Finn and Poe watched Rey fidget with her limited cookware. The pilot shook his head in warning when Finn tried to start conversation for the the eighth time since their arrival. Poe laid a gentle restraining hand on the ex-stormtroopers thigh. Finn frowned and shrugged and the pilot winked, clearing his throat.

"So… uh Rey…" Poe braved. "I mean, I'm really loving this pre-war starvation… vibe you got here going for you…"

Rey looked up, still not completely comfortable with sarcasm, brows knit together.

Poe continued undaunted. "You could come visit us… Finn and I, in Takodana, the Resistance, er, Republic… well.. New Republic, they kinda operate out of there like a base until we can get delegates, and a meeting space… Anyway, she lets most of us stay in her castle."

"So you live together."

"No—no no no no no no." Both exclaimed immediately, Poe oddly enough blushed. Rey took it all in, eyebrow quirking, sensing what Poe had yet to express and what Finn had yet to realize.

"But I like it here." She said, after their litany of negatives finally quieted. "It's quiet."

The sandstorm increased, slamming one of the hatches pulled down over the windows. They squinted, and she shrugged

"But we're your family" Finn interjected. Poe nodded, in agreement, hurried, nervous. Rey couldn't help it, she smiled at the word, then remembered. Her hands on his face, his smile. So much possibility.

As quickly as it was there, it was gone, and she placed a plate of steaming meat before them and changed the subject.

"So, have you talked to anyone about what you went through on Exogol?"

Rey's head snapped around, Finn slept deeply on the ground near the fire. She had assumed Poe had followed suit, they had both been traveling for weeks before arriving at her little desert stop-off. They'd told her that the only reason was because they had business on Tatooine, but were intensely unable to explain what that business was.

"Top secret." Poe had said, smirking. But now, his eyes glittered with shrewdness that no one ever expected.

"Why would I need to talk?" She said finally.

"Because you— we are not the same people as we were when we met, and I would bet my last credit that your change has something do to with Leia's son."

He waved a lazy hand at her immediate desire to argue, and continued. "The General, you know, she talked to me… a lot. Before she left us. And she may have mentioned your… bond—"

"Did she mention what would happen if it were to break?" Rey asked mournfully.

Poe frowned, "Are you sure that that's possible…" He trailed off, noticing the familiar expression one gets when one is trying to hold back tears long overdue. He remembered the long talks about the General's son, and the girl he was bound to. Leia cared so deeply about the two of them. It would be nothing short of his duty to carry on her task.

"Have you talked to anyone about Finn?" Her interjection made him physically jump, cutting into his introspective heroism and making him glance nervously toward the sleeping figure by the fire.

"What about Finn?" He obfuscated with a whispered hiss. "He knows I used to run spice so…"

Rey pursed her lips and rolled her eyes, offering him another cup of steaming liquid that passed for not quite nourishment and not quite recreational in this force-forsaken sandpit.

"No, I mean, how you feel about him." She shrugged and sat the pot down. "Though, he's rather force-sensitive himself, so you may want to jump on that grenade rather than letting it blow up in your face."

"That doesn't make any sense." Poe retorted, taking a sober sip of his drink, gazing into the small fire. "Rey, I can't. You of all people should know how that would go— especially how he feels about…" He looked to her, then back to the cup. "… You know, about the Force, the Resistance, um…"

"He's not in love with me Poe."

"OF—" He half shouted, caught himself, then shout-whispered. "Of course he is Rey. You're just too naive about him, he would follow you into the Hellhoop itself if you asked, we all would. He doesn't…not about me" He leaned back against the wall, and ran his hands through his curls. "We are just friends."

The fire crackled, Rey felt his conflicted spirit, it was vibrating across the Force like a single long note resounding each time his glance brushed across the sleeping ex-stormtrooper.

