Ben was floundering in the water again. A shadow pulled him deeper, taking him someplace cold and empty.

"If you send me to Chaos, I'll drag you with me," growled a voice that came from every direction at once.

He fought, trying to free himself from the waves that closed in over his head. Whispers and hisses floated around him, sending a shiver over his skin. Freezing hands of beings he couldn't see clutched at his arms and his legs, tugging him down. He tried to breathe but his lungs filled with water instead of air. There was the sharp terror of a drowning man, and he struggled harder to rise. It was so dark here, so deep. Where was the bright shore?

Rey?

"She cannot reach you here."

The voice rumbled around him, shifting the waters. Ben kicked out against it, pushing against the swirling currents to reach for the air and light that must be somewhere above him. He felt his hands break the surface at last, the spray blowing sharp and cold against his fingertips. He opened his mouth to cry out and the bitter taste of iron and salt filled it. There was a familiar smell.

Blood.

He was drowning in blood.

Help me.

"There is no help in this place."

He tried to reach higher, his fingers spreading to their limits as he flailed against the crimson waters. The frozen grip of his captor tightened, and he was dragged down again, beyond the reach of the light.

Please…help me…

Something brushed his hand. Something that warmed his icy skin and sent a surge of hope through him. Fingers circled his wrist, drawing tight. They burned. But he reached out and wrapped his own around an arm, clinging to it like a child waking from a nightmare.

"No!" the voice roared, and the sea surged around him.

But Ben could feel himself rising. He was being drawn upward, and the freezing hands were slipping. Losing their grip.

"No!" shrieked the voice again.

He felt decaying fingers clawing over his face as he broke the surface, pulling at his hair and skin, unrelenting in their hatred. Blood and water blinded him, but he did not let go of the hand that lifted him to clear it from his eyes. And all the while the darkness still dragged at him. The voice still raved in his ears.

"You will not escape! My fate is yours, Kylo Ren! You belong to the darkness!"

And then an entirely new voice spoke, quiet, yet carrying a strength that Ben had never before heard from the mouth of one living. It was a command that would endure no argument. That could not be disobeyed.

"Leave, Sidious. You have no claim. No power. You're nothing."

The grip on his foot loosened, and his shoulders rose above the waves. Ben kicked again, and something like a great weight slipped from him. The cold grasp of Sidious vanished, and he was hauled upward by powerful arms to stand above the tossing waves, coughing and retching in the misty air.

"Come with me, Ben."

The voice was as soft as it had been before, and it carried the same power. He could no more defy it than could Sidious. Still blind with the dark vapors that shifted above the waters, he staggered along beside his deliverer, a strong hand supporting him as they passed over the writhing sea.

He heard strange noises as they traveled; muffled cries and indistinct moans that sounded as if they came from the depths far beneath him. But every time he tried to turn his head to look, the soft voice drew his attention away from them again.

"Don't look," it said.

They continued on for what felt like a long time, before the figure at his side drew to a stop. At the pressure of the hand on his arm, Ben came to a standstill, his eyes stretched wide but still unseeing in the darkness. The voice spoke out of the shadows beside him.

"This is the place."

There was a faint humming noise, and a thin line of golden light appeared in the air before him, etching a shimmering circle into the darkness. He flinched backward and staggered as his foot plunged beneath the waves. But the hand on his arm held him fast and he did not sink.

"Don't be afraid, Ben. This is the path you must take."

He turned to look at the figure beside him and caught, for the briefest of moments, a face that seemed both old and young in the light of the golden ring. He caught his breath, recognition making his head spin. His mouth opened, but no sound came out, and a smile creased the face of the man who had pulled him from the water.

"Don't question, Ben. Trust that which you know to be true."

And with that, his grandfather's hand went tighter around his arm, and Ben found himself being pulled forward. They stepped through the ring of light as one, and something like electricity crackled in Ben's ears. There was a sharp stab of panic at the sensation, but his grandfather drew him forward and he stepped from darkness into a place far stranger than the one he had left behind.

"Where-?" Ben began, gazing around him with suddenly clear eyes.

He seemed to be standing among a vast field of stars, the pale pinpoints of their light shining out from the emptiness of space. But it wasn't the space he was used to seeing from the viewport of a ship. None of the stars matched his charts. None of the many constellations he had seen were visible. He turned around, half expecting to see a dark, storm tossed sea.

Instead of waves and blowing mists, he found himself standing before another glowing circle, though it reminded him of the pale glow of moonlight rather than golden sunlight. Strange symbols ran around its circumference, spiked protrusions at regular intervals with stylized waves between. Ben reached out to run his fingers over them, tracing the luminescent threads of light.

"What is this?"

He felt the warmth of his grandfather's presence at his side and looked into the clear blue eyes. Anakin smiled and turned his eyes to the circle of light.

"A door," he said. "One of many."

"One of many?" Ben repeated, and he slowly pivoted until he could look out on the vast array of stars again.

Except they weren't stars. They were doors.

"There must be millions…" he breathed.

