Chapter 16

A Clash Between Worlds

Waking up next to Rey felt like something straight out of a wonderful, unobtainable dream. She and Ben were curled up together, his arms wrapped protectively around her rising and falling chest. Soft sunlight shone through the window's warped pane of glass and alighted on the soft curve of her jaw. His mind coursed with cool, blue relief as he breathed in her mild scent of her skin, still salty from their swim in the ocean the night before. He knew he had woken up late, but his body sank further into the mattress and lulled him into a light slumber.

Before he could fall asleep completely, Rey stirred and turned over to face him. Her eyes shone brightly, the freckles on her nose dancing in the morning light. She looked fresh with pieces of her hair sticking out of her half-bun and her bare shoulder emerging from under their covers. She placed a fist under her chin and gazed down at him.

"Good morning," she whispered, cracking a wide white smile.

Affection bloomed in Ben's chest and he leaned forward to plant a kiss on her cheek. "Good morning to you, too," he replied.

She laid her head back down onto the pillow. Her fingers curled through his hair. "It seems like so long ago that we wanted each other dead. I can't believe I almost killed you back in that forest."

"I, for one, am glad you didn't succeed. Or else we wouldn't be here." He inched forward and placed his forehead on hers, gently setting his hand on her shoulder. They stayed this way for a minute or so, frozen in time, drinking in the warmth of this moment wrapped in gold.

"You really are pretty when you're not snarling at anyone." Rey giggled softly, tracing the dark stubble along his jaw.

He couldn't help but smirk. "What am I when I'm not snarling, sweetheart?"

"Still pretty good-looking, I must admit" she replied as a light blush spread across her cheeks. Her finger moved up to trail along his scar, across his cheek and down his neck. Though the skin around the wound was numb, her touch still sent butterflies careening through his stomach.

"I don't think I've said sorry about this, actually," she realized allowed.

"Don't worry, it's all behind us." He reached up to set his hand on hers. "No matter what you've done or what you do, I'll still be here for you, scars and all."

Her smile turned watery and tears threatened to slip from her eyes. Her hand rose up to the scar on her right arm. "I'll be here, too. Scars and all."

He swept her up in a tight, passionate kiss, one hand on her back and the other cupping her face. Her hands rested against his chest, her touch solid and smooth. The bedcovers swirled around them. Here she was, here they were, at last together and whole.

Rey pulled herself out of the kiss, panting slightly as she said, "Everyone's downstairs for breakfast. I don't know about you, but I'm starving." She wiped away the tears from her eyes and touched the tip of her nose against his. Her breath settled on his skin, sweet and warm.

Ben never wanted this moment to end, wrapped up in soft blankets and sunlight. But his stomach rumbled as if on cue and he grinned like an idiot.

"I suppose so," he muttered before planting a quick kiss on her forehead and leaping out of bed. "I've had enough ration packets for a lifetime. Let's get some real food before those ravenous ghouls steal everything."

Ben knew as soon as he and Rey stepped into the kitchen a few minutes later that things were going to be a bit awkward. Both of them arrived late to breakfast, the smell of stewing meats luring them down the stairs. He noticed way too late that his hair was more disheveled than usual, and his doublet had been buttoned wrong. Rey's robes were also wrinkled and out of order. Both of them rubbed sleep from their eyes while the guards traded loaded glances across the dining table.

"Looks like a couple someones stayed up a little too late," chirped Sestro, smiling into his steaming mug of tea. Joran and Ames looked at one another seriously as if deciding to tell him off but said nothing. Sal and Edric wouldn't meet their eyes while Ben could have sworn Eloisa flashed Rey a quick thumbs up.

"Good news, everyone," chirped Zeph, hoisting a platter of fruit and fried meat over their heads and plopping it in the center of the table. "I was able to get a signal last night and someone received it! I got a short reply and the Resistance should be on their way!"

The guards clapped and shouted their gratitude. Rey beamed up at their host while she tucked into breakfast, but she shot a worried glance across the table at him. Guilt welled up in his throat as he gathered food onto his plate.

The loving warmth from their waking up together almost evaporated altogether. What would they do now? Her friends were on their way and bringing with them plenty of protection. But how who they react to… what even were they now? Friends? Lovers? They had spent one night together, but who knew what would happen to what they had?

"So, we just wait around till they get here?" Sestro asked, dipping a hunk of bread into a puddle of sauce on his plate.

"It looks like it," Ben said. Rey nodded along with him and slid him a sly grin as she passed him a bowl of fruit with the Force. He couldn't help but grin back. The memories of the night before started to drift back again, keeping his worry of the Resistance at bay. Another breakfast on their old shuttle, was what this was, just the two of them. As long as they weren't here yet, they still had time to share each other's company.