"You may have to trust me on this." Rey replied, Finn coughed in his sleep and muttered a name that sounded suspiciously familiar and all further conversation ceased. She worried for the two of them, feeling as though sometimes her resonance with the Force allowed her an invasion of privacy that her friends didn't desire in the slightest. Instead of it being helpful, Rey was left feeling like all of her friends were bleeding out emotionally and she was the only one who could see. She wondered if every Jedi felt like that. Of course, who could she ask?

Alone.

Something trickled across the furthest reaches of her mind, but if a noise was heard over the roaring storms of Tatooine, her heart was too tired to listen.

Ben Solo found to his surprise, that living was a great deal more intimidating than giving your life heroically in a blaze of light.

He sat, cross-legged on the stone platform as seabirds screamed nearby and tried to meditate. Tried to remember his training from all those years ago, before it had gotten polluted with the constant sibilant hiss in his head.

His spirit fought and raged, ceasing briefly and finding the tattered remains of peace, then the serenity was gone, ripped apart by memories of the lives he took as Kylo Ren.

But even as he mindlessly made his way through each day he knew something was not quite right.

His new affinity to the light side kept him tense, so he would meditate until he was exhausted, and then sleep until nightmares woke him with screams so hoarse he wouldn't even recognize his own voice. Even in the mundane he remained cautious, for in his deepest forms of meditation he would feel the threads of their bond lengthen and stretch. And the closer he was to her the more real he felt, the more he felt like anything other than a shell.

Ben yearned for her. Despite that, there was no reason to think that she would welcome him or his demons back into her life.

The kiss.

Yes, she had initiated it. His face heated at the thought; there had been nothing else in the world except them two. Two children lost in the darkness with no one to hold onto except each other.

If only.

By his estimate it had been 9 weeks since he woke on the island with no memory of the time between saving her life in front of the Sith throne and waking on this island. He recognized it as the place where his former master had fled during the years of his Dark Side training. But he could find no other form of transportation or any way off the island. A fitting exile for the Jedi Killer.

Even worse, Rey hadn't reached out within their bond even once.

She thinks you're dead.

I am dead.

The ex-sith knew he should leave her in peace to live without the constant shadow of an invincible immutable bond hanging over them.

If he was dead, then this was his hell. He would remain here alone, unable to escape his island prison. Perhaps this paid in a small way for what he had done. And, if this meant that Rey would be happy then that was enough.

He closed his eyes again and began to meditate.

It had only taken 3 weeks for them to get into trouble. Finn was honestly amazed it had taken this long for his two favorite people in the world to find themselves in the middle of a firefight.

"Rey! Watch it—" He fired off two shots toward the approaching dark figures streaming over the dunes. "I told both of you that this was a bad idea"

Poe laughed, ducking behind the skiff to flank his co-general, Rey of course was already pushing forward.

"It's her granddaughter." Rey called, "She's my only neighbor. I can't just ignore her"

She leaned wide, blaster dropping with eerie accuracy only enhanced by the universe flowing through her. She felt like she hadn't laughed in weeks, and these past few days traveling with them felt as though she might have a chance at life again.

A particularly brazen Jawa heard their banter and saw his chance, chattering a cry and setting off a shot which missed Poe, and clipped Rey's leg. She cried out, more in surprise than fear, hitting the sand heavily, blood smearing her white Jedi robes. Her instincts overrode, chiding herself for the arrogance she had shown when fighting mere Jawas. She turned to let her friends know it wasn't too serious.

Sound faded away, the sound of sand turning to ocean seas, she could smell the undercurrent of sulphur accompanying dormant volcanos. A hulking shadow blotted out the little light amidst the rain and storm. Her eyes couldn't adjust quickly to the extreme differences between climates.

Before she saw him, his presence hit her like a TIE fighter; she couldn't breathe or think. The shadow knelt beside her.

Ben

His large hands checked for serious injury. He wore no gloves; everywhere his skin touched hers she shone. It felt like she had taken a blaster bolt to the stomach so intensely was the bond screaming through every molecule of her being.

This couldn't be a force ghost.

