Published May 4, 2021. Happy Star Wars Day!

"Mission"

… it is wrong to imagine that one can exhaust one's destiny or fully plumb the depths of anything.

Alas! What are all these destinies driven helter-skelter? Where do they go? Why are they what they are?

He who knows that sees all darkness.

He is alone. His name is God.

~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, translated by Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee

Ben could not help feeling apprehensive in the days leading up to Chewbacca's arrival. Even though they had more or less reconciled, the idea of spending time together when Han was not there seemed wrong to Ben's mind.

Chewie's visit was semi-official in nature: he agreed to give the Resistance a report of Ben's status, but could not be bothered asking him probing questions. Unlike the other visitors—Ben wondered if a more accurate term would be social workers—he came alone, and he spent a few days on the island. The Resistance was willing to grant that kind of extended visit to such a seasoned veteran, though they still did not trust Ben with a ship on the island: they dropped Chewie off and picked him up. Ben did not know the pilots, and they did not ask to be introduced.

Somehow, Chewie seemed unchanged by time, even after losing three of his best friends in a relatively short period. Maybe it was because Wookiees aged more slowly than humans, and he was already quite old by their standards. Ben was just grateful that he was not holding their deaths against him, despite his undeniable responsibility for them.

Chewie turned out to be a good companion for Ben at this time in his life. He was happy to talk about his family on Kashyyyk or his adventures around the galaxy. But he was also content to sit in silence, focusing on their food or the campfire. Chewie preferred cooking and eating outdoors, so that was what they did when the weather allowed it.

Ben tried to sound casual as he asked, "Do you see Rey often?"

Chewie answered teasingly, Not as often as you.

Ben smiled at that. "No, probably not." After a few minutes' pause he asked, "Does she ever talk about me? Does anyone?"

Chewbacca tilted his head from one side to the other, a vague, ambivalent gesture. Ben could see that he was not going to get any intelligence from him.

Ben noticed, with some amusement, that Chewie seemed to have a contentious relationship with the porgs. They annoyed the Wookiee even more than the human.

With the Lanai, however, Chewie seemed to be on good terms. So good, in fact, that when the ships from a neighboring island came for their monthly party with the caretakers, Chewie suggested that he and Ben and R2-D2 attend it. Ben agreed primarily because it would be a new experience, and those were hard to come by.

The caretakers and their visitors were quite pleased to see the Wookiee and the droid again, and they welcomed Ben since he was with them. The music was energetic, and Chewie even joined the dancing, though he could not convince Ben to do so.

Watching from the side, Ben wondered if he might have felt differently about the joyful scene if Rey had been there. She probably would have liked it. He tried to push those thoughts away by focusing on other things, like the novelty of hearing music. He could hardly remember the last time he had intentionally listened to music. He tried a couple drinks, trying to figure out if they had alcohol or some other kind of fermented ingredient. Thanks to Chewie's negotiating skills, he ended up leaving with a small cask and an invitation to come again if he felt so inclined. Ben tried not to think about the likelihood of taking that up.

Overall, Chewie's visit was nothing remarkable, but somehow that in itself was comforting. They talked about personal things, including a lengthy conversation about the Rebellion and what had led each of Ben's relatives to join it; but there were no tears or arguing or blaming. When his family came up in conversation, Chewie spoke of them with more nostalgia than grief. Ben wondered if he would ever talk or think about them that way.

Ben still had some bad days, though they became fewer over time. Rey appeared through the Force during the very worst ones. At first Ben tried to turn away from her, not wanting her to see his weakness or burden herself with his pain; but it did not take much to convince him to let her in, if only for a moment.

One of the wonderful things about Rey was that she did not speak empty words of comfort. She never tried to minimize the seriousness of his actions or the validity of his emotions. She listened, if he was able and willing to talk. She held his hand, or let him hold on to her. By opening herself to their bond, she felt his emotions as if they were her own. Sometimes, she even thanked him for opening up to her, as though he was the one granting her a favor.

"I mean, thank you for trusting me with that," she clarified when he asked her about it. "For not shutting me out. You can, if you want to—if you want privacy."

But with so few people in his life, and so much of his time spent alone, Ben was increasingly—almost pathetically, he thought—eager to open up to her.

While he never wished to see her in pain, he was glad to be able to return the favor when the opportunity came. The Force connected them at a moment when she was crying. She seemed to be sitting on one of his crates. She hastily wiped her eyes with her sleeve when she saw him.

Ben hesitated before addressing her. "Is this a bad time?"

Rey sniffed. "Actually … this is a pretty good time. I could use a friend right now." She looked more vulnerable than usual, rubbing her arms to warm herself.

