sees two babies, two small, and nestling babies, and feels her hands reach out for theirs, weakly, but with so much conviction. He can feel it all in his chest, her chest, his grandmother's chest, as she looks down at her babies with her dying breath, as her hands grab their impossibly small ones, he feels, she feels, his uncle and his mother, her son and her daughter. Her hope, his hope rips him open.
And then there's Rey, but there's not. He's him again, but he's not. She's there but he knows she's not, her skin glowing with the fire on Ahch-To, so beautiful, so beautiful and his but not his yet, not then. Tears are streaming down her face, and her tears are streaming down his face and her hand is in his, so briefly, but they're there. His family. All of his family and something blooms white hot in his chest, so hot he grabs at it, trying to rip it out, but it's there, so deep, like it always was, like he has known it always has been, flowing out to all his veins.
"Present weapons," Hux's voice pierces through Kylo and he freezes.
"Take aim," it's like a dream, everything gone hazy. Kylo turns his head to see them, the four of them, their hands still linked.
"Shoot straight you bastards," the Pilot's voice rings out above the fog.
"Fire!"
All four shut their eyes tightly at the sound, but Kylo keeps his open.
Poe counts, one second, two seconds, three, before opening his eyes to see lasers suspended in air inches from their chests. Above the singe of the red, he sees Hux's face, dropped in disbelief.
"Kylo Ren," is all Poe can breathe out, before the lasers are launched back at the Guards, killing the Stormtroopers and stumbling the Praetorians.
Before another word can land, a black mass appears in front of them, the red "t" of his saber cutting like an inferno, making everything else around it dimmer, somehow.
"Run," is all that comes from Kylo's voice, almost too deep to hear. Poe wouldn't believe this was him, the Kylo Ren, if he hadn't seen him crumble on Mustafar. He seems so much smaller than the holos, so much more of a man and less of a deity.
All the Resistance fighters stand still, unbelieving, not reacting to Kylo's command.
"RUN!" the dull brass comes from deep inside the belly of the Supreme Leader, underlain with terror.
It is then they start moving, but are quickly cut off by troopers on either side.
"Ah, good, I get to kill you all. Take out the trash together. Makes it easier on all of us," Hux's words are confident, but his face has fallen into a stony glare, his smiles all gone.
Flanked by fighters, Kylo's face deepens. His left hand lowers the edge of his saber down to Hux, pointing at him, as his right raises up, before clenching tightly, crumpling the troopers weapons behind him.
Finn is the first to notice the troopers confusion, and takes the opportunity to elbow one in the face. The Trooper stumbles back, breaking all hell loose.
Behind Kylo, the Resistance and the troopers devolve into an all out brawl, but his eyes stay focused on Hux, as the Praetorians arch around, their weapons glowing red.
She finds herself further down, but still not close enough to the walkway. Her eyes dart back and forth, looking for an easier way down, but there is none, it appears as if the First Order started making their ships more climb proof after Starkiller.
Wishing she had her climbing materials, she moves to step back to resume her dash, before it catches her eye from across the ravine.
Kylo.
Across the valley, she seems them, all of them, fighting. Kylo, his black form in the center, ensconced in the red from his saber and the Praetorians. Instinctively, she ignites her own saberstaff, as if to help, but deep shame burrows into her as she realizes she is standing in full form across a crevasse with no one to fight. She sheathes her weapon and takes stock of the situation at hand.
On one side of Kylo's fight, a single figure stands, hands clasped behind their back. Hux. Of course, Hux, not getting his own hands dirty. He is surrounded by his own fallen soldiers, a sight that twists in Rey's stomach. This fight has been raging for sometime as she ran, she realizes, and a sense of deep helplessness washes over her.
On the other side, her eyes flick to more troopers, more threats to Kylo, until she sees quick, interspersed flashes of Poe, Finn, and Rose and Chewie raging above their white armor. Her soul swells when she sees Rose kick the legs out from beneath one of the guards, and Chewie repeatedly smash the heads together of two of the troopers. They were handling it. Unarmed and outmanned, her friends were still handling it.
