A/N: I don't write enough Reylo on here, and I was inspired by - believe it or not - last year's Lego Star Wars Holiday Special, which I rewatched recently. So voila, an AU Life Day Reylo oneshot. The AU should be pretty clear right off the bat, I'll do my best to explain it. Title and song are "Yours Again" by Red.
Disclaimer: *singing* On the first day of Christmas, a Jedi gave to me... *coughs* Right, sorry. None of this is mine, it all belongs to Disney and Lucasfilm.
Yours Again
"I can almost feel you breathing
Like a whisper in my ear...
I remember how you lost me (how you lost me)
Or how I lost you
I stare into the blackness
It's staring back at me...
Why did I try to live without you?
I want you
I need you!"
He'd resigned himself to spending Life Day alone.
Usually he wouldn't have minded being alone. He did everything alone. His current status, which was outcast, demanded that of him, and usually he was mostly happy to comply. The Resistance - Republic - whatever they were calling themselves now, they'd never want him back, not after everything, and he was too recognizable to live anywhere in the Core worlds peacefully. Even exiled as he was, there was the occasional aggressor that came upon him, though he was still proficient with a lightsaber and most of them ended up regretting it.
He never killed, though. Not anymore. Not ever again.
So he was used to being alone. The blood that stained his hands kept him awake at night and kept most people far away from the abandoned building he'd turned into his home. He enjoyed the solitude most of the time, though it was hard whenever thoughts of her crept in. But Life Day was a different matter.
Life Day was supposed to be about friends and family, about spending time with the people you loved. Life Day was a Wookiee holiday, but plenty of people across the galaxy celebrated it, since the idea had apparently become quite popular - and why would it not, when it was a chance to spend quality time with loved ones?
He sometimes worried that he had no loved ones left, but he still wished for company on such an important holiday.
And yet he'd resigned himself to spending the holiday alone.
And he hated it.
"Open up my eyes!
I need your light again...
Burning me inside!
I need your love again...
I can feel our hearts collide
I can feel our hearts ignite!
Open up my eyes...!
I'm yours again...!"
He could remember, clearly, Life Days past. When he was a child, his parents would always bring him out to Kashyyyk to celebrate with Chewie's family. His father used to let him sit up in the cockpit, and when he was old enough Han would teach him how to fly as they hurtled through hyperspace towards Chewie's home planet. His mother had only objected a little before caving in and was always up for a game of Dejarik in the back - Leia was the one person he suspected Chewie wouldn't rip the arms off of for winning.
Kashyyyk was warm and wild, and the celebrations with Chewie's family and his own had always given him a sense of home and comfort. Even Uncle Luke had relaxed while there, and he'd let himself relax too.
Life Days at the Temple were different. There was still warmth and laughter and celebration, yes, but Uncle Luke was different, colder than he was when he was with the family on Kashyyyk. He'd learned to accept it, though, and thought nothing much of it for the most part - though, looking back, he supposed he had harbored a bit of resentment for Uncle Luke not letting him go back to his parents for Life Day.
Once he'd fallen, however, things changed. Life Days were virtually nonexistent in the First Order, and the only people around his age that he might have celebrated it with seemed to either hate him or fear him (Hux and Phasma were prominent among them). Still, for years he hid himself away in his quarters on Life Day and took a few moments to let himself be tempted once more by the light, remembering the Life Days of his childhood. As far as he knew, Snoke had never found out, but even still he'd dropped the practice when he was about twenty.
Then she had come into his life. The first Life Day after he met her was spent partially in a bacta tank as the medical droids checked the scar she'd left him, which was taking far longer to heal than it should have, though admittedly by that point was mostly fixed. The rest of it, he spent wondering what exactly she was up to. It wasn't healthy, this obsession with her (as Hux had pointed out more than once during his recovery), but he couldn't seem to stay away from it. The second Life Day had constituted a Force-bond moment that mostly consisted of him watching her; he wasn't entirely sure she'd even been aware the bond was in effect.
And now this one was to be spent alone again, redeemed but still friendless, light-sided but still in the dark.
Without her.
"Will I wake up from this moment?
Will I see you slip away?
Or is this a new beginning
Of beauty and rage?
Where did I lose my passion?
Where did I start to fade?
Without you, my world is darkness
I won't let go again!"
He sighed and shook himself out of his memories. It wouldn't do to dwell on the past. There was too much pain there.
The past, however, seemed determined to make him dwell on it.