"Well, we'll have to find something else to do in the meantime then," Rey managed to say with chunks of bread lodged in her mouth. She gestured to Ben with her knife. "Fancy a spar later?"

"Of course," he replied. "If you were anything like you were last night, you'll have me beat in no time."

It took Ben a few seconds to realize that guards and host alike all had their eyes on them. He had forgotten they were even there. Rey looked down at her plate, eyes wide and lips pursed in embarrassment.

"Do you all mind?" he snapped, taking a sip of tea from his mug and staring back.

"You know, we're here, too." Edric pointed out, drawing a few chuckles from his comrades. "You should be careful about the phrasing you choose."

"We should never have rescued you, then," he shot back. Rey let out a rough burst of laughter, and soon enough the rest of the group joined in.

A flash of green lit up in the corner of Ben's eye and his gut turned to stone. He was all too familiar with this indication of danger.

"Get down!" he bellowed as a bright green blaster bolt smashed through the glass window and charred the wooden counter blocking its path. Ben pushed Rey out of her chair and onto the ground with a grunt of effort. His guards copied his action, landing on the floor and scrambling for the blasters that hung in holsters on the other side of the kitchen. Zeph shrieked and dove under the safety of the table as plates and glasses clattered down on top of them.

Two more blasts landed themselves in the woven tapestry on the opposite wall, level to where their heads were just moments before. Rey hunched over and pulled her lightsaber staff, which was leaning against the doorway, towards her with the Force. Ben reached down for his saber and cursed. He had left it upstairs, still clipped to the belt he had thrown off the night before. He was usually more careful than this.

"Come out, we know you're in there, scum!" a severe voice lashed at them from outside the front door. Ben reached out with his mind and was met with a dozen or so troopers waiting on the other side of the fragile wood walls.

Rey shot up to her feet and ignited the twin blades of her staff. Before Ben could stop her, she was steps away, running to open the door and meet their assailants. Rage raced through his veins and he followed after without a second thought. He didn't have a weapon, he realized a second later, but he'd do his best to protect her. The floor shook behind him as the guards ran forward to back them up.

They were met with a barrage of laser blasts. Fifty soldiers formed a semicircle around the bridge, their only way off the deck without going for a swim. Penma stood smugly behind them, gloves hands behind her back and looking as crisp as ever.

Rey skidded to a halt in front of the narrow strip of timber and began to block shots with her staff. Blasts ricocheted this way and that. She certainly could hold them off, but he'd have to help out if they were going to make it out of this.

"Stay down," he commanded Zeph. She nodded, whimpering and folding her head in her arms.

As Joran and Ames commanded their friends to fire back, Ben ran to Rey, arm outstretched, and fingers splayed with effort. He wouldn't let Penma and her lackies touch Rey, let them ruin any more peaceful mornings.

"What are you doing?!" She shouted as he ducked under her and gritted his teeth in concentration. "You don't have your lightsaber!"

"That shouldn't stop me from protecting all of you!" he yelled back over the din. His fingertips tingled. Sweat beaded his forehead as he focused all of his willpower on the here in now: To protect. To keep them safe. To keep her safe.

Eloisa let out a startled gasp and some of the stormtroopers surrounding them lowered their weapons in shock while Penma scolded them for their incompetency. Rey turned to him with her mouth hanging open. It took Ben a moment to register what they were reacting to in his struggle to access this much Force power.

Green bursts of light hung in the air at random intervals, crackling and hissing in their efforts to escape their transparent prison. A dozen or so were trapped with a motion of Ben's hand and a rumble of pride stirred in his stomach. It had taken months for him to perfect the technique to hold one blast in place. Now, even without his lightsaber, he was a force to be reckoned with. Seeing Rey out of the corner of his eye, he now realized why this change had occurred. Being together had done more than improve their emotions, but their physical abilities as well.

Suddenly the rumbled of engines cut through the air, already shimmering with the heat from firing pistols and heavy weapons. Penma held up her hand to stop her soldiers from firing and Ben and Rey looked up to the sky. It was as if the entire battle held its breath at the sound, straining to hear more.

"It's the Resistance!" Sal crowed with joy.

Sure enough, as Ben turned his gaze upwards towards the glistening glassy forest, blurs of orange and white soared over the trees and raced towards the ocean. Five or so X-wings swept up loose leaves in their wake and descended down upon the hoard of stormtroopers. Their guns fired almost in unison, raining down red bolts of destruction.

"Get down!" he bellowed, and he, Rey, and the guards all dropped to the deck in the hopes that the pilot's eyesight was as good as their aim. Stormtroopers were blasted off of their feet one after the other with a precision that he had often heard the TIE pilots discussing in hushed tones on the Finalizer. The blasts that were frozen one minute zipped out of his hold and zipped over their heads.