Pausing, she returns her gaze to Kylo's form in the middle.
Consciously, she knows he is injured, knows he has been injured for many days now, but it is another matter to see the physical proof of it in his body. The way he is moving, it is languid and messy. He is overcompensating on his right side, and the Praetorians, they're so close to him now. His arms are working furiously, twisting furiously to keep them at bay, but he is planted firmly, unable to move.
Everything in her is screaming at her to move, she needs to move, she needs to get to him, but she is mesmerized. It occurs to her that she has seen him fight like this before, when a bowcaster had pierced his side, but this is so much worse.
He's injured and the last time he was injured, she, a novice, almost bested him, would have bested him. And he is up against two Praetorians.
No.
There's no more time. Before she realizes, she is running again, tears streaming hot down her face.
Rose's foot connects with the stomach of the last trooper as Finn catches him from behind, twisting his neck and releasing as it falls down in the pile with the rest of them.
They move to run forward, to advance, as Kylo Ren kneels, showering in the sparks of his weapon holding off the two Praetorians.
In the time they laid waste to the remaining eight Stormtroopers, Ren had been struggling to land any hits on the Praetorians. Instead, his own body is littered in burn marks from deflecting their blows.
As the Resistance advances, unarmed, a Praetorian decides that they, their maudlin crew, are more of a threat than the Supreme Leader and moves off him, pointing its weapon straight at the four, causing them to pause immediately in their trajectory.
Kylo Ren crumbles, all fight gone, and the remaining Praetorian's weapon inches closer and closer to his throat.
"Wait!"
It could have been anyone's voice, but it's Hux, and his guard immediately pauses, Ren a sweaty and bloody heap on the floor, his own lightsaber threatening himself as much as the Praetorian's weapon.
"I want this one for myself."
With those words, the Praetorian is immediately off Kylo and with its sibling, pointing his weapon, too, at the Resistance members, who stand mouths open, watching Kylo as he writhes helplessly. This man, this being, that they had seen do wondrous, terrifying things with nothing but his mind, so tired, so spent, so grievously injured, that he is nothing but a mark on the ground now. It is something none of them ever imagined they would ever see.
Kylo's body lays spitting blood on the ground, heaving with each breath, as Hux clicks towards him, until Hux's perfectly polished boots are right in front of Kylo's face on the ground.
"Ah, finally, the natural order of things," Hux breathes out, something almost erotic underlying it, as he edges his boots closer and closer to Kylo's face.
The Praetorians, in their own order, move for the jugular of Poe. Before the strike lands, however, Hux screams out a hurried no.
"No, no, don't be hasty now. Make them watch. I want them to see what is coming for them next, and for everyone who dares to defy me in this piteous Galaxy."
Poe and Finn are struggling against the Praetorians, while they keep their weapons on them. One weapon is pointed directly at the Wookie's throat, preventing movement to the largest threat as Hux plays with his catch in front of them.
"I have waited so long for this moment, Kylo Ren." Hux's words are thick as Kylo's name slips past his lips like a slow syrup, Hux savoring every drop.
There is blood pouring out of the side of Kylo's stomach, from a wound he had not felt the Praetorian's give him. He can feel himself fading, his edges getting dimmer. He tries, and tries, to reach out for the force, as he has been, tries, but fails to grasp it, his connection to this world weakening.
Hux swings his leg back, before bringing it disastrously forward to kick Kylo fully in the face, his black hair jerking back until Kylo is fully on his back. Finn, Poe, Rose, and Chewie jostle the guards, but all it serves to do is turn the vibrating blades closer to the necks. Slowly, blood starts pooling around Kylo's body.
Hux leans down, his venomous words spewing out, hot on Kylo's cooling face.
"Snoke saw this in you, you know. Your weakness, your vulnerability. Turning tail in your last stand, Ren?" Hux clicks his tongue, "How very pedestrian. So trite and unimaginative, I thought maybe there would be more to you."
Hux leans further, closer to Kylo now, as Kylo's eyes dilate and constrict, looking just beyond Hux, not willing to give him the satisfaction of eye contact.
