Notes: Thank you for your reviews and follows. I do hope you're enjoying the story.

Chapter Three: Sacrifice

In that moment Ben heard his mother's voice call out across the stars. It was a plea. To forsake this path, the one he'd set for himself and allow Rey to live. He turned from where she lay in a sprawled heap. The current of his mother's light blinked once and then it was gone. He nearly stumbled under the unexpected grief that assaulted him.

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Leia Organa-Solo's death rang through the Force with a finality that rivaled even that of her twin brother. Unlike Luke, Leia had remained a beacon of hope throughout the galaxy. She'd represented the light and been an example of rebellion at its best. At one time she'd believed that was enough; to be the light she expected everyone else to see. But she'd been wrong.

Her light had been tainted by the loss of her son. And her husband. Luke had been the latest in a long line of loss that were the people in her life. The death of her brother had been bad, but it had paled in comparison to the loss of Han. The gaping void that his death had left in her soul was something she would never fully recover from. But of all the people she'd said goodbye to, it had been her son that had broken her into pieces.

From the moment she'd felt him move inside her, she'd been lost. The whisps of his building power in the Force had been like staring at the sun. She'd been thrilled that the Skywalker and Solo lines wouldn't end with them or Han. But as she approached her due date, Leia could feel the power growing within her son. She'd known it was a boy since the second month, but she'd kept that to herself until the last few weeks. Luke had also felt his sister's child, but he'd kept it to himself, at her request.

Han hadn't ever considered what it would mean to be a 'father'. He'd never had one himself and the idea of a 'small human' scared the Bantha crap out of him. That fear had been palpable, and Leia had felt the unsure concern emanating from the child. She'd done her best to reassure her terrified husband, but Han had been Han about the whole thing. It had been Luke's fears that had surprised her.

Ben Solo had been a beautiful black-haired child with innocent eyes and an expressive face. Of course, all parents believe their children are beautiful, but Leia had been certain of it. The iridescent light of his Force presence had eclipsed everything around him. But as he'd grown, that light had slowly been infiltrated by tendrils of darkness. His anger had ebbed and flowed like the tides. Sometimes he was hurt or afraid of the increasing hostility he felt from those around him. It had been the quiet conversations between his mother and father that slowly spread the dark threads through his light, causing increasing damage. The talks that had happened behind closed doors; the ones they believed he knew nothing about.

They'd been wrong. He'd known. Eventually, the word monster and darkside became linked to the name of Ben Solo. They never said these things out loud, at least not if they believed he was anywhere around. But words weren't the only way to communicate fear and distrust.

Leia had never even entertained that she would lose her only son to the darkside. That he would seek something there that he wasn't finding at home. So she'd sent him to Luke and that was when his overtones of betrayal and abandonment had splintered Ben's light in the Force. He'd cut himself off from her after that. She couldn't access his emotions anymore, couldn't feel him within the Force. It had felt as though someone had reached in and ripped out her heart. And that was before she lost Han. He'd gone back to the only life he'd ever felt comfortable with…and so had she. Neither of them had sought the other out for more than a decade; and they never spoke of their son again.

She had felt it the moment Ben had made the decision to end Rey's life. To grant the scavenger the peace she so desperately wanted. Leia couldn't allow that; she knew what Ben had yet to understand; he'd given his heart and soul to the girl. Killing her would fracture what was left of him and he would never recover. Losing Padme had been the cause of her Anakin's fall; it would happen again if Ben followed through on his impulse.

So, in that moment, Leia had gathered her light within the Force, and she'd used her final moments to send her hope, love and acceptance of her son pouring along a pulsing Force connection. Leia wasn't even sure if it was Ben she was feeling, but she had to trust the Force.

She wasn't sure it would work, but she hoped; they hadn't been in contact since he'd been fifteen. Yet when she'd dug through her emotions, she'd found that tendril of a connection had still been there. Damaged and unsteady, but it was there.

In her last moments, Leia had tapped into those lines of energy and emotion, allowed her consciousness to slip along that dark path and infiltrate his mind filling it with everything she'd been unable to express for the past thirteen years. Her mind shouted a denial at the raw open pain she encountered inside his mind. He felt so alone that she nearly recoiled in horror. He'd made no friends among Snoke's followers, he wasn't allowed to interact outside of the missions assigned by the supreme leader.