He sat down next to her, thinking over that word as he put his arm around her and she hugged him around the middle. "Friend" seemed rather inadequate for what they were to each other, and yet he was not sure he was even that for her; she had much better options available, after all.

"Your other friends can't do this for you?" he asked, trying not to sound skeptical.

Rey's tone was both rueful and grateful. "They're not always around … and most of them aren't as good listeners."

"That may not be a fair comparison. I'm a captive audience."

That made her laugh a little, which Ben supposed was a small victory.

"You know I am here for you," he said seriously. "And not because I don't have a choice."

She nodded. "I appreciate that, Ben."

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

She drew away from him then, avoiding his eyes. "I … can't."

"… Of course. Not with me."

Calmer now, she became thoughtful. "I guess … if Finn thinks it's alright to share his activities …it's probably alright for me to talk about mine."

"I should hope so."

So she began to talk, and Ben listened.

Rey was not used to confiding in someone on a regular basis, or talking about her day-to-day activities with someone who was not already aware of or involved with them. As she did so with Ben more and more often, she started to gain a new perspective on her own life.

She figured that her solitary missions were independent of the Resistance's work, and therefore did not count as classified information. So, there was no reason to keep them from Ben when they saw each other through the Force. In fact, he was the one she wanted to tell about them, more than anyone else.

There were some topics that she deeply wanted to talk to him about, though she waited a while before she finally brought them up.

"Can I ask you some questions about the Jedi?"

Ben frowned at this request. "Wouldn't you rather ask my uncle? You can see him if you want, can't you?"

"It's more like if he wants. I haven't seen him since the day we dropped you off—it might depend on being in a place with a strong connection to the Force. Besides, I already know how he felt about it all; I want to know your perspective, as a student of the last generation of Jedi."

"Why?"

"Well … Finn and I have both been training as best we can, but we're not sure what to do next. People have been asking us if we're going to restart the order, but I'm not sure if we can, or if we should."

"Really? There was a time when I would've assumed that you would try."

"Well, I'm not so sure now. Please, will you hear me out?"

It was the first real request she had made of Ben since his exile, and he hardly felt he could refuse. So he listened to her questions, told her what he remembered, and shared his opinions, which were often at odds with her own. They were united in their wariness of certain Jedi beliefs and traditions, but Rey still thought of the Force as an overall benevolent kind of sentient being.

Since Ben took the time to answer her questions and give feedback on her ideas, she told him about her process of deciding whether to seek out other Force-sensitive beings who might benefit from the Jedi's teachings. It was not an easy decision, nor one to be made lightly or quickly.

"I gave it a lot of thought, and I decided I'm not going to try to recreate the Jedi Order," she said, after many months of conversations with Ben, Finn, and Maz Kanata. "But I want to share what I've learned with anyone else who would benefit from it." She watched Ben for his reaction, and he realized, with some surprise, that she hoped he would approve.

He nodded. "That's a balanced approach."

"Well, we're working toward balance in every other area of life. I figured the same should go for this."

Ben wondered whether by "we" she was referring to the two of them, or herself and her friends—or all of them together.

One day, she appeared to him in a state of quiet excitement and nervous expectation.

"We found a planet with kyber mines," she explained. "Finn and I are going to look for crystals so we can make our own lightsabers."

Not for the first time, Ben had to fight back a wave of envy for Finn. He would have loved to be the one accompanying Rey on that life-defining journey, even if he could not seek a crystal with her.

But the feeling dissipated when Rey looked at him almost shyly and asked, "I don't suppose you have any advice?"

He smiled and shook his head. "Sorry, kid. That's a journey you have to undertake alone."

Rey looked at him strangely then, becoming still. "What is it?" Ben asked, his smile fading.

"Nothing."

"No—you were reacting to something. What did I say?"

She looked at him softly, not exactly happy or sad. "You called me 'kid.'"

"Oh. I wasn't thinking …"

"I don't mind," she said quickly. "It just surprised me."

"Well … I'll look forward to seeing how your lightsaber turns out."

Rey eyed him mischievously. "Do you want a rematch?"

He grinned back. "I'm not sure you could handle it."

"I think you're the one who wouldn't be able to handle it."

No, he thought, he probably would not—but not necessarily for the reason she was thinking.

"May the Force be with you," he said, and he meant it.

She nodded. "Thank you."

Ben was not worried, exactly, but he knew the process of finding a crystal was challenging, and building a lightsaber was no easy task either. Of course, if anyone could do it, it was Rey—she had survived over a decade on Jakku by taking things apart and putting them back together.

He tried not to jump up in excitement when she finally appeared to him, two days later.

"How did it go?" he asked immediately

Rey smiled broadly, as though tired but exhilarated. "It was incredible."

"Tell me."