"I will admit, you put up a fine final hurrah. A damn fine display of all your might. Futile, unproductive, and inadequate, of course, but a fine show of all that innate skill I always heard so much about from Snoke."
"Hux!" it's a desperate attempt to stall on Poe's part, with no plan backing it up, but it gets Hux's attention off Kylo, for just a moment.
"Now you get my name right, I see," Hux's cheeks are red against the paleness of his skin, his rage bringing life to the surface, "Fear has a way of making people remember, doesn't it?," Hux grins, again, for the umpteenth time that day, unsettling everyone in the room, "This is my moment, Dameron, see yourself out of it."
"You slimy fucking weas-"
"Shut him up!" Hux points and the guard, once again, smacks Dameron in the face. He stumbles back into Chewie before settling, dazed.
"Anything else?" Hux's voice is short as he looks to the remaining Resistance, "FN? Area Rug? Girl?" His eyes gloss over theirs, "No, I didn't think so."
"Where were we? Ah," Hux leans down, closer still, "I remember." Slowly, Hux takes the gloves off his own hands, one by one, until his pale, long fingers are exposed. He stretches and retracts them in gnarled movement before he crouches, almost delicately, and wraps his hands around Kylo's throat, feeling the slowing pulse of the man in front of him.
"There was a time I feared you, once. But now I see what you are, I see what Snoke saw every time he looked at you. A sad, desperate child, left alone and abandoned. Easily malleable," his fingers dig into Kylo's flesh, "Ah, so easily malleable."
"Not a god, not a Supreme Leader. Just a little boy, sad and alone. But, I'm not Snoke, not at all. It is you who is going to sputter and die under my hands. Just. Like. This."
Hux's hands tighten around Kylo's throat, cutting off all air. Kylo twitches, his face deepening into red, then purple. Grotesque veins, pop under the skin, but he doesn't bring his own hands up to fight, he doesn't waste that energy when there is something more pressing that he needs to do with his last bit of life.
As the edges go fuzzy on his vision, he reaches out, amongst the fabric of the force.
Rey.
Somewhere close he feels her heels dig in, stalling in her full sprint, and knows she's heard him.
Rey, I'm sorry. I love y-
At that very moment, a deep, desperate sound comes from behind Hux, shattering the final moments of Kylo Ren.
The edges around his vision have gone fully black now, but Kylo is conscious enough to see the cause of it, barreling into his field of sight above him. He thinks, for a moment, it may be Rey, but she is still too far, too far.
Hux's fingers go slack on his throat as the Wookie barrels into view, his large body forcing the Praetorians forward with him.
He is running full speed, so quickly, his strides being so long, and Hux can barely look up before the bloodied Wookie is on top of him.
The Praetorians weapons have almost sliced through Chewie, and there is blood, everywhere, trickling over Kylo, who is already so bloody. Chewbacca, his body, it is almost fully severed, but he is still moved forward, rushing towards the valley behind them.
And the screaming comes then, from the Resistance, from the Pilot, the Traitor, the Other One, all screaming the Wookie's name, all screaming for Chewie, but he is not stopping. He is almost cut fully through now, but he is not stopping. He plows through Hux and now carries all three bodies in front of him as he heads for the crevasse some yards off.
Kylo gasps out in, coughing out blood before turning sharply and reaching out for the Wookie.
He grasps, trying desperately for the force, trying desperately to hang on to the last branch of his family tree.
And then the Wookie looks back, as his body, in pieces, topples into the abyss below, his eyes, with their last spark of life, meeting Kylo's. It is only for a second, but Kylo can see everything he had forgotten in Chewie's eyes. Everything he had been trying to ignore, trying to stamp down into oblivion was staring back at him in Chewie. The deflected bowcaster shots, the pain, the truth, it all comes back. And suddenly, he is four years old again, playing hide and seek in the Falcon, his cheeks stinging from holding in a laugh as Chewie very theatrically grunted and guffawed at not being able to find him.
He is seven and Chewie is slipping him extra bread rolls under the table, away from the careful watch of his mother's strict nutritional eye.