The world slowed down to a crawl, Rey could hear the laser fight raging on Tatooine. Ben followed her gaze, her side of the bond blown wide like a pupil, he could see the dunes and Jawa firing on them. They had paused briefly in their advance distracted by the sensation of the force so densely concentrated before them.

His hand shot up, the other pulling her against his chest and blocking her from the two beams, grunting with pain as the first found its target in his back. Ben's palm wavered, but never fell, facing out toward the final shot his eyes shutting as he turned meditation into practice.

Finn saw her fall, and as if in muscle memory went down on a knee to return covering fire. It looked like it had been a glancing blow to the skin above her shins, a lucky shot really after Poe had ducked to avoid it. First priority was making sure that in her moment of surprise after the pain she was covered from any other potentially fatal attacks.

It was always odd to him, the things that pop into your head when you're in the heat of any conflict. He remembered not long ago when Poe had gotten hit with a laser. His vision had shrunk, sightless to anything other than his friend hitting the sterile floor of the ship. Finn's heart clenched painfully at the memory even while his physical body was moving in position toward the fallen Jedi.

He heard Poe call out to her, then a noise of surprise. His head swung around as he felt the change before he saw, the Jawas had broken off their attack to stare and chatter to themselves.

One laser blast, flickering and stopped in the center of the bright sunshine. It was mentally frightening to see something only ever in motion be frozen, building the apprehension Finn felt reflected in the Jawa.

He had only ever seen this one time before.

His eyes flitted to where Rey had fallen, he could sense the rending of the Force. Their combined presence assaulted his perception and made him wince. He was still getting used to the feeling of the Force and even in his rookie understanding he knew this was something beyond just power.

For the barest of seconds he could see two silhouettes, one he recognized by sight, and it struck him with fear to see him so close to a wounded Rey. But the Force presence, it wasn't the same as what he had felt before.

Less than a second later, the second figure was gone. He and Poe took that as an indication to drive the Jawa back into their holes and Rey ignored them, kneeling sightlessly in the sand, her eyes filled with confusion.

Their ride back to the Moisture Farm was nearly silent, Rey had said little when they followed the Jawa back to their massive Sandcrawler and taken the kidnapped child back. She'd only claimed that her leg was fine and that she would heal it when they got back.

Poe finally had the nerve to lean over to Finn when he was nearly sure that Rey was asleep and not bleeding out.

"What the hell happened?"

"Why do you think I know?" Finn hissed back, trying to ignore the shivers that were definitely due to the cold and not the pilot whispering in his ear.

Poe shrugged. "You always know things…" He said. "And I was too busy trying not to get shot by wild desert gremlins. So… what did you see? Did you… Feel something?"

Rey sat up and glowered, not exactly at them, just near them. "It was Ben."

"Ren?" The two parroted in shock, nearly wrecking the skiff.

"No. It was Ben Solo."

Their silence turned awkward, nervous at the mention of enemy of the Resistance number one. Poe coughed and raised his finger, "I thought… I thought, you said he died at you know… Exogol when you two," he drew a finger across his throat, before remembering that he was in fact, driving their skiff.

"Killed my grandfather." Rey's voice was toneless, the three didn't keep secrets, well, many secrets. Finn winced.

"Yep. That one."

She turned away. "I thought he died. He… did, saving me."

Poe slowed the skiff slightly, the temperatures had dropped as soon as the suns dipped below the horizon. He offered Finn another jacket in the silence. "Is he one of those spirits you see?"

Rey tilted her head, torn between exhausted and exasperated. "They aren't spirits they're… jedi that have passed before us and become one with the Force. They're able to come and communicate to those they had emotional attachments to during their time of life."

"So, Jedi Ghosts." Finn commented, seeing the moisture farm buildings in the distance, sensing the conversation's emotional health ticking down.

"And since Ren was a Sith, he couldn't be—"

"It wasn't Kylo Ren on Exogol, it was Ben Solo. He came back to the Light, Leia reached him. He chose us."

Me.

Be with me.

"I've got to find him."

Poe nearly crashed the ship.