Rey knew that they had gotten lucky. There were so many instances where their confrontation with Snoke, their fight with the Praetorian Guard, or their escape from the Supremacy could have gone so much worse.

If Ben hadn't made the connection between Paige's injury and her vision, Paige wouldn't have survived.

Rey still felt lightheaded.

Leia had taught her some basic healing and the ancient Jedi texts taught her a little more, but she had never heard of anyone healing someone as close to death as Paige was. Minor wounds were one thing, but major bleeding and organ damage was another.

While healing Paige, Rey had felt so attuned to the Force that she lost her sense of self. The feeling of her hand against Ben's was the only thing that kept her grounded in the present.

She didn't think she would have stopped healing Paige if Finn hadn't pulled her away, and she knew Ben wouldn't have. Even after he had been pulled away, he had tried to heal her more.

Healing Paige was the right thing to do, but it had been far more dangerous than she had anticipated. When her power was combined with Ben's, they were able to use the Force in extraordinary ways. They were so much more powerful together, but they were also so much more vulnerable.

That power came with a price, and she suspected it was a price she was unwilling to pay.

Using the Force and their bond to heal had weakened her and Ben. Without Finn they both could have… she didn't want to think of the possibilities. She knew she would have to, but that could come later. They had time.

How did Finn know to stop us?

She would have to ask him. Until they knew more, they needed to avoid recklessly using new Force powers, especially ones from her vision.

Rey shivered.

Her vision had been a warning and it was coming true. Palpatine's voice echoed in her mind.

You've brought me everything I need.

…

Rey left Ben in the cockpit with Han, Chewie, and Luke. Ben choosing to spend time with Luke showed how uncomfortable the idea of facing the others made him.

Rey wanted to stay with him, but she also wanted to check on Paige and see Rose and Finn.

Han and Chewie would look after him.

Walking to the crew quarters took more out Rey than she was comfortable with. She needed to talk to Ben about what they did and the effect it had on them both. Maybe he knew more than she did.

And if he didn't, there was always Luke.

Rey opened the door to the crew quarters and saw Paige lying in a bunk with her eyes open. Rose was sitting at the foot of the same bunk.

Rose turned to Rey. "Thank you for healing Paige."

Rey sat down on the bunk across from them. "We had to try." She tried not to show how weak she still felt. "I'm relieved it worked."

"Me too," Paige said, her voice sounding hoarse.

The refresher door opened and Finn came out with a damp cloth that he handed to Rose.

Rose brought the cloth to Paige's forehead, wiping the sweat away.

"I can do that myself." Paige tried to grab the cloth from Rose.

"You almost died." Rose gave Paige a look that could have cowed even the most senior officer. "Humor me."

Paige sighed. "Fine, but only because it'll make you feel better." She looked at Rey. "Thanks to you and Ben I'm almost at one hundred percent."

"More like sixty," Rose scoffed.

Paige smiled. "Thanks for agreeing with me. Sixty is closer to one hundred than zero."

"Don't talk to me about zero," Rose said, her voice raising in pitch.

Finn sat next to Rey. "They've been like this for a while," he said in a low voice.

Rey raised her eyebrows. "Is this how siblings act?"

"I wouldn't know," Finn said. "Maybe it's a good sign? This could be how they show affection."

Rey looked back at Rose and Paige who were still arguing. "Rose does look less scared," she said in what she hoped was low enough of a voice that Rose couldn't hear.

"It's hard to tell," Finn said with a fond smile. "Rose had a temper."

Rose glared at Finn. "I heard that."

"See," Finn said, waving at Rose.

Paige laughed. "He's not wrong."

"You get a free pass," Rose said to Paige. She looked at Finn. "You don't."

Finn put his hands up in surrender. "Fine. You don't have a temper."

Rose nodded.

Finn leaned closer to Rey. "I said that because I'm afraid of her temper."

Rey laughed. She had missed Finn and Rose while she was on Ahch-To. She still missed how close they all grew in the year after Crait, but the easy affection they were all sharing allowed her to hope they would get that back.

…

Rey had shifted back into the bunk so that she could lean against the wall and cross her legs. Her energy had finally started to return to normal.

Short-term energy loss was a price she was willing to pay for Paige's life.

But she feared that they had almost paid a much higher price.

Finn looked at Rey and furrowed his brow. "Are you okay?"

Rey nodded and gave him a smile that she knew didn't reach her eyes.

"We need to talk about Ben," Rose said.

Rey tensed. They had kept the conversation lighthearted up until this point, but she knew it was coming.