She described the caves they had found, and how incredible the kyber had felt to their Force-attuned senses. The two friends had separated when they felt drawn in different directions. Rey would not share whatever Finn had seen, out of respect for his privacy. For her own part, she was willing but shy when she told Ben about her experience.

"I saw you," she confessed.

"What?" Ben said sharply.

"In the cave. I saw you, only I didn't realize at first that it wasn't really you. I thought the Force was connecting us. And this … fake you repeated things you've said, and things other people have told me …"

"What kinds of things?"

Rey lowered her eyes. "Things to make me doubt myself. To make me think I'm nothing."

Ben felt several emotions at once, but Rey hurried on with her narrative before he could react. "Anyway … eventually I figured out that it wasn't you, because you don't talk or act that way anymore, at least not toward me. And … I thought of all the nice things people have said to me or done for me. I started shouting self-affirmations—things I've been trying to convince myself, about myself—and somehow it felt like the first time I really believed them. That seemed to shut the fake you up. And then, when I moved past you, I found my crystal." She smiled, trying to contain her eagerness, and succeeding about as well as a child that has won a prize in school. "Do you want to see my lightsaber?"

"Yes, please."

She turned away for a moment, then faced him holding a vaguely familiar object. "I made it from part of my staff," she explained. She held it with both hands, and twisted it, igniting a yellow beam of light. It was the first time Ben had heard the familiar sounds of a lightsaber since he was exiled.

"Yellow," Ben breathed. "Rey, do you know the significance of that color?"

"No."

"It's one of the rarest colors for a lightsaber. In the old days, the Jedi Sentinels had yellow lightsabers. They guarded the temple."

Rey twirled her wrist, the way Ben sometimes used to do; then she held the saber out to him, inviting him to examine it. He grasped her wrist in his left hand, ensuring that she would not vanish, and picked up the saber in his right hand.

Even though the weapon was not his own, it felt natural in his grip. He swung it the way she had, feeling its weight and its energy. It was like a sun in a tropical climate, warm and protective and helping life to flourish. It felt, he thought, like Rey herself.

When he glanced up at her, she was looking at him in a way she never had before, as though awaiting his judgment. "What do you think?"

"It's wonderful, Rey. Truly." He turned it off and held the hilt out to her. She took it with her free hand, but instead of letting go, he held his hands over and under hers. "I may not have the right to feel this way, but I'm proud of you."

She lowered her gaze, blushing slightly as she took the lightsaber back and held it close. "Well, I did learn a lot from you. In more ways than one, I wouldn't have made it this far without you."

"I think that goes both ways."

They smiled at each other, and Ben wondered if this was how old masters felt as they watched younger generations surpass them.

It was not until Rey disappeared from his sight that he realized he had forgotten to apologize for saying she was nothing. Not that she had given him the chance when he thought of it. Maybe she had forgiven it already—they had, after all, exchanged a general apology and absolution on Ajan Kloss. Perhaps it was better left unmentioned now.

Rey was getting better at exercising some control over their bond, calling upon it when she wanted to talk to Ben. She did this more frequently as she visited the planets where their families had lived, worked, and traveled. She told him about whatever planet she was visiting, and what she was able to piece together about his family's history. He had told her what he knew about it, but now she filled in some gaps that Leia and Luke had not been able to.

Ben saw the way her eyes shone when she described Naboo's fields and cliffs and waterfalls. It was hard to say which of the planet's features enchanted her more: its natural beauty, the engineering marvels of the Gungans' underwater cities, or the talent of the many artists and craftspeople.

She became solemn, however, when she spoke about visiting Padmé Amidala's mausoleum. It had been a strange experience.

"I talked to her," Rey said, sounding as though she was making a confession.

"Do you mean—"

"No, not through the Force. In fact, I thought about trying to talk to your mother, or Luke, or even Anakin Skywalker—I haven't met him, but I would like to if I could. I wondered if they could pass on a message. But I tried talking to her—I guess you could call it praying, trusting she would hear somehow."

"What did you say?"

"First I felt like I had to beg her pardon for even showing my face there. You know—the last Palpatine."

"Oh, Rey—"

"I know, but it had to be said. I had to get it out of the way before I could tell her anything else. I apologized for everything my grandfather did—for how he used her and hurt so many of her family. I told her about you."

"What did you tell her?" Ben asked warily.

"Oh, just good things," she said lightly.

"Rey …"

"No, really. I told her every good thing I could think of about you. And about Leia and Luke, and how much they meant to me. And I felt something—not a presence, exactly, but a kind of … signal, like an alert for an incoming message. I think she wanted me to know that she knew, that she understood. Later, I met her sister's children and grandchildren—I guess they're your cousins, or something like that. And some of her handmaidens are still alive, so they told me about what it was like to work with her." She leaned forward. "Did you know she tried to free the slaves on Tatooine?"