He is ten and can't, could never, remember to switch the sublight engines to neutral before take off, always causing Han to blow a proverbial gasket at the ineptitude of it all, and Chewie, he knows, so he does it for him, when Han isn't looking, every time.
He is twelve, and they are leaving him at The Academy. His mother, she couldn't make it away form the Senate for long enough but to give him a tearful goodbye on Chandrila, so it's just his dad, and the Wookie. His dad can't look at him, won't look at him, not after everything, he just ruffles his hair and says good luck, practically shoving him at Luke. At twelve, this had been proof that Han didn't care, didn't love him. Now he knows, it was too hard, too much, to see his only son having to be raised by someone else because he couldn't handle him, didn't know how to care for him.
But Chewie, Chewie kneels and hugs him for what seems like minutes, allowing him to shed the last tears he would shed for his family for years into the Wookie's fur, unseen and unheard. He doesn't pull away, not ever, not until he's ready.
Suddenly, looking at Chewbacca for the final time, he is Ben again.
"Chewie," is all he can manage to breathe out, and then, he's gone. Over the edge, with Hux and the last sentinels of the First Order with him.
They seem to drag all the sound out of the room with them, down the ravine.
There is silence.
And then it all goes black.
Her lungs, they burn, but she doesn't, she can't, there's no way she is stopping, and then she is there.
She is there and it's over. Everything grows thick and it is hard for her to move when she sees it, sees them, sees it.
It. Him.
On the ground, in a sea of black liquid, lays Ben Solo.
Rey runs, before she can think, before she can breathe, she runs, sliding on the blood, grabbing Ben and cradling him to her.
"What-how?", the words escape her, asked to no one, despite the fact that her friends stand dumbfounded behind her, shocked into submission by the carnage they just witnessed, the carnage which still marrs the stage. But Rey, she doesn't know, everything in her too clouded, she doesn't know what just happened, she only knows she felt him reach out, and then she didn't, and now she's here.
"He..we...He saved us," Rose is the only one who can speak. There are troopers everywhere, littering the ground in white and red, and red, and red. The three of them stand in the middle of it all, with Rey, her grey robes turning more and more red with every passing moment, the liquid from so much blood seeping up until she's covered in it, and Rey doesn't even realize, can't even realize, that it is three instead of four now. Rey doesn't even hear Rose's response over the ringing. All she can see is Ben, all her senses tunnel in on him, until she can pick up on his faint breathing.
Her hand runs down his cheek, and how cold he already is shocks her into action.
"Ben, Ben, please," her voice is a prayer as she tightens her grip around him, shaking his body slightly.
His eyes flutter open, and she can see them struggling to focus on her face, but when they do, there is such warmth in them. So much warmth encased by the cool of his skin.
"Rey…" even his breath is cool on her face.
She feels it then, against the fabric of her leggings, the red hot blood running out like sand pouring from a sieve on his side.
"Please..."
He reaches up his hand to cradle her face, "Rey, it's okay."
"No, no please…" she isn't sure who she is pleading with, him, the force, the fabric of the Universe itself, she just needs something to listen, something to stop this.
"It's okay," he repeats, as if that makes it true.
"Don't. I can't..." she means to say so much more, she means to say that she can't bear this alone again, she can't do this without him, that she needs him, here with her, she needs him.
He catches it in her thoughts.
"That's not true, scavenger," his voice is clear there, like the first time they met, and she smiles, despite herself, at the nickname. It had been so long since he had called her that.
She sees him swallow, hard, before his next words come out, more hoarse than she has heard his voice, "I used to think that you weren't a part of this story. How could you be? You weren't a Skywalker, you had no lineage," a soft sob escapes her, and she moves to quiet him, to tell him to stop, because the blood, it was too much, but he keeps talking anyway, "Then I thought that you were made for me, to be part of my story, to be what I needed." His eyes search hers as his thumb runs across her tears, and his head slowly shakes, "But now I know none of that is true. This is your story Rey. You are it. You are the balance the force needs. You're going to save this awful Galaxy from itself. You. Alone."
"No, Ben. I'm not that person, not without you. Please, don't go, there's so much more."
