Author's Note: I'm on a roll now, your enthusiasm and comments have really motivated me to crank these chapters out. That and I've been on vacation which allows me the time to write. Finally! Thank you for every follow and favorite. Your comments are pure gold!
Who was she talking to? Well, there was no way Rey could answer that one honestly, at least not yet, and especially not to Poe.
"No one," she sputtered, fumbling for some excuse. She gestured around the empty room. "No one here, just talking to myself."
"Well, I didn't hear anyone else." Poe's eyes narrowed as he craned his head to look around her empty bunk. "But it sure sounded like you were having a full-blown conversation to me."
Rey furrowed her brows. "Like I said before, I'm just trying to process all of this."
Poe heaved a breath and stepped forward. "If you need to talk, you don't have to use the wall," he said, gesturing to what he obviously thought she'd been communicating with. "Come back and talk to us. I shouldn't have snapped." He shook his head. "There's obviously a lot to the story I missed. I should have listened."
Rey nodded. "I promise I'll fill you in. But what I really need right now is some time to myself."
He dipped his chin in a tense nod. "Alright," he said, pressing his lips together and turning to leave.
"Poe," she said forcing a pained smile "Thank you."
He flashed a weak smile in return, but his eyes remained untouched. He was not buying what she was selling and would be back, and would likely bring Finn and Rose with him. He gave her one last concerned glance before heading back out the way he came.
The tension she'd been carrying drained from her as soon as the door clicked shut. She wasn't ready to explain Ben's predicament to anyone quite yet.
She could only imagine how that conversation might go.
But Ben was right, she should tell them at some point. It might help them understand where she was coming from and how she was feeling.
She thought back to something Poe had said that stuck out in her mind. Poe hadn't heard Ben's voice. Neither had BB-8, in fact. She thought she remembered reading that only those who were Force sensitive were able to commune with those in the realm of the Living Force. And she thought that's where Ben probably was.
But everything wasn't clicking into place. If he was truly there, one with the Force, then why did she still feel their connection? Why hadn't he been able to pass on immediately? She thought back to his description of another place, someplace that would lead back to her.
What was he talking about, and why was there a darkness there?
There were too many questions to try to consider. And Rey was starting to feel trapped, nerves causing her shoulders to tense up again, cold sweat breaking across her forehead.
She needed to move.
Rey ran the training course twice before falling into a heap against the monstrous bigleaf maple, gulping air and shaking from exertion. The tree had become something akin to a friend over the last year, the beginning of its roots forming nature's perfect chaise lounge after such hard won tests of physical endurance.
As her shoulders pitched with heavy panting breaths, Rey felt both exhausted and rejuvenated as she always did after a physical trial. She reached out through the Force, in attempt to find a place of calm in all of the chaos of the past day.
She felt herself separate from the ground, rising as she became encapsulated in the embrace of the Force.
"Be with me," she whispered, falling deeper into the space where only the Force could exist. "Be with me."
And they were. As she continued to meditate, she could feel them as one with the Force. All of the Jedi who came before and she wondered how she had been so blind as to miss them before. They had always been there. She was not alone and would never be alone again. They were with her wherever she was if she would only listen.
A familiar tug at her core announced another appearance in the Force, and cracking open an eyelid, she sensed Ben, only a very faint cross-legged outline of him, meditating alongside her.
She wanted to scream from relief, to study his face, to assault him with more questions. but she knew the only thing keeping him here was their powerful connection. A bond that was fueled by the Force and she would not lose focus on it, instead letting it expand and contract with the energy of interconnected life surrounding them.
Clearing her mind of questions, she tried to just be.
Minutes or hours passed, it didn't matter. The Force was both instant and eternal all at once.
Then… darkness. Her stomach twisted and she was dropped into a battle. Bare trees backlit by an eerie red haze, glowing embers falling like snow over the planet's colonists. They all wore flattened dome-shaped helmets and goggles and looked like ghosts with their protective cloaks skimming the ground of the boggy landscape.
Not ghosts, but soon to be, she thought, as she recognized the approach of a vicious red saber and the haunting apparition wielding it.
Ben.
No, not Ben. This was pure Kylo Ren, using all of his hulking frame to slash, kick, and slam each of his enemies into the ground. The look on his face was pure, unadulterated rage. The power of each lightsaber stroke reminded her of what it felt like to face him in combat. She'd sensed, all along that he'd held back with her, and she was glad she'd never have to face his full fury. Two dozen enemies fell in under a minute, along with the occasional tree that got in the way.