As Penma's troops began to scatter across the beach, two more shuttles materialized over the forest's horizon, leaving light contrails in their wide wake. Transports, and big ones too, just like the ships that had arrived at the castle before he had abducted Rey and taken her to Starkiller Base. Through the explosions and the yells Ben reveled in the irony of it as he lay beside Rey, her arm thrust out over him. The first time, taking her away. This time, to return her.

The X-wings took care of most of the ground troops. The stormtroopers not knocked to the ground were in full retreat, sprinting towards the safety of the glassy trees.

"Come back here!" Penma screamed at them, shooting her pistol up in the air as she desperately waved her arms over her head. "You cowards! How dare you leave your commanding officer behind!"

She didn't even see Ames stomping up behind her. With a dull thud the guard brought down the butt of her gun down on Penma's temple, sending her sprawling into the sand.

Soon the only noises that reached Ben's ears were the roar of the Resistance ships. They began to descend and landed on the wide beach surrounding Zeph's hut. Sand particles whipped through the air as Ben, Rey, and the rest of the guards stood back up with their hands up over their heads in gestures of surrender. One of the men picked Penma's unconscious body off the beach and carried towards the ship.

Rey would tell them they were in good hands, but Ben's muscles filled with lead at the sight of General Organa's transports opening their bay doors. He she was, after years and years of separation and heartbreak. As her soldiers spilled out onto the sands with fresh faces and gleaming blasters, the former Supreme Leader in him registered this as only a preamble to the arrival of the Resistance general. But a glance back at Rey's hopeful face reminded him of what was really in front of him: his estranged mother.

"Rey! Rey!" cried out two voices, ringing over the marching boots and cooling engines. Two figures sprinted towards the base of the bridge, one short and stocky, the other taller and dark.

"Finn! Rose!" Rey brushed back Ben and took off down the rickety wooden bridge, robes whipping against her legs as she turned her staff off. She ran into them and wrapped them in a violent hug, whoops of laughter echoing over to him.

Ben could only keep his hands up and stare. Two eras of his life smashed together, Rey and her Resistance, his great love and his great hate. This effect was bizarre, as if two worlds were colliding right in front of him, sending out shockwaves and fire.

Now he could recognize the man she embraced: FN-2817, or Finn, the stormtrooper who defected and made a laughingstock of the First Order's troops. The small girl he did not recognize from before, but according to Rey her she had to be the "Rose."

A dozen blasters now had their barrels aimed at Ben and his guards, shouts being tossed about and feet grinding deeper into the sand. Anger rippled through him at the sight and was about to hold out his hand to summon his lightsaber from the window above when—

"Don't shoot them!" Rey skidded to a halt in front of the bridge with her arms splayed and her expression panicked. "They won't hurt you, they're on our side!"

An ugly, rearing silence engulfed the beach. Soldiers turned to one another with questioning looks but kept their blasters aimed.

"Rey, are you insane?!" the small girl called to her, clutching Finn in horror.

"What is this? That's Kylo Ren there! You can't honestly think something's not wrong here." The former stormtrooper stepped forward to pull her back to his side, but she wouldn't budge from her spot.

"This went as well as I could have expected," sighed Eloisa.

"Please everyone, I know this all looks bad, but you have to trust me, lower your weapons, I beg of you!"

"You heard the girl."

A new voice now, one with poise and power. General Leia Organa hobbled through the mass of soldiers, which parted like grassy plains in the wind. She walked with a cane now, a detail that dug into Ben's heart like a knife. Her hair streaked with white, the hands now veiny and covered in dark spots. Despite all of that, that same sharp, brown-eyed gaze still shot through him as it had in the past. Like she was reading his mind. She could do that, from time to time.

Organa stopped and firmly pressed her cane into the sand. "It's alright, Rey, I won't let anything happen."

Rey nodded and stepped behind the general. She looked over her shoulder at Ben, a fearful grimace on her face.

Now it was just Ben and his mother. He turned to the guards behind him and gestured for them to stay where they were. Then he sucked in a deep, terrified breath and strolled along the bridge while adjusting his crooked doublet. He felt so naked in front of these soldiers. No mask, no cloak, not even his lightsaber. His boots sank into the soft white sand, threatening to pull everything he was down into its depths.

The general remined silent and still as Ben arrived in front of her, towering over her short, hunched figure. Rey gave him a knowing look and stepped back to join her friends, crossing her arms over her chest. She understood the magnitude of this meeting and let him take care of it himself.

It was all Ben could do to choke back the emotions threatening to overflow.