"You mean through Senate legislation?"

"No, I mean she actually sent her chief handmaiden to purchase and free as many slaves as she could. She only gave up after she failed to find Anakin's mother—your great-grandmother—Shmi Skywalker."

Ben had never harbored particularly strong feelings about his grandmother, but he found himself respecting her a little more after hearing this.

"I learned some things about Palpatine, too," Rey said. "About his life growing up, and his career before he declared himself Emperor."

"How did that go?"

Rey sighed. "It was a lot to take in, but I needed to at some point. It's … disheartening, I guess, to see that someone can seem one way but secretly be completely different."

Ben smiled bitterly. "I do know what that's like."

"What—Snoke?"

"Him, and most of my family. People need heroes to look up to, so that's what the galaxy made them out to be. The truth is messier." He looked at her earnestly. "I hope you can set the record straight, somehow."

"I'll try," she vowed.

In the following months, Rey visited Coruscant, where she learned about the Jedi Order and the Old Republic and the Clone Wars, and Corellia, where Han was born. She found Coruscant rather overwhelming—she was not used to large cities, and there was a great deal of information to process about Padmé, Anakin, and Bail Organa. In contrast, she genuinely enjoyed the shipyards and oceans of Corellia.

But she had far more to talk about after visiting Tatooine.

"It was … sad, but also kind of beautiful," she told Ben. "There are twin suns, like on Ahch-To. I never thought I'd say this, but it was actually nice being in a desert again."

"Is it as backwater as its reputation?"

"Maybe a little less," she allowed. "But still not what you'd call prosperous."

"Did you find anything worthwhile?" Ben rather doubted it.

But Rey surprised him by answering, "I met someone who knew your grandfather."

Ben sat up straight in surprise. "What? Who?"

"An old woman. She was close to Anakin's age, and she remembered him when he was a child. She said he wanted to free all the slaves. That got me curious, so I asked around, and found out how the slave trade has survived there. Some call it indentured servitude, but it's really just slavery by another name. I sort of got kicked out of one restaurant for speaking out about it."

Ben chuckled, wishing he had seen that. "Sounds like an adventure."

"It's not over yet," Rey said ominously. Off of his questioning look, she stated with determination, "I'm going back, and I'm going to free the slaves, like your grandparents wanted to do."

Of course she would try that kind of thing. "How do you plan to do that?"

"I'm not exactly sure yet," she admitted. "I need to talk to them and figure out what would be the best approach. But I'm sure the slaveowners won't just let them walk away." She smiled crookedly. "We'll probably have to organize a rebellion."

"Well, it's a good thing you have some experience with that."

"Yeah. I guess it comes full circle, in a way, since I learned about it from your mother, the daughter of a slave."

Ben knew—even better than most—that Rey was not someone to underestimate. But he also knew that slave traders were not easy enemies to deal with.

"Be careful," he cautioned her.

"Of course," she replied, in a way that reminded Ben a little too much of his father.

By the next time they saw each other, Rey had managed to set a number of slaves free through a combination of trickery, thievery, and negotiation. But she had found that some slaves simply did not want to leave. Some preferred the security of their current situation. Some felt genuine loyalty to their owners, for varying reasons. Some families had been owned by other families for multiple generations and simply could not imagine another way of life.

Ben sat and listened while Rey paced back and forth, venting her frustration. "I can't stand it, when people choose to stay—trapped, abused—"

"That doesn't sound familiar at all," Ben said sarcastically. "How long did you spend on Jakku, when you could have left any time you wanted?"

"No—it's too familiar. But not because of me." Her eyes were anguished as she looked at him. "It's too much like you."

"… Oh." He supposed she had a point. "So … what are you going to do?"

She chewed on her lip and deliberated before answering. "I can't force people to be free, to choose something better for themselves. I learned that the hard way." She gave him a meaningful look as she said that, and he thought he recognized something in her eyes—a kind of stubborn goodwill. "But I'm still going to give them every opportunity."

Ben thought this over, and spoke from his own experience. "If they see that you truly care for them, that might give them the hope they need to break free. But it could also make them expect more of you—more than you intended. You'll want to be careful of that."

Rey nodded slowly. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For listening, and sharing your perspective."

"Anytime, Rey."

Thinking about her journeys and self-imposed missions, Ben supposed that he had gone from being a lead character in his family's story to a supporting role in her story. She had so many goals, such a strong sense of purpose. He sometimes envied that, but for the most part, he was happy for her. It did his heart good to see that she was doing something for herself, even if that led her to do things for other people.

Disclaimer: The events Rey refers to, about Padmé's efforts to find Shmi and free the slaves on Tatooine, are in E.K. Johnson's book Queen's Shadow.