He was first alerted to the intruder's presence by the slight hiss as the door opened. Then the soft shuffling of footsteps as the intruder well and truly entered the apartment. The sound of breathing in the stillness followed the sound of the footsteps.
His hand strayed to his lightsaber hilt. Whoever it was was in for a nasty surprise when they found him. Years of training asserted themselves as he slid easily into the ready stance for Form IV, though he kept the blade deactivated lest he give away his position.
Something fell over with a mighty crash and a voice swore quite loudly. Whoever the intruder was, they weren't taking too much care to keep quiet...
Wait a moment. He knew that voice.
But it couldn't be. No one knew where he'd gone to ground, least of all her. For all intents and purposes he should have been dead to the galaxy. But there was no mistaking that melodic, accented voice. He'd know it anywhere.
How in the galaxy was this possible?
He still didn't relax his fighting stance in case it was just the Force or his own mind playing tricks on him, but as the footsteps drew closer he became increasinly certain that it was real.
The hum of a lightsaber became the next sound he registered and he wondered when she'd activated it; he hadn't heard the blade spring to life. Odds were she suspected this might be a trap just as much as he had.
He activated his own lightsaber now, fairly certain of his assumption. The blue blade sprang to life and cast an eerie glow over his face.
She rounded the corner, and his heart stopped.
If this was a trick, it was the cruelest one his brain could have conjured. But he didn't think it was a trick.
Her orange blade sent a glow over her skin that made it appear sun-warmed. Her eyes were the same beautiful pools of dark, impenetrable brown as always. Her hair was down the way it had been so long ago in Snoke's throne room, when she'd come to try and save him.
"Hello, Ben," said Rey Skywalker.
"Open up my eyes!
I need your light again...
Burning me inside!
I need your love again...
I can feel our hearts collide
I can feel our hearts ignite!
Open up my eyes...!
I'm yours again...!
Whoa-oh-oh...! (Whoa-oh-oh...!) Oh-oh-oh... (Oh-oh-oh...) Oh-oh-oh...
I'm yours again...!
Whoa-oh-oh...! (Whoa-oh-oh...!) Oh-oh-oh... (Oh-oh-oh...) Oh-oh-oh..."
Ben did a double take. "Rey?" he asked, rather stupidly. "What - what are you doing here? How did you find me?"
"Please," Rey snorted. "We share a Force bond. It wasn't that hard to track you down."
"That - that still didn't answer the first question," Ben stuttered, running a hand through his long black hair distractedly, still unable to believe what his eyes or ears were telling him. His thoughts moved a mile a minute, trying to make sense of how and why she was here after all this time.
Rey sighed. "It's Life Day, isn't it? And you don't deserve to be alone on Life Day."
Ben looked at her, slightly helplessly. "And yet here I am."
"And here I am to counter that," Rey said, "and bring you back to Coruscant with me."
"Rey, in case you hadn't noticed, half the galaxy wants me in chains and the other half wants me dead," Ben said bitterly. "Coruscant is the last place I should be right now."
Rey's jaw tightened and he could see she was frustrated with him, though he couldn't fathom why. She heaved a few deep breaths and Ben felt it as she called on the Force, calming herself down.
"Ben," she said, a little stiffly, "how much access to the HoloNet have you had in the past few months?"
"Not a lot," Ben said. "I never paid attention to it much. It's never interested me."
Rey sighed heavily. "That explains a lot. Well, here -" she withdrew a datapad from somewhere and keyed up a HoloNet article, then handed the datapad to him - "read this."
Ben took it, deactivating his lightsaber and using the Force to turn on the lights so he could actually see. Rey's lightsaber deactivated with a whoosh and she crossed her arms, clipping the hilt back to her belt.
The article was about him. Ben went into it with a bit of trepidation, but realized quickly (and to his great confusion) that the feeling was unfounded.
Ben raised an eyebrow as he read, and it crept steadily higher on his forehead as the article went on. When he finished, he set the datapad down on the closest table and sat down on the couch behind it, too shocked by what he'd read to speak.
For the article had asked, quite plainly, Where is Ben Solo, formerly Kylo Ren and now reformed Resistance hero, now?
"I'm never letting go...
I'm never letting go...
I'm never letting go...
I'm yours again...!
(Whoa-oh-oh...)
I'm yours again...!
(Oh-oh-oh...)
I'm yours again...!"
"I - I don't understand," Ben said shakily once he'd found his voice. "'Reformed Resistance hero'? Does the public know what happened on Exegol?"