He smiles, at his name, his real name, once again coming from her lips, "Not for me. This, you, this is all I have ever wanted."
She grips him tighter, pulling him closer to her chest, his massive body limp in her arms. He reaches out his hand to tuck back the strands of hair that had come loose from her buns. His eyes nudge hers, and Rey quickly blinks out her tears, not wanting him to be blurry. She had enough of blurry Kylo Ren, and not enough of the tangible Ben Solo, laying in her lap. She notices his eyes becoming dimmer, losing their life, and panic surges. This can't be it. Not after the bond, not after the hut, not after the fighting and the visions and everything the force had done to drive them to each other. Her mind played through the permutations, searching for anything, anything that would change this fate.
"He had dark hair. Dark hair and pale skin and my eyes staring back at me."
Ben's face contorts in confusion. He thought his blood loss had made him hear incorrectly, the quick descent into death's hallucinations starting.
"Our son, Ben, our son. When I saw him in the forest. He was you and me."
A smile spreads across his impossibly pale face and a guttural sob escapes Rey's lips. She presses her forehead against his and their tears flow together.
"Stay, please, stay," it's a hopeless plea, escaping her lips.
"I love you," he breathes, his hand is falling from her now, but his eyes are still focused, so focused, on her.
She opens her mouth to say it, but stops, not wanting to make it real, not wanting to let go.
I love you.
Sparks from the dying ship surround them, haloing Ben in her tears. Everything is silent and slow, hiding the chaos below, when Kalonia slides in, minutes? Hours? Days? later, moving in slow motion.
Kalonia, who had delivered Ben Solo into this galaxy, was now here to try to save him from exiting it. Sometime in these intervening minutes, Finn had run as fast as he could to get her from the Solace, where she had been triaging survivors.
When Rey looks up, she sees Kalonia on her knees beside them, her arms stretch out to receive him, but not taking him.
"Can I see him, please?" she is asking Rey permission, and Rey realizes how tightly she is holding Ben's body to her chest, as if still protecting him from the entirety of the Universe, the Universe who had used him up and spit him out and left nothing but horrors in its wake.
Rey loosens her grip, and lets Ben slip between herself and Kalonia, his body already limp. She is careful with him, not letting any part of him jerk or fall, keeping her fingers laced in his wet hair as his head settles on the ground beneath them.
Kalonia is quick, assessing wounds, cutting open his pants and shirt, cauterizing what she can. She works for what feels like an eternity, but what may be actually less than five minutes before her eyes ever look at Rey. Soon, they are both covered in his blood as his face changes, the muscles underneath his ashen pallor releasing.
"I can't get a hold on the bleeding. He's going to bleed out," Kalonia's face shoots up to meet Rey's own, "I...I don't know…"
Rey looks in confusion down at the wound, dark blood spilling out of his side, coating both their hands in its viscosity. Desperately, as if she can hold it in, she lays her hands on it, gathering the leaking blood. What he is, who he is, is escaping through that hole, so slowly, hot sand running through a sieve, and Rey, she can't stop it.
Rey forces her eyes down to look at him, unconscious and pale, "Please, please."
Around her, she can sense the tension. Poe's hands are in his face and Rose is crying in Finn's arms.
Rey wants to take the pain from Ben, wants to carry their burdens together. She wants to knit him together and keep him here. But if she can't, she wants to share in this death with him.
She closes her eyes and imagines the wound knitting itself together, sinew by sinew rejoining. Organs healing themselves and lacing the skin. The blood, the black blood, turning red again, then blue, as it re-enters his veins. His lungs restarting, filling, each alveoli expanding as if it were his first breath.
From within her, she feels her body temperature rise, slowly, but she's not focused on that. All she can do is dream, dream of a Ben that is whole again.
And then, she is hot, too hot, burning from the inside out, and Jakku's sun, it comes back to her, except this time, it is in her soul, burning through her own organs through her own flesh. It's so painful, all of it, but she welcomes it, welcomes it if it means she is feeling what he felt. Welcomes it if it means she is closer to him again.
Rey tries to open her eyes again, but finds that she can't, as if she has been frozen.
And then, everything goes white.