"Finn already told us that you both knew Ben was Kylo Ren," Rose continued. "Why didn't you tell me? You both had plenty of opportunities"

"General Organa wanted us to keep it a secret," Finn said, looking down.

"That's true," Rey agreed, "but that's not the only reason I didn't tell you." Her breathing sped up.

Finn's eyes widened slightly. "It wasn't?"

Rey shook her head. "I wanted him to have the opportunity to get to know people without them making assumptions about who he was."

"Wasn't he still Kylo Ren a week ago?" Paige asked.

Rose narrowed her eyes. "And didn't he take you prisoner?"

Rey bit her lip. They were right, but at the same time they weren't. In this time it had only been a week, but for her and Ben it had been over a year. So much had happened that she couldn't reveal without telling them about their original timeline.

The more time Rey spent in the past, the less certain she was that her memories were anything more than a vision. She needed to talk to Ben about this.

Everyone was looking at her and waiting for her answer.

Rey crossed her arms. "It's complicated," she said, knowing that her answer was inadequate.

"Does this have something to do with the Force?" Finn asked, surprising Rey with his question.

"It does." Rey's heart sped up. She didn't know how much to reveal because she didn't know what the consequences of revealing too much would be. "We have a connection."

"What does that mean?" Paige asked.

Rey took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, giving herself time to think before she answered. "It means that we can sense each other, talk to each other–"

"Sense each other?" Rose asked, cutting Rey off. "Sense what?"

"Thoughts, feelings…" Rey shrugged. "It's hard to explain."

"The two of you seem to have a weird understanding," Finn said. Out of everyone in the room, Finn had spent the most time with her and Ben so it made sense that he picked up on that.

"We do," Rey said.

"Does this have anything to do with how you saw into each other's minds when he held you prisoner?" Finn asked in a soft voice.

Rose and Paige shared a concerned look.

"At first I thought so, but…" Rey hesitated. Her bond with Ben was so personal. Part of her wanted to selfishly keep it to herself, but she knew that they needed to know more. Ben deserved to be seen as more than just Kylo Ren. "We've always had this connection."

Finn leaned forward. "Always?"

Rey nodded. "It was only recently that we started to understand what our connection meant."

"Did you learn something on Ahch-To?" Rose asked.

"Too much to explain now," Rey said.

"You don't have to tell us," Paige said. "If it's too painful–"

"No," Rey interrupted, "it's not painful. It's personal and I don't know how to put it into words." Rey looked down at her lap. "I want to explain."

"Maybe you can start with how it feels," Rose said. "If it's not painful, what is it?"

Rey looked up at Rose and smiled. "It feels right," she explained. "Ben sees me – the good and the bad – and he cares about me."

"And you care about him," Rose said, her eyes widening with realization.

Rey swallowed. "I do."

Rose looked down at Paige and then back at Rey. "Finding out Ben was Kylo Ren made me feel so stupid, like I was a fool–"

Finn cut Rose off. "You're not a fool."

Rose gave Finn a slight smile. "I won't be able to go back to seeing Ben the way I did before. I can't forget that he's Kylo Ren."

"That's fair," Rey said, unable to hide the disappointment in her voice. It wasn't that Rose was in the wrong. It was that Rey had been so heartened to see Ben becoming friends with someone, and now that friendship was broken.

"But," Rose continued, "he saved my sister. I'll give him the chance to prove to me that Ben wasn't a deception."

"He'll be happy to hear that," Rey said.

"I need time before I can give him that chance." Rose bit her lip. "Can you tell him that for me?"

Rey nodded. "He might not believe me, but I'll try."

"Even with your… connection?" Paige asked.

"Ben has a hard time believing anything good," Rey said, not wanting to reveal anything too personal. Ben's story was his own. "He's been through a lot."

…

The conversation with Finn, Paige, and Rose had gone better than Rey had anticipated. She knew they wouldn't readily accept Ben. They had valid reasons to be wary of him.

Rose would be the most difficult for Ben to win over. She'd trusted him, but now that trust was fractured. Paige had been surprised – not hurt – by his deception, and Finn had known who he was for much longer.

Rey suspected that Finn knew more than he let on. Not that she knew what it was that Finn knew or how he knew it.

…

Rey joined Ben and Han in the cockpit. She didn't know where Chewie and Luke had disappeared to.

It was good to see Ben and Han growing more comfortable around one another. Ben was still haunted by the memory of killing his father. Changing the past didn't change Ben's memories, but he could make new memories that would hopefully one day have more power than the bad memories.

Han was riddled with guilt. He didn't say anything to her, but Rey could see it in his face every time he let his guard down. Like his son, Han wasn't good at hiding his emotions.