"Not exactly," Rey explained. "We were asked to tell the story of what happened following the victory, but we managed not to give them too many specifics. We did, however, take care to mention your turn back to the Light, and I told them how you saved my life and nearly sacrificed your own to do so. Then Finn stepped up and said some actually quite nice things about you. Poe chipped in with memories of how you were as kids and the confidence that you could be that boy again, albeit much more mature. They've all been wondering where you disappeared to, desperate to get your side of the story. A lot of them have recognized you as a hero, mostly for saving my life. They want you back, Ben. And the Resistance - or at least all of us that matter - want you back too." She hesitated, then finished, "...I want you back. We never got a chance to really explore this thing between us since you disappeared immediately following the Battle of Exegol."
Oh. He hadn't thought about that. "Oh, Rey, I'm so sorry," he apologized. "I didn't even think..."
Rey smirked. "I noticed."
"Hey," Ben protested weakly. He'd set himself up for that one.
"The point is," Rey said, all seriousness again, "that we want you back on Coruscant with us. There's going to be a risk - there always is - but we want you to come home."
Home. The word gave Ben pause. He hadn't really had a home in over a decade.
What was a home, anyway? Was it the place you lived in? Was it the belongings that gave said place character or a lived-in feel? Was it the people around you?
Yes, Ben thought, that was it. It was the people you surrounded yourself with, people you loved and trusted - friends, family, lovers. For him, it meant Chewie, Poe, possibly Finn, C-3PO, R2-D2, Rey. Would he be home again if he went back with her? Would her friends accept him again?
He didn't know. But, looking at her in the light, taking in her white tunic and black saber hilt and dark hair and those beautiful eyes, Ben decided he was willing to find out.
"Open up my eyes!
I need your light again...
Burning me inside!
I need your love again... (I'm yours again...!)
I can feel our hearts collide!
I can feel our hearts ignite!
Open up my eyes...!
I'm yours again...! (Yours again...)"
Rey squeezed his hand. "You'll be fine. Just step out."
Ben stepped forward. Finn, Poe, Rose Tico, Lieutenant Connix, Chewie, and the ever-present retinue of droids (Ben had met D-O on the flight back, and he obviously knew BB-8) stood waiting for him.
"Hello," he said cautiously.
Poe stepped forward first. "Ben?"
Ben nodded. "It's me. The same di'kut of a kid you knew when we were growing up. A little more mature now, a lot more scarred." He grinned slightly. "Still a di'kut."
Poe studied him. Ben didn't move. After a few moments of silence as Poe looked him over, the pilot seemed to find what he was looking for, because he offered Ben his hand. "Yeah, you are. But I think we're all di'kuts when it comes down to it. So you're not alone."
Ben shook his hand. "Good to know."
Once Poe had stepped back, the others came up with a little less wariness. Finn looked directly at him and said, "We square, traitor?"
Despite himself, Ben grinned. "We're square, traitor."
And just like that, they were friends.
Rose and Connix both shook his hand a little warily, but with surprisingly firm grips from both women. Ben simply nodded at each of them. He'd earn their trust in time.
Last was Chewie, who roared something that translated roughly to "Took you long enough, kid!" and proceeded to scopp Ben into a bone-crushing hug. Ben returned it with a chuckle. He'd forgotten how much he loved Chewie.
"Okay," Ben gasped once the hug put a little too much pressure on his lungs. "Let me breathe, big guy."
Chewie let him go and roared an apology, which Ben waved off with a chuckle. "It's fine. It's been a while is all. My ribs will survive."
Chewie laughed. Ben smirked. "Laugh it up, fuzzball," he said, quoting his father. Chewie only laughed harder.
Bemused glances flew between Poe, Finn, Rose, and Connix, but Rey was smiling. Ben turned back to her.
"It seems you were right," he said, as D-O rolled out of the ship and came to settle by his feet, chirping, "Danger! Not good, not good!" One of the porgs that had stowed away when Rey left Ahch-To hopped out after the little droid, trilling in frustration. Ben smiled a little at the droid, then looked back at Rey. "I'm home."
Rey smiled and crossed the courtyard to kiss him. "Happy Life Day, Ben Solo," she said.
Ben smiled. "Happy Life Day, Rey."
Finished just in the nick of time! Literally. I finished this today. If it's a little rushed/harried, I'm sorry, but I was kind of in a hurry to finish this before the day was over. And I managed! I hope you enjoyed it despite the rushed nature! Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and please review!
