This is about as meta as it gets, I think. If parts of it make little to no sense, please understand that the fandom directly post-TROS was a wild, wild place.

There's nothing quite like travel by train. It's a childish belief, Ben supposes, and a car would have been a much preferable method of transportation for many, especially if they have the financial freedom that he enjoys, but cars and busses along with them always feel too stuffy and crowded for long journeys, even if he's on his own. If it has to take him nine hours to get somewhere, he'd much rather it happens that way.

So of course, when he had bought his ticket at some point in the middle of the night, he'd expected – hoped, rather – that the carriage he'd been placed in would be empty. It had been with a touch of irritation that he'd watched the door slide open – that is, until his fellow traveller had plopped herself right opposite of his own, smiled briefly in greeting, and opened his book to keep reading. She seems to be about fifty pages in and it's a long ride back to his home city; if she's also headed there, he's about to get the best live reading experience of his life. Live readings are a part of his job, usually, so it might make for a refreshing change of pace, he'd thought at first. The midnight release of The Long Way Around – his latest book, and the last in its trilogy – had been a massive success, but reading the first few pages out loud had meant that he'd missed out on his audience's reactions, and plus, there's not much excitement to be found in chapter one. His own copy lies innocently in the seat next to his and it's the last few pages that he truly loves for the catharsis they had brought. If she's a fast enough reader – and, by the way she's flipping through her copy, she is – he might just get to watch it as it happens in real time.

The woman – young, mid-twenties, if he has to take a guess, with dark hair pulled into a high ponytail and eyes that glisten with the well-familiar joy of newly-acquired reading material – looks up when he starts rummaging through his bag for the lunch he'd packed. Her gaze darts towards the book next to him and the smile widens as she nods towards it. "Saving it up for later?"

"Oh, I'm done already." After so many additions and removals and adjustments and back and forth mail with his editor, he could probably recite the damn thing.

"Oh! Were you at the midnight release, too?" At his nod, she sighs. "I couldn't get to the bookstore Solo was invited to – it was too crowded by the time I got there, so I went to one of the smaller places. Did he answer a lot of questions?"

"Uh, he sure did." He'd stayed there until three in the morning and had kept signing books at the exit for nearly an hour more. It's strangely refreshing; not being recognised. He's not a celebrity in the way an actor or a singer would be, but he's well-known to his usual crowd of sci-fi-with-a-dash-of-romance fans – appearance-wise as well as for his work. He doesn't mind – hearing people talk about how his writing had made them feel is a bigger compliment than a review in any newspaper could ever be – but it's better still to see it all undoctored in this stranger.

Another sigh. "I had a list of my own, in the event I managed to get in, but what can you do? Next time."

"Oh, definitely." If he doesn't manage to keep his mouth shut – which he fails to do, most of the time – that might come a lot sooner than she'd anticipated.

~.~

It's funny, watching her go through the journey that is his final book right in front of him. Ben does his best to be surreptitious about it, but he's so, so bored. He had watched the scenery as it had passed by – endless fields of sunflowers eventually replaced by wheat, which had then given way to a mountain that had finally decimated what little had been left of his signal. He had tried writing once his phone had started sounding off the first signs of dying, but it had mostly consisted of his pen hovering over his notebook, jumping from one stray written thought to another, developing stories that would require monumental amount of work before they'd ever see the light of day. Ever since he'd finished this most recent trilogy, he'd been looking for a thread to lead him on a similarly long adventure, but so far, none of his ideas had been long-winded enough for that.

Killing Kylo off had been a choice. He'd always meant to do it, the realisation that a character like him would always have to die eventually niggling at his consciousness as he'd poured hundreds of hours and words into his and Kira's story, but he'd waited for the right moment to do it. Despite Ben's best efforts to drive the point home about difficult he would be to forgive, Kylo had been well-loved since day one. The Internet had spent a good five years arguing about the possibility of a redemption arc and how deserved it could end up being. Stupidly enough, it had all filled him with a frustrating sort of hope.

He's not Kylo Ren; far from it. All his flaws are theoretically far easier to get over, his mistakes easier to put behind, but he had always put a little more of himself into him than he had into any of his other characters. Somewhere halfway through book two, he had realised that their appearance matched, too, and it had been a little mortifying, if not as much as his sheer investment in the character.

Not that there's anything wrong about being invested, of course. He'd created the guy. He had been the first character Ben had ever created, truth be told, and he'd grown attached in the years after that, not unlike his readers.

There's nothing lovable about Kylo, despite his occasional blips of goodness. He'd had to die. And still, the fact that he had become a fan favourite quite so quickly—

Well. It's an ego boost. An even bigger one when the woman opposite of him grins at her book, her eyes getting all twinkly and teary in the exact same way he'd pictured it happening to Kira when her nemesis-slash-confidant-slash-lover had finally joined her in the Emperor's lair.

Kira and Kylo had had a rather rocky journey up until that point, shifting from violence to tender secret meetings between battles to the sort of racy sex scenes that had won him a less than ideal fame among the purists in the sci-fi genre. Not that he'd ever cared – he'd polished the art of writing hate-fucking to perfection, as a lot of reviewers, both professional and otherwise, have always pointed out, and his resident reader on his ride home seems to think the same thing. He'd seen her glance up at him and had then back at her copy of Long Way Around the way people tend to when they're reading