Suddenly, Rey was overcome with the feeling that time had unfolded in an instant and these colonists, much fewer in number now, stood elsewhere, huddled around a table, speaking to a holo-projection of a hooded figure. The figure's robes were tattered and frayed at the ends and its hood hung so low, there was no way to see the features lurking underneath.
In a flash of dizziness, Rey was somewhere else.
Drifting above a blue planet, slashed across with streams of white clouds, cities glittering far below. A Corellian ship waited far above the atmosphere. Rey drifted closer, passing through the hull of the vessel, reaching the control room where four hooded figures stood with arms crossed talking in hushed whispers.
She wandered closer, trying to pick up their words.
"We are close," one hissed. "They are there if they could only find a way to pass through."
"We need the dyad."
"It is destroyed."
"No," came a reply. "It hangs on." It was the same hooded figure from before, robes in shreds, features unrecognizable. "By a thread." All four figures snapped their heads in her direction, all four sets of eyes locked onto hers and she was pushed back. Hard.
She landed, the sickening thump of her own flesh and bones crashing against the jungle floor was the only thing she heard for a long moment.
What in the kriffing hell was that?
A squawking buntu bird was her mocking response as she scanned the jungle nervously. It was later than she thought, the light was turning thick and orange, as it always did close to twilight in the jungle.
"Ben," she said, her voice catching in her throat. "Who were those people?"
She took one more breath to steady herself, rose to dust herself off, and began the long walk back to the base. She had a lot of reading to do.
The texts were where she left them, in an alcove, stuffed into a drawer on the west side of the hangar. She found a lantern that still shone weakly and got to work, trying to ignore echoes of the visions the Force had offered her.
It was a half hour or so until she found anything of interest – a thick tome, full to bursting with theories about the living Force. The writer had translated the volume with perfect, fine strokes of the pen, speculating that in order to fully pass through into the Living Force, one must be completely willing.
"Once willing, the Jedi is able to sublimate their organic cells into a state of pure energy that they can choose to manipulate. In this state of being, they may appear to other Force sensitive listeners, even going so far as interacting with the listener or the listener's environment." – Master San Li'Kwa
Rey read on, learning of the limitations of this type of power after death.
If Ben had begun to appear to her, he must have passed on into death. He must have been willing to die for her.
She'd known this, but reading it pushed her to pay attention to it again. Acknowledging just how much he had sacrificed.
She wiped the back of her hand across her cheek, not allowing her search to falter. She would help him. There must be a way. The same book, full of spiritual guidance for the Jedi, held several passages on the mythos of the Force Dyad. She'd read these pages with interest before, suspecting that this could explain how she'd been drawn to him over and over during her time on Ahch-To, but now the Bond had been all but confirmed and she read the passages again with a new vigor.
"A bond between two living beings is not something easily broken. It is not a choice… it is like breaking a feeling. Like turning away from the Force. To break a bond, your feelings would have to change, or one of you would have to die—but even then, the bond wouldn't go away, it would simply… it would simply be empty, a wound."―Master Zez-Kai Ell
And that's exactly what it was. When he wasn't there, it ached raw like an open wound. But Rey knew that the bond remained in some capacity, because when Ben appeared to her she felt its pull. She sensed his presence. She could still draw on him, as she'd done today while meditating, they were still connected. Even in death.
She continued her search, poring over pages, re-reading passages hoping to memorize them, to share with Ben later. Her neck was aching from stooping low over the books, her eyes growing fuzzy with focusing, when someone cleared their throat nearby.
Rose stood smiling, a pile of folded clothes in her outstretched arms. "Hey."
"Hey," she answered, her voice feeling creaky from disuse.
"It's almost two in the morning," Rose said. "I wanted to see if you were hungry and bring you this."
"What's that?" Rey asked.
"You dropped your pack in the mess hall, so I gathered up the stuff that spilled and took it to wash. They're all clean and folded now."
It was such a Rose thing to do. To look out for her like that.
Rey stood, stretching frozen joints and laid a hand on her friend's arm. "Thank you, Rose. That was so sweet of you."