"We're going to be landing soon," Han said.

"Where are we going?" Ben asked.

"Pasaana," Han answered.

"Why Pasaana?" Rey asked. Going back to Pasaana gave her and Ben the opportunity to find the Sith dagger before anyone else. They didn't need it to find either of ther Sith wayfiners, but if they could stop anyone else from finding them first, they would have an advantage.

Han tilted his head. "You've heard of it?"

"A bit," Rey said, feeling caught out. "Are we going to the Festival of the Ancestors?"

"Too early for that." Han smirked. "We're visiting an old friend."

He means Lando Calrissian, Rey realized.

Lando must have already been on Pasaana when Leia contacted him. It was fortunate that Rey, Chewie, Finn, and Poe had his help getting away from the First Order and finding Ochi's starship. They never would have found the dagger without Lando's help.

"What friend?" Ben asked.

"Telling would take the fun out of it," Han said. "You'll have to wait until we land."

Ben huffed.

Han raised his eyebrows. "You never did like surprises." He shared a smile with Rey. "I promise this is a good surprise."

Ben crossed his arms. He seemed to regress in maturity around his father, which in other circumstances could be irritating, but the way he acted with Han was similar to how Rose and Paige acted. When Rey imagined her family returning, she never imagined them baiting each other, but that's because she didn't know how families acted.

Her heart squeezed. She was always on the outside looking in. She'd have to get used to it.

You know who we're meeting, don't you? Ben asked.

Rey smiled. I do.

Well?

Like your dad said, I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise.

Ben leaned back in his seat. Fine.

"Did you two know that you go weirdly silent and intense sometimes?" Han asked.

Rey felt her face heat up. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Han raised his eyebrows. "Leia and Luke did the same thing. I know you are talking in your heads."

Rey looked at Ben and he shrugged.

"Keep your secrets if you want," Han continued. "Just know you aren't as subtle as you think you are."

...

Han said he was going to go check on the others, which Rey assumed was his not-so-subtle way of giving them some time alone.

"How are you feeling?" Ben asked as soon as the door shut.

"Better," Rey said. "You?"

"The same," he said, and Rey belived him. He looked much more steady.

"Why do you think healing Paige left us so weak?"

"I don't know." Ben sighed. "I think we'll need to ask Luke."

"Maybe there's something in the books?" she asked, knowing that it was difficult for him to spend time with Luke.

Ben frowned. "Luke knows something about what it means to be a dyad. We'll have to talk to him eventually."

"I can talk to him alone," Rey offered.

"No," he said, shaking his head, "things are better between us."

Maybe, Rey thought, but you don't trust each other. They both were uncomfortably tense when they were in the same room.

"They're not good," Rey said.

"There's no chance of that ever happening, but we've... come to an understanding."

Rey raised her eyebrows. "Did this happen when you were both agreeing that the best plan to infiltrate the Supremacy was for you to pretend to be Kylo Ren and take Luke prisoner?"

"I will admit to taking some enjoyment from having Luke as my prisoner," Ben said.

"Ben!" Rey lightly swatted his arm. "You don't mean that."

Ben snoted. "No, I was too terrified of something going wrong to enjoy any part of that plan."

"It worked," she reminded him.

Ben looked down. "It almost didn't."

"We'll both be miserable if we focus on the what-ifs."

"You told us about Paige," Ben said, changing the topic. "How was Rose?"

"Better now that Paige is doing better."

"Good," he said. Ben looked like he wanted to say more, but he kept quiet.

"Rose needs time before she'll be ready to talk to you."

Ben's eyes widened. "You think she'll talk to me."

Rey leaned forward and took his hand. "She told me to let you know that she will give you a chance to show her who you are."

"That's better than I hoped," Ben said. "Can you let her know that she can take as long as she needs and that if she changes her mind… that's okay too?"

"I will," Rey promised.

...

They had finally landed.

As Rey exited the Falcon, she took in the familiar sights of the sun-bleached dunes and the towering granite and sandstone buttes.

She looked over at Chewie and her throat went dry. This is where she had thought she had killed him. This is where she had lost control and killed with Force lightning.

Ben touched her arm, which brought her attention back to the present.

Rey leaned into his touch and smiled up at him. They had come a long way since the first time they were on Pasaana.

Paige had insisted on walking, and Rose had reluctantly agreed with the caveat that Paige had to allow Rose to help her walk. Paige leaned on her sister and moved slowly, which was more than Rey had expected her to be able to do. Even with her having been one of the people who helped heal Paige, Rey was surprised by how much Paige recovered.

