'Hey, kid.'

The voice behind her is so familiar for a second that it jolts her out of whatever it is she is doing as she tries to place it. It has the creak of age, but there is a relaxed warmth to it and for an instant she thinks it is Han, reincarnated for this very conversation.

'You okay, Rey?' it asks and she realises that it is Lando Calrissian and not the dead smuggler she barely knew. 'Poe?'

Poe. Rey's attention snaps back into place and she realises that she is standing with one hand extended, her fingers tightening as the Force cuts off Poe's oxygen supply. His face is red, his eyes bulging and his hands are clawing desperately at his neck. She releases the chokehold and staggers backwards, horrified. She has never used a Force choke before, and has no idea where she learnt the technique, or why she thought it justified to deploy it in the first place. She remembers the taste of anger in her mouth, but as Poe collapses against a console in front of her, gasping for breath, all she feels is shame. She has just attempted to murder one of her friends.

She stumbles forward, waving her hands in preparation for a grovelling apology but Poe flinches away from her, ducking around the other side of the equipment, clearly afraid. Rey stops, at a loss to explain what she has just done, to him, or to herself.

'I can come back later if you like,' Lando tries again. 'Only I just heard a rumour that Ben's alive and I wanted to….' He trails off, clearly having spotted the projection. 'Is that him?'

Rey ignores him. 'I'm sorry, Poe. I've…. had a really bad day.' The excuse sounds lame and she can tell by the look in the General's eyes that he thinks so too. Nothing she says will make up for what she has just done, but Poe makes an effort to move on, stepping carefully away from her to join Lando on the far side of the picture.

He clears his throat, loosens his collar. 'Might be,' he croaks. 'Or it might be a clone made by Palpatine. I really don't know.'

Rey stares at her hand, and thinks about her day. Today was the day that she died, and of all of the cataclysmic occurrences that have happened since she first opened her eyes so many hours ago, this is the one of which she is least sure. What happened to her while she was dead? Where did she go? She stares at her hand, at her murderous, violent, death-dealing hand and she is sure of only one thing – she has come back from the dead, but she has come back wrong.

'Have you checked for an inhibitor chip?' Lando asks suddenly. 'It was before my time but I know that Palpatine used clones with a biochip to destroy the Jedi during the Clone Wars. They were surgically implanted in the brain of every clone embryo during development. If he's a clone, maybe he has a chip.'

Poe trots over to a console and taps some commands. 'No one's checked him for anything, as far as I know, but I should be able to scan for anything unusual from here. The ship he's on has just dropped out of hyperspace.'

There is no reaction from the man on screen to whatever is happening in his cell, but Poe is able to report back only a short while later. 'There's no chip that any type of scan can detect, no scarring of any kind to indicate medical intervention internally or externally.'

'Then maybe he's been genetically altered in some way. Can you run a comparison between the genetic pattern of the real Ben Solo and this man?'

'We don't have a copy of Kylo Ren's genetic pattern on record, or any way of getting hold of a sample of the original. I could maybe extrapolate something from Leia's data but it's not going to give a definite answer to the level of detail we need.'

Slowly, Rey returns her attention to what is happening behind her, to the room she is in and to the immediate requirements of her situation. The man in the cell needs her, no matter how she has changed and now is not the time for ruminations on the nature of existence. 'I have a sample of the original,' she offers slowly. 'You need skin cells, or a hair follicle or something like that, don't you?'

Poe gives her a look, and it is not friendly. 'I need anything that might hold DNA, teeth, hair, body fluids. You got Kylo Ren's body fluids on you, Rey?'

She flushes slightly. 'I have his clothes. He was wounded, his stomach, leg. There's blood.'

Of course she has his clothes, she wasn't just going to leave them lying on the floor of Palpatine's cavern and fly away into the sunset. She had had nothing left but his clothes and it had seemed so odd to see them just arranged there, abandoned, that she'd folded them up and stashed them in the back of Luke's X-wing to deal with when she was ready. She even kept the boots, although that seems like a slightly more bizarre decision right at the moment.