"Billions," Anakin said. "All of them moments in time that have formed doorways to this place. Some vergences within the Force. Some not. But all a way to step into this world from your own."

"This world?" Ben asked.

"Perhaps that isn't the right name," Anakin chuckled. "It might be better to call it a world between worlds. A corridor."

"Then how did you get here?" Ben asked.

"I came in by a door," Anakin said, his smile turning mischievous. "Just like you did."

"This door?" Ben asked, gesturing to the one behind them.

Anakin shook his head and pointed out across the stars. Ben followed his grandfather's arm, squinting into the distance. Before he could ask, Anakin took him by the arm again and guided him forward.

"Come," Anakin said. "They're waiting for you."

"Who-?" began Ben.

"You'll see."

...

Ben followed his grandfather on a path he would not have remembered even if he had tried. Their footsteps made little sound on the ground beneath their feet, if it could indeed be called ground. It was almost crystalline: as clear and brittle as glass, with the same threads of moonlight that had marked the edges of the door now stretching out before them to form a path.

He trailed behind Anakin, gazing about and silent in his awe. Doors rose on either side of him, the great luminous circles dazzling in their beauty. He saw images of strange creatures adorning some, words written in languages he didn't understand upon others. In a few, he caught glimpses of shadowy shapes moving somewhere beyond the portal's entrance, as if he was watching them through fathoms of water, or through a fogged piece of transparisteel. He always paused when he caught sight of them, staring in curiosity until Anakin drew him away again.

They went on like that until Anakin stopped before a door that seemed to be wreathed in blooming flowers. As they drew closer, a light began to flicker somewhere deep in its center, expanding until it shone out of the portal like a beam of light. Ben lifted an arm to shield his eyes, squinting into the brilliance. He thought he could make out more of those strange shadows moving beyond, their forms growing larger and larger.

And then the light swirled as the surface rippled with colors, and a hand emerged through it as from a still pool of water. An arm followed, and then a figure clad all in white stepped out of the doorway to stand before them.

She was young. It was the first thought that flashed through Ben's mind. His mother was young again; stripped of the care that years and circumstances had laid upon her. She looked as he just barely remembered her from his childhood: her hair falling in waves down her back, dark and untouched by gray, and the creases in her face smoothed. But her eyes were the same. Old eyes that he knew, and which knew him.

"How?" he gasped. "I watched you die…"

"There is a doorway here from every world," said Anakin. "She simply has to walk through."

Ben opened his mouth to ask another question, but before he could speak, the light shifted, and a man appeared at his mother's side. A knot twisted in Ben's throat, tight and hot, as recognition took hold. His mouth worked as he tried to find the words, but no sound escaped him.

"Hey, kid."

Han's mouth turned up in a grin, and he took a step toward Ben, one hand rising before him. Ben flinched back, guilt clawing at him. But Anakin's hand rested on his shoulder, holding him in place. Ben swallowed, unable to move under his father's gaze. Han's fingers found his face, his hand at Ben's jaw and his thumb caressing his cheek as he had once done when the nightmares had woken Ben in the night.

"I've missed you, son."

Ben lowered his eyes to the transparent ground beneath his feet, his guilt howling in him like a storm wind. There was a pressure against his shoulder as Anakin squeezed, the gesture somehow reassuring. He leaned closer, and peace swept through Ben.

"Let it go, Ben," Anakin murmured. "Shame doesn't belong here."

"Ben."

He raised his eyes at the sound of Leia's voice, though he couldn't quite meet hers. Her face lit in a brilliant smile, and her hand, like his father's, found his cheek. Then she wrapped her arms around him and pressed a kiss against his forehead, her tears hot against his skin.

"We hoped for so long," she wept, though there was laughter in it. "And here you are."

The constriction in Ben's throat drew tighter, and he blinked against the tears that blurred his vision as he looked back to his father. He tried again to speak, and his voice came out at last in a rasped and broken whisper.

"Dad. I'm- I'm so…"

It was Han's turn to draw him into an embrace. Ben's words faltered and died as his father crushed him to his chest and he experienced the same overwhelming relief he had as a child. He was safe. He was loved. He had done wrong, but there was forgiveness. There had always been forgiveness.

"I know," Han said in his ear.

Ben clung tighter to his father, unable to let go. It had been so many years, and he had become so many people in the time that had passed. And now he was new again. And old. A boy, and still a man, somehow both and neither at once.

"Come home, Ben."

Ben paused, suddenly hesitant in the face of his father's plea. Home. The word pulled at him in a way it never had before, and images rose in his mind. Warm brown eyes that sparkled when they laughed and turned fathomless when they were full of tears. Tanned skin. The black down of fine baby hair. Tiny fingers wrapping his own. That was home.

Ben.

He glanced around him, searching for the source of the voice that called him. Hers. He knew it as surely as he knew where he belonged. Home was not beyond the door through which his parents had come. Not yet. That door would remain open to him, but he would not enter it alone. Not without her.

"I can't," he said quietly, stepping out of his father's embrace. "Not yet. I can't leave them."