The Sith Lord had isolated Ben, kept him from other Force-sensitive beings to ensure he never felt a connection with anyone but Snoke. And he'd used pain to mold and control her son's mind. Her soul screamed out at the pain her son had endured. Unlike the Jedi, the dark lord had hurt Ben to keep him in line. He'd suffered humiliation, indignity and injuries that should have left him in a puddle on the ground. But Ben had truly been his parent's son. He was strong in the face of adversity and he'd managed to take everything that Snoke had devised, using it to fortify his skills within the Force.

And yet as she connected with his mind, she could clearly see how he'd been lied to, manipulated and twisted by the leader of the First Order. Snoke had promised Ben a place where he would be accepted for who he was and instead he'd been reviled and feared to the point of desertion by those sworn to serve his master. A single tear slipped past Leia's clenched eyelids; she hadn't known. None of them had known how thoroughly Ben had been tortured both emotionally and physically.

While his first fifteen years had been difficult, there had at least been joy in them; but his last thirteen years had been a nightmare of soul-wrenching heartache and isolation.

She couldn't blame Luke for his doubts, she and Han had had them too. But Leia did blame herself for the decision to send away her only son. Ben had once been a brilliant source of light and promise in the Force. But that light had been shot through with elements of darkness…just as his grandfather's had been.

The Skywalkers were a flawed family with equal measures of light and dark swirling through them. They weren't some mythic source of all things 'good' in the galaxy. They had been, still were, a family full of doubts and fears, just like any other family.

But the Solos were even more flawed.

Han had been an orphan. And growing up on Corelia relying on no one but himself, he had never done well when confronted with commitment. He'd had serious doubts when she'd revealed she was pregnant; their son, Ben, had represented a tether that Han hadn't been ready to accept.

Although, he had loved his dark-haired son with every fiber of his being, Han Solo had never been good with emotions and that inability to share his love had damaged his young son's heart and soul in ways that had eventually destroyed his light.

She'd seen it happening, but Leia had been unable to stop the damage…and they had lost Ben because of it. But now, she had a chance to bring him back. To allow that last spark of slowly fading light to shine through the oppressive darkness of his choices.

And yet, if she was really honest with herself, it hadn't been her that broke through the black webs that had spidered Ben's light, it had been Rey. The scavenger girl from Jakku had penetrated the wall of Ben Solo's emotions in a way that his parents hadn't been able to. She'd managed to bring his humanity back from the darkside.

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Ren felt every inch of the burning pain as the fluctuating energy of his own lightsaber pierced his stomach wall. The mortal injury was overshadowed by his violent emotions, his entire body going numb with the shock. Kylo's heart broke at the suddenly blank spot within the Force, the void left by the sudden absence of his mother's light.

His dark eyes had been focused on Rey and he'd seen the moment she'd realized that Leia had passed from this world and into the next.

And even her sacrifice had been too late to save him from Rey's wrath.

The scavenger had seized the moment of his distraction to take up his fallen lightsaber to run him through, ending the tyranny of Kylo Ren. The jagged wound had been immediately cauterized, but his shock at Rey's act and his mother's death had ripped him apart.

The strength that he'd relied up had abandoned him, his long legs collapsing until he landed on the wet metal platform of the wrecked death star. Ren's physical agony was forgotten under the enormous weight of devastating emotional loss.

He'd never been willing to admit it, not even to himself, but there had always been a secret hope that he would reconcile with his mother. That desire had been buried so deeply inside him that he'd only realized it existed when she was gone, and the chance was forever lost to him.

It had never been anything more than a dream. The moment that Ren had ignited his red lightsaber and it had penetrated Han Solo's chest, Kylo had known he'd made the wrong choice. Where he'd expected to feel nothing had been slicing pain, grief and indecision. It hadn't been relief or easy acceptance of his decision that had enveloped him, it had been doubt and a profound regret that swallowed him whole. He'd believed that Snoke's instructions would lead to his release from the conflicting emotional stalemate that battered him throughout his life, but it hadn't. Instead he'd been more conflicted than ever. Conflicted and volatile.

Ren's eyes shifted up through the cold spray of ocean water and watched as her hazel eyes filled with tears. She was silhouetted against the deep gray of the distant skyline and the rise and fall deadly waves that were hundreds of feet high. Her face was open, projecting all of the emotions he couldn't. Rey's hand had fallen away, her shoulders dropping at the knowledge that she'd struck him down in a moment of anger and fear. She slowly sank to her knees in front of him, her breathing hitched and rapid. Like him, she'd felt the gaping maw within the Force, the emptiness left by his mother's death.

A small insecure part of Ren wondered if her sorrow was due to his impending death, or just sorrow that she'd finally become a victim of violent emotions.