Poe just nods and Rey threads her way back through the camp to where she parked the ship. It is fully dark now, and the mood of the Resistance has noticeably changed. There are far fewer people still out in the open, and from the various tents and shelters which have been pitched beneath the trees come the faint sounds of other, more private parties. Those people who are still abroad are standing in huddles, deep in conversation rather than dancing and their expressions are serious. From all sides Rey hears whispers, and they are all repeating the same name. Assumptions are running unchecked through the impromptu celebrations on Ajan Kloss, but now, everyone has heard the rumours and everyone wants to know if they are true.

She throws the black uniform unceremoniously into a backpack and chucks a couple of more personal possessions on top – a change of clothes, the Jedi texts, both her lightsabers. She doesn't like the feel of the air, and although the Force is not sending her warnings, any good scavenger is always alert to danger. When she gets back to Poe and Lando, it is clear they have been talking, because while Poe is now stiffly formal, and won't look her in the eye, Lando has become even more avuncular than normal and there is a softness in his gaze that wasn't there before.

Poe sniffs and his nose wrinkles as Rey passes him Ben's clothes. They are stiff with saltwater, rimed with dust and the detritus of the pit, and sweat marks both collar and armpits. It is the blood on the torso that he scans though, and then compares the results to those of the man in the cell.

'There's no difference. No evidence of genetic alteration. Whoever that is, he has the same DNA as Ren.'

Rey crams the clothes back into her bag and stands there watching the holographic image, notes the way that the prisoner runs his hand through his hair repeatedly in a mannerism she doesn't recognise.

'He saved your life?' Lando queries softly, but he isn't looking for an answer. 'I knew there was still good in him. After Han I wanted to throttle him but….He was such a troubled kid. None of us knew how to help him.' He pauses. 'Do you?'

Rey is no longer sure. She would have known how to help Ben, but this may not be Ben, and she may not be who she thought she was either, given what just happened with Poe. But he is sitting there in front of her and the urge to go to him is as strong as it ever was. 'I know how to try,' she says.

'Clones can be imprinted with memories that may not belong to them,' he reminds her. 'They can be conditioned to appear to be completely convincing, accurate copies of the original genetic donor. He may not even know he's a clone. If you want to be certain who he is, you need to know something that only the original Ben Solo would know.' He bends closer and whispers something in her ear. 'That was the name I gave him when he was little. If he's really Ben, he'll recognise that name.'

She nods, and then looks over at General Dameron uncertainly. 'Shall I go and talk to him? Once we work out who he is we can decide what to do next.'

'The transport landed in Sector Four. This way.' She doesn't need the escort, but he marches her through the jungle to the most remote of the landing areas, the one furthest away from the main camp where the trees grow most thickly and the light is always dim. They pass the entire complement of the transport on the path, who salute Poe and then walk rather speedily back towards camp, where they will doubtless tell their tales and the rumours will spread faster than a quadjumper off Jakku.

Rey turns towards the crew cabins, and waits outside the one at the far end of the corridor, the one with the locked door panel and the recently discarded haul of weapons at the guardpost outside. Poe has gone to the bridge where he can watch the forthcoming encounter on a bigger screen, and from where, she knows, he can also cut off the oxygen supply to the cabin, or self destruct the ship, or take any number of actions which would bring the life of the man she is about to meet to an end.

She takes a deep breath and keys the panel open.

The man in the cell jerks up his head at the noise and his eyes narrow as he scans her swiftly, pausing at her belt and hips, leaning forward across the table to check that her hands are empty. He is inspecting her for threats, and when he finds none the set of his shoulders relaxes slightly and he meets her stare for the first time.