Han gave him a sudden grin and dipped his head in a nod, understanding in his expression. His mother, too, seemed to follow the pattern of his thoughts and smiled up at him, though water still shone in her eyes. She reached up and ran her fingers over his cheek once more and Ben leaned into her hand, trying to etch the memory of it into his mind.

"Then we'll be waiting for you when you return," she whispered.

For one moment, Ben hesitated. His parents stood before him, backlit with the golden light shining through the door. He wanted to remember them like this: with no sadness in their young faces, as there had been when he had said goodbye to each before. And surely this was another goodbye. But everything was different. In a single motion, he stepped forward and threw his arms around them, clutching them to himself in one last embrace. Yet there was no grief, only joy and the hope of another reunion.

"Go," his mother whispered, pressing a kiss against his forehead. "She calls for you."

Their arms fell from his shoulders as he moved to follow Anakin, who seemed to have anticipated his decision and was already striding down the path. Ben could feel their eyes lingering on him long after he had turned away, and as he reached the top of a great arch of the crystalline path, he looked over his shoulder to catch a final glimpse of them. But instead of two figures, Ben saw three. The third seemed to have just emerged from the door and was standing tall and strong behind the two forms of his parents. A man with light hair, and a familiar expression. He saw Ben and raised a hand in farewell, a boyish grin stretching over his face. Ben froze.

"Luke…" he whispered.

But then his grandfather called for him to follow, and Ben turned away, fixing his eyes on Anakin's back as he led him onward. The next time he glanced over his shoulder, the figures of his parents and his uncle were gone. Ben bit his lip as an unexpected surge of loneliness swept through him, leaving a bitter ache in his chest. But it was overcome almost at once by a deep longing. Something like homesickness, but for the ones he had left behind in his world, not a place. The bond was drawing him inexorably toward his time, growing stronger with every step he took, and his mind fastened upon it.

He passed doors without truly seeing them, his stride lengthening as a sense of urgency seized him. His grandfather seemed to understand what was happening and increased his pace to match Ben's. It wasn't until they reached a new door that they both stopped short, Ben's boots nearly skidding on the glassy surface of the path.

They stood before a portal framed in the same moonlight as all the others. But unlike the other doors, this one was triangular in shape, its three points sharp and severe so that Ben hesitated once more. There were runes etched along its every side, as harsh looking as the doorway itself, and Ben felt a cold chill slide down his back at the sight of them.

"I've seen something like these before," he said. "On ancient scrolls I found, and carved into stones on Exegol."

"Ur-Kittât," Anakin said in a low voice. "The Old tongue of the Sith."

"You can read it?"

"Darth Sidious taught me," confirmed Anakin. "And I used it for evil. But these words here don't speak of terrible things."

"What do they say?" Ben asked, gazing at the shapes the letters formed against the darkness.

"It's a prophecy," Anakin said with a small smile. "It speaks of two that will be one within the Force; bound so tightly together that even death cannot separate them."

Ben felt an answering smile lifting the corners of his own mouth, and he took a step toward the portal, putting out his hand to run his fingers over the inscription. At his touch, the silvery runes glowed brighter, and the empty space at the center of the door began to cloud as if with a mist.

"Ben?"

The voice came to him out of the doorway, ringing in the silence of the world between worlds, somehow both whisper soft and as clear and piercing as a bell. Rey's voice. It echoed around him; his name repeated a thousand times in the emptiness. Rey calling his name in battle and whispering it in the darkness of midnight as she lay wrapped in his arms. His name murmured in a half sleep and screamed as he lay dying. It spoke of all the quiet moments of whose memories they were the sole carriers and of all the moments that the galaxy would remember. Of the important moments and the mundane ones, seconds filled with hope and terror and love.

Ben glanced over his shoulder to his grandfather, though everything inside him was crying out to follow Rey's voice. Anakin grinned at him and nodded, and Ben caught a fleeting glimpse of the young man that his grandfather must have been.

"Go," he said, chuckling a little. "Finish what I started."

Ben laughed, and returned his grandfather's nod, taking a step toward the swirling vapor beyond the glittering runes. Another step, and he passed over the threshold of the door. A faint tingle like electricity ran over his skin, and he shuddered instinctively. The air seemed to thicken as he breathed, losing the peculiar emptiness of the world between worlds. A shadow seemed to pass over him, and his vision darkened until he could not see.

For one moment, panic took him, and he nearly turned back. But then his grandfather's voice came to him, and the frantic noise of his thoughts calmed and grew quiet again.

"The Force will be with you, Ben."

He could hear his heart beating, the rush of blood in his ears a steady rhythm that was punctuated by the rasp of air as it passed his suddenly raw throat. He could smell dust on the air. Dust and the lingering sharp scent of ozone. His lungs felt clogged with it. He dragged in another ragged breath. There was a hand on his cheek, and someone spoke to him in a muffled voice.

Grandfather?

But Anakin did not answer. Instead, the voice that came to him from beyond the darkness of his closed eyes grew louder, even as the ringing in his ears faded. A woman's voice. Her voice.