Having checked-in with Paige and Rose, Finn joined Rey and Ben. "There's nothing here," he said, sounding disappointed. "I thought we might meet up with at least some of the Resistance."

"Han brought us here for a reason," Rey said.

"One he didn't bother explaining to any of us," Ben said.

"If you stop gossiping and follow me, you'll find out," Han called out to them.

Ben sighed. "He's having too much fun with this," he said in a low voice. "That's how I know to worry."

Finn shifted his gaze to Rey. "Is he being serious?"

"Deadly," Ben said.

"Are you trying to be funny?" Finn asked.

"Oh, I'm serious," Ben said. "My dad is known for being reckless."

Rey elbowed Ben. "Sounds like someone else I know." She tried to keep her face serious, but she couldn't hold back her smile. It was nice to see Ben and Finn talk without threats.

They started walking in the direction Han and everyone else went.

"This is weird," Finn said.

"What is?" Rey asked.

"Kylo Ren has a sense of humour," Finn said. "Admittedly, it's not a great sense of humour, but he must be out of practice."

"My name's Ben."

Finn nodded. "Ben's not great at telling jokes." He squinted, and Rey wasn't sure if it was because of the sun or if he'd had an unpleasant thought. "Did you make jokes while you were Kylo Ren?"

Ben stopped walking. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because if you did make jokes, I want to know if anyone knew they were jokes."

Ben's mouth twitched. "I did make the occasional joke."

"You did?" Rey asked.

"They were usually at Hux's expense," Ben admitted.

Finn laughed. "Did he get the jokes?"

"Never."

From what little Rey had seen of Ben and Hux, she knew they had been set up to be rivals. She could imagine Ben making fun of Hux to his face and Hux not getting it. Even when he went by Kylo Ren, Ben was always there.

"He hated you, didn't he?" Finn asked.

Ben grinned. "Almost as much as he hated you."

Finn nodded. "I guess that's one point in your favour."

"There are points?" Ben asked.

Finn gave Rey a look like he wasn't sure whether Ben was being serious or not. Truthfully, she couldn't tell either.

"What are you doing back there?" Han yelled.

Rey looked over at Han and saw that he was alone.

"Everyone else is already inside," Han said. "Hurry up."

…

Rey, Ben, and Finn followed to the other side of the isolated hill. She was surprised to see how large of a structure was hidden behind it.

Unlike the traditional looking stalls Rey saw at the Festival of the Ancients, this building was made from different metals and looked like it could withstand even the most severe sandstorms.

Rey followed Han inside and was introduced to Lando for the second time.

Rey realized this was his home. It was filled with more possessions than she had ever seen one person own – and that included Leia. He had nick nacks from all over the galaxy, which looked out of place on a planet like Pasaana.

"Lando," Ben said, sounding stunned.

Lando laughed and wrapped his arms around Ben. "It's good to see you again, kid." He let go of Ben before he could respond.

"Han's been getting me caught up on what happened."

Finn's mouth had dropped open. "You're General Calrissian."

"I know I am," Lando said.

"It's an honour to meet you," Finn said.

"None of that." Lando waved off the compliment. "You'll make me blush. Besides, from what Han's told me about you, I should be honoured to meet you."

Finn's eyebrows shot up. "Me?"

"You're the former Stormtrooper, right?" Lando asked.

"What does that have–"

"You've started something," Lando said in a more serious voice. "The First Order should be far more concerned than they are about your influence."

"They should?" Finn asked.

"You've proven that Stormtroopers have minds of their own," Lando explained.

"He's right," Ben said. "They couldn't hide your defection."

"And now they can't hide yours," Finn said.

"There will be time for this later," Lando said, leading them into another room, larger than the last. "Make yourselves comfortable."

Luke was at the back of the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Paige and Rose were already sitting on a lush looking couch, while Chewie was looking at an ornate vase.

"Don't touch that," Lando snapped. "You have a bad track record with breaking my things."

Chewie moaned in disagreement, but backed away from the vase and sat on a wooden chair next that was too small for his large frame.

Han and Finn sat on similar chairs next to Chewie.

Lando chose a bright blue armchair. "I think it's time for you to finish your story."

Rey opted to sit on the ground. There was a colourful rug that looked like it was more expensive than anything Rey had ever dreamed of owning.

Ben sat next to her, close enough that his thigh brushed against hers.

She looked at him and smiled.

He smiled back.

"Han was telling me about how you joined the Resistance because of a girl," Lando said to Ben.

Rey was sure her face turned bright red.

Ben wasn't any better. He blushed and his mouth dropped open. "I, uh–"

"Just like your old man," Lando said, grinning.