"Mom?" he tried. He must look like an utter mess in front of her, his doublet splinter-ridden and buttoned wrong, hair flat and unkempt. Still a filthy monster, one that had murdered her husband and had fought against her army tooth and nail. Stripped down to his bare bones.

She said nothing but crossed her arms over her chest. She wore a plain brown dress with tasteful golden jewelry, a far cry from the gaudy gowns and elaborate hair-dos of his childhood. When she had walked him down in the gardens of Dantooine, when she had helped him tie up his boots before taking him to his daily classes. All of that was gone now, ground to dust under by the winds of time. Tears filled his eyes, but he blinked them away and continued to speak.

"I'm not here to hurt anyone. I saved Rey over Nov Sensum and we've been trying to find you for quite some time."

"So she could lead you to us!" Finn snapped and Rose had to hold grab ahold of his collar to stop his aggressive advance.

Leia held her hand out to Finn, signaling him to stop. She nodded towards Ben for him to continue.

"I'm not with the First Order anymore, and I only wanted to bring her to you safely." Then he met his mother's gaze directly, speaking specifically to her.

"I'm so sorry. I want to make things right now." His words came out shaky, but he couldn't care less. He only wanted for his mother to understand.

She still didn't respond. She stared up at him, her expression frustratingly blank. He closed his eyes angrily and started to march towards her, fists clenched.

A collective clatter of aimed blasters filled his ears, but he ignored the warning. Once he was within a few feet of Leia, he gulped down his pride and fell to his knees in front of her. He heard Rey's high-pitched gasp behind him.

"Please," he begged. His long black hair fell into his eyes as he stared up into his mother's face. The salty sea air scorched his searing lungs. Two tears rolled down his cheeks.

"I know I ruined everything. I've hurt so many people, and I left you and Dad, and I fell into darkness, and I am ashamed. Mom, I am so ashamed of what I did. Please, if you won't forgive me, I want you to know this. I'll leave as soon as you want me to, but I want you to know how what I've done has torn me to pieces."

Only the crash of the waves and the rustle of the wind through the glassy forest reached Ben's ears for the longest time. Everyone waited with bated breath as Leia stood above him, as unmoving and steady as a mountain. Ben was empty, all of his fear and passion poured out in front of him. All he could do now was wait for his mother's words.

Leia sunk down to her knees in front of him, sand particles sticking to her dress and her cane toppling over behind her. With surprising speed and strength for an older woman, she pulled his broad, awkward frame into a tight hug.

A wave of confusion overcame his jolt of surprise.

"I'd thought you'd hate me. That you'd never forgive me," he gulped, hugging her back.

"My dear boy, that's never been true." She was so small and fragile against him, so different from the proud youth she radiated in the memories of his childhood. "I've always loved you and I always will. I was just so scared you were gone forever."

No longer was Ben Solo a man, but a boy curled up in his mother's warm, loving arms, her hand caressing the back of his head in a gesture that almost split his heart. He didn't even bother to hold back his tears now. They kneeled in the sand for the longest time, both mother and son crying onto one another's shoulders.

Leia pulled herself from the hug and held Ben's shoulder's at arm's length. She smiled weakly and sighed. "You look so much like your father. But I'm not too sure where this black hair came from."

Ben laughed lightly and stood up, helping his mother to her feet and returning her cane to her. She immediately turned around to face her soldiers and ships.

"No one touches him, understand that?"

A chorus of uneasy "Yes, ma'am"s and "Of course"s filled the air.

"We leave for Raspitar now. We'll figure this whole thing out soon." Leia then walked over to Rey, still standing with Finn and Rose. She reached her arms around Rey as she had with him.

"It's so good to see you again, my dear. I trust you'll follow us home?" he heard her say. She released her and began the trek back to the transports.

Rey waved for Finn and Rose to follow the general without her. She slung her staff over her shoulder as she ran towards Ben and wrapped him in a warm, calm embrace. He hugged her back, breathing in the scent of her hair.

He glanced up to see Finn give him a flabbergasted look just as their bay doors closed and the transports took off.

"Mission success?" Sestro asked. The group of guards had appeared behind them, holstering blasters in their coats. Their freighter sat parked on the short cliff above them. All that was left to do was pay Zeph back for the damages and get their supplies from inside.

Ben peered down at Rey then pressed his forehead against hers. The morning sunlight scattered its rays across the rippling ocean. He breathed in through his nose and watched the transport ships soar through the blue, cloud-pocked sky.

"I suppose so."

Author's Note: Guys, I am SO sorry for the late update! Thank you all for your patience. I've had to study for finals and my schedule's going to be off until they're over. I'll be back as soon as I can.