Rey looked down at the pile of clothes, her favorite white cropped leggings and tunic and draped fabric she wore for protection from the sand, though she really didn't need that part anymore. It was more habitual than anything else. But without the flowing fabric and arm wrappings, she felt… exposed.
Rose smiled up at her. "It was no problem, I was washing mine anyway."
"I'm sorry I've been, you know. I've been different."
But Rose shook away the apology. "We're just glad you're here."
Rose held the pile out for her and that's when Rey saw it. Folded and stuffed in between her signature white and cream - a corner of black fabric peeking from underneath her own garments.
His shirt.
Rey's mouth went dry and she reached for the clothes with her hands shaking.
Rose tugged at the dark fabric. "This was with your things, too. But I didn't recognize it. Is it yours?"
"Yes," she croaked. "Yes." She repeated, attempting to steady her voice.
"It looked pretty big, are you sure?" Rose asked, finally meeting her eyes.
Rey attempted non-chalance but was sure she was failing miserably. She nodded and Rose cocked her head, studying her face.
"Oh Rey," Her friend's brows came together in an expression of complete sympathy. "It's his isn't it?"
And she was running again. Pushing past Rose, she was running into the misty dark of the jungle until she was alone, lost amidst the hanging vines and towering trunks. Alone where she could breathe, where she could think. Where she could remember him. Her ragged breath was loud in her ears, the usual vitality of life in the jungle silenced by the night. And finally far from the base, she stopped and unclipped her saber to light her path. The trees around her glowed gold as the warm radiance of her weapon filled the darkness around her.
Your saber is magnificent.
Her stomach clenched, a reflexive reaction to the timbre of his voice.
"Ben, I need you here. I can't do this."
I am here.
"I still don't understand how? The texts…"
The texts were written to guide a single Jedi, not a dyad. I wanted to pass on, I knew I had to according to Luke's teaching. But the texts, Luke's lessons, they never mentioned a Force Bond. I couldn't imagine leaving you alone.
"Then how are you appearing to me?"
This is something different.
Rey felt the tug of his spirit in that moment, a silent request to echo his focus. He was remembering his body, imagining looking into a mirror and willing his energy to manifest into that familiar physical form. Rey's heart beat faster as she realized what he was attempting. She drew from the vast expanse of Force she had access to here in the physical world and felt him draw from another place.
And they met somewhere in the middle.
Slowly, he began to take shape before her - his deep sensitive eyes, his strong nose, soft lips framed by waves of raven hair. Below that, broad shoulders materialized followed by the rest of his sturdy form. The only differences between this Ben and the memory she held of him, were the bluish glow radiating from his outline and the surprising change in clothing. He was wearing a cream-colored tunic with a V-shaped neckline set low enough to reveal a hint of his muscular chest. Draped over this, he wore the hooded robe of a Jedi. She drank deeply of the misty night air as her pulse hammered loudly in her ears. Force, he was beautiful. Even in death, Ben Solo, Prince of Alderaan, had taken her breath away.
She swallowed hard, eyes locked onto his.
You look like you've seen a ghost.
And with that, she was laughing. A gut-busting, snort-inducing laugh that warmed her blood and brought her back to life.
When she'd finally caught her breath, she looked up at him. "Ben Solo, did you just tell a joke?"
He winked as a half-smile curled one lip, an expression that instantly reminded her of Han.
I'll tell more if you promise to snort like that again.
He held out his arms to her and she looked up at him, questioning. She didn't want to push this too far. What if she lost him? But the temptation of his touch was too much to deny.
She let her concentration deepen, wrapping herself in the Force and supporting Ben's unwavering focus, willing his form to be firm under her hands before she stepped into his arms. To her shock, at first touch he was solid. She circled her arms around his shoulders, feeling the outline of him under her fingertips. Tracing the hard lines of muscle she found there, she relished the rush of blood that followed, making her dizzy, sending her world spinning.
She laid her head against his shoulder and felt him pull her closer against his chest.
The soft sound he made, somewhere between a hum and a moan, sent her reeling again, stomach flipping more violently than it did when she was running the training course. She inhaled, blessed with that heady scent of him, both earthy and delicate. She was swimming in him now and if she could choose to drown there, she would.
It was in his arms that she found the strength to realize she'd been wrong to run. Her friends deserved to know about not just what Ben had sacrificed, but what he meant to her.