He'd never given much thought to what happened when one died. He knew that his choices meant he wouldn't have a peaceful Jedi death. The king referred to in the Jedi texts where the body fades away as the soul is drawn back into the Force and welcomed by fellow Jedi. No, he'd done terrible things in his life and that meant he was no more allowed that type of peaceful existence than he could have a life with Rey.

It didn't matter how he felt, he'd done nothing to balance the heinous acts he'd performed as Kylo Ren, so Ben Solo was as damned as he was.

His dark eyes had searched hers, but then she'd done the unexpected, she'd reached out, her long fingers spreading over his shuddering abdomen. Fire ignited throughout his torso. Kylo had never felt anything like it, the heat and her desire for life, it flowed from her into him. It hadn't been a desire for him, at least not in a sexual way…it had been Rey's intense desire that he live; that he heal. The internal organs knitted themselves together and the muscle slowly regained its solid shape allowing the skin to seal as though the fatal strike had never happened. Slowly his ragged stilted breathing had given way to easier breaths. He'd stared up at her in shocked silence. How did one react to something like that? To the knowledge that a person you'd hurt so deeply would willingly give you the gift of life.

During his time within the Jedi temple, he'd read every sacred text and he'd never heard of such a thing. One person tapping into their own lifeforce and passing it into another being; healing catastrophic or fatal wounds in the process.

Those sacred texts were the only reason he'd known anything about a dyad in the force. But they'd never mentioned Force-healing.

The idea of a dyad wasn't exactly something that the Sith spoke of. To his knowledge dyads had never been seen within the ranks of the Sith. But the Jedi, who chronicled everything, had understood that the Force would create connections between souls during times of great imbalance. Those souls would retain the essence, the balance between the light and the dark.

He pulled in several breaths, allowing his lungs to expand and contract with his new lease on life. The one he'd been granted by Rey. She was something truly pure and rare…his heart swelled with unfamiliar emotions when he considered the gift she'd given him.

In saving his life, Rey had conferred a value on it. That was a currency that he did not know how to spend.

Lifeforce didn't pass from one being to another easily; and it didn't come without great cost to the giver. She had given a part of herself to him and that piece now lived within him, as part of him; just like the undeniable part of his father and now his mother.

Rey sank back onto her heels, her eyes brimming with very real tears. The emotion he saw there was raw and honest. It hurt to look at her beautiful face and know that he was the cause of that.

She blinked, slowly retracting her hand and setting it in her lap, her voice wavered as she spoke. "I did want to take your hand." Her breathing hitched and tears began to stream down her cheeks at the admission. An admission that she would've taken to her grave under other circumstances. The tears mixed with the saltwater from the sea and disappeared.

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Rey was actually telling him exactly what he wanted to hear. He'd wanted to hear it since the moment she destroyed his peaceful nights. He'd tried to get Rey to take his hand, to give herself over to the web of darkness he's sensed within her, but she'd stubbornly refused. And he hadn't understood why. He did now. It wasn't who she was; Rey was the hero, not the villain.

No, the villain in their story was him. The strength of his internal rejection at that thought surprised him.

But her next words left him with no illusion as to which version of him she'd wanted to save.

"Ben's hand." Her voice shook and she stared into his eyes for several moments before finally looking away.

And then she was gone, like a ghost. He watched helplessly as she stole his Tie-Silencer and went…who knew where. He hadn't sensed any destination in her mind when she'd flown away, leaving him stranded on this alien planet inside the remnants of the Empire's second Death Star.

The familiar engines of a freighter caught his attention and he'd watched in rapt silence as his father's ship had sped past him too, leaving feeling every bit as isolated and abandoned as he had as a child. But this time he knew why they had chosen to leave him. With a pained gasp he'd slowly gathered his long legs under himself and pushed up into a standing position. Now what? I am alone and I can't go back to the First Order. His eyes lifted to the empty skies above him, and I can't abandon Rey.

He couldn't kill her. Truthfully, he hadn't been able to kill her before all of this, but now he was no more capable of killing her than he had been his mother. She had gained her freedom; Rey was forever safe from Kylo Ren.

He stared out at the violent crashing ocean as it heaved and surged against the remnants of the battle station. It was the truest representation of his emotional state that he'd ever seen.

He even felt different, but he couldn't say exactly why. Little had changed. Okay, well, Rey had saved him, but that was it. Except now he could feel her in a way that was both unsettling and thrilling. She burned as brightly within his mind as his mother had. He was in love with her…he loved her; beyond reason, beyond hope, Kylo Ren loved the scavenger. It didn't matter how often that sentiment repeated inside his head, it remained true and that was terrifying.

"Hey kid."

Han Solo's voice was the last thing he'd expected to hear in that moment. Turning, Kylo looked at the man he both loved and hated. At least he thought he hated him. But as he stared at the man that he'd revered as a child, Ren was surprised to find nothing but love and regret. The unconditional acceptance in his father's eyes was wholly unexpected and it pierced the walls of his heart.

His father's face had filled with a slight smile, though he made no move toward Kylo. His blue eyes were soft and pleading. "I miss you son."

Han's admission of love surprised Ren. He didn't know what he'd expected, but this wasn't it. "Your son is dead."

Han took a few steps, "No. Kylo Ren is dead. My son is alive."

He swallowed. He wanted to believe that his father could forgive his rash act on the bridge of Starkiller, but he didn't believe it; he couldn't. "You're just a memory."

Smiling, his father tilted his head. "Your memory." Han responded softly. His voice was gravelly with all the emotions he wasn't sharing. "Come home." He finished.

Pain lanced through him, "It's too late. She's gone." Saying it out loud somehow made the loss of his mother so much worse.

"Your mother's gone. But what she stood for…what she fought for, that's not gone."

The words bypassed his pain and Ren stared at his father in shocked silence for a few moments.

"Ben." The longing in his father's use of his given name hurt to hear.

"I know what I have to do, but I don't know if I have the strength to do it." The words he'd used on the bridge in Starkiller Base rang through him again. And it was true. He did know. His ather had been right, Rey had killed someone on that broken death star, but it hadn't been Ben Solo…Kylo Ren had died the moment she'd run his lightsaber through his stomach. It had been Ben that she'd saved when she'd shared her lifeforce. The moment he admitted that to himself, he felt the mantle of Kylo Ren slip away leaving only Ben Solo behind.

The feeling of his father's hand resting gently against his cheek sent tremors of remorse tripping through him. Ben couldn't stop the torrents of emotion that the simple gesture stirred inside him. It was the same as that last physical contact he'd had with his father…after activating his lightsaber and taking Han Solo's life.

Funny, Ben couldn't remember the last time he'd felt his mother's touch, but his father's? That was so very very clear. His breathing hitched with the knowledge that he'd never have the chance to make things right with his mother. To stand before her, holding the hand of the women he'd fallen in love with and share that combined joy with her. That chance had been stolen from him; by his own foolish decisions.

"You do." Han finished quietly. His eyes full of love and forgiveness that Ben wasn't sure he could ever earn.

He lifted the t-shaped saber, his grip loose, just like it had been the last time he'd offered it to his father. But this time he had every intention of handing it over. Memory or not, Ben was done with Kylo Ren. He was ready to accept who he was…the last Skywalker. His eyes burned with complex emotions as he said, "Dad…" The feelings warring inside him broke his voice and he was unable to say anything else.

A slow smile spread across Han's face and his own eyes welled in the face of his son's return to the light. "I know." He said simply.

Spinning, Ben heaved the physical representation of Kylo Ren as far from him as he could. The black hilt disappeared into the distance before dropping into the vast ocean, drowning the last evidence of his defection. He watched until it sank beneath the waves and then turned back expecting to see the manifestation of his father; but he was alone. Ben's eyes dropped and he pulled in an unstable breath as his thoughts turned to…Rey.

One thought extinguishing everything else he'd been through, protect Rey.

Exegol – Rey

Rey stared at the personification of evil that also happened to be the only family she had left. She could feel the power of the darkside radiating from him in a way that turned her stomach and made her wish she'd never learned the truth of her heritage. He watched her, those blank eyes burring into her. Rey could feel his evaluation of her character like a knife through her heart. She didn't want this. She didn't want to be a Palpatine. If she was honest with herself, she'd rather have been Rey from Nowhere.

But she wasn't. Like Ben Solo, she was descended from power incarnate. While he was the light, she was the dark. At least as far as their heritages were concerned, their choices made them both something else entirely. So much power at their fingertips. They could turn the tides of war. Depending on which side they chose to stand on. And whether or not they stood together or apart. Her heart clenched at the mere thought of him. She wanted to save him so badly. Despite the grotesque acts he'd undertaken as Kylo Ren, Rey's heart belonged to him. And that pain was so much worse than anything she'd ever expected.

Ben Solo was lost to her. She had to accept that and carve out a place for herself in the galaxy; one where she wasn't the granddaughter of the most feared man in the history of…well, everything.

TBC…

Author's Note: Thank you to all who have reviewed or are now following this story. Finn and Poe will make their presence known in the next chapter…that should be fun for Ben and Rey. (dripping in sarcasm there)

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