He is Ben. She is sure of it from that first look alone. Of course, he is dirty and dishevelled and the rings around his eyes tell her that he is exhausted, but he is Ben, sitting there in front of her with suspicion in his dark eyes and his jaw set into a stubborn line. He is also frightened, but hiding it as well as he can, although the smell of sweat in the air gives him away. There is even something in the Force as she looks at him, some kind of flicker which is not the old connection of the bond but some sort of recognition, nonetheless. She dare not kick open that particular door again until they are in a safer space so for now she simply puts as much reassurance into her stance as possible, opening her hands, relaxing her posture, telling him without words that she is not a threat. He is Ben and he is not dead, but sitting in front of her with his enormous hands still on the table as he waits for her to make the first move.

What is also patently clear, is that he does not know who she is. There is exactly no chance that if he remembered her at all he would still be sitting there, he'd already be across that table smiling that rare and precious smile of his and pulling her into his arms. He has spent some time away from his body today, as she has, and it appears that it has affected his memory, but since her own body doesn't seem to be obeying her as well as it did before she was dead, she can forgive him for this lapse.

He opens his mouth, changes his mind, closes it again and without thinking she darts back into the corridor and grabs something from the guardstation outside before returning, leaving the door conspicuously open. She sets a canteen of water on the table and he grabs for it immediately, draining it so quickly that a fair amount spills down his chin. He wipes his face with the back of his hand, smearing the grime over his skin and she sees the wrinkle of distaste as he notices the dirt and tries to wipe it off on the thin white material he is wearing. She doesn't like him in these clothes. She is so used to seeing him in black, and well dressed and elegant in black for that matter, that his current costume sends a twinge of pity through her. He gave his life to save her, he does not deserve this treatment.

'Do you want to use the fresher?' she blurts out, without caring too much what Poe will say, but Ben's eyes widen slightly and she can feel the relief and even gratitude in him.

He nods, but he doesn't speak, and his eyebrows lift as he gives her an expectant look. Maybe he has forgotten language as well, and she will need to teach him again.

She spins on her heel and retraces her steps into the corridor, giving him a small smile of encouragement as he follows. He is limping heavily on one leg and the way he carries himself is too careful, as if he doesn't trust his body not to let him down. She sees that he has not been provided with shoes and his feet leave traces of blood on the floor. The fresher is located around the first bend on the right and it is small and basic, sonic only, no water, but he still gazes around as if it is the most wonderful thing he has ever seen. She demonstrates the controls quickly and then stands, waiting for questions, acknowledgement, some kind of a reaction but the one she gets is not what she was expecting. He raises his hands to the fastenings of the flimsy paper suit he is wearing, preparing to take it off and his head tilts to one side, watching her, considering.

She blushes and retreats into the corridor, sealing the door shut on his privacy and takes a few deep breaths. Ben is alive. She lets the feeling sink in, absorbs the knowledge into her heart and feels it swell as it starts beating again, and for the first time since she flew away from Exegol she feels truly herself. It is a simple matter to use the Force to strip every crew cabin of its spare clothing, and even simpler to yank every available uniform which might possibly be the right size out of the Resistance stores buried elsewhere in the jungle. She even summons his old boots from the X-wing and leaves everything in neat piles outside the fresher door. Then she goes back to the cabin to wait, struggling to control her smile.

He takes some time to return, peeking his head around the doorframe to see if she is waiting before stepping inside. He is still tired, but something in his bearing has shifted and he holds himself with more confidence now. His hair is clean and has been combed, but it still falls in waves around his ears and he has chosen a pale cream and beige ensemble consisting of darker, form fitting trousers with a loose white shirt and a tunic which is half open and secured with a belt. She is pleased to see that the black boots are back, which at least justifies her rescue of them from Exegol. He jerks the edge of his tunic down under her scrutiny and the pale skin stretched across his cheekbones colours slightly. She is so pleased to see him she can barely hold it in.

She sits in the chair he occupied previously and he pulls out one she retrieved from the guardpost outside the door, cramming his limbs under the table and folding his hands carefully on top.

Then he bends forward. 'Who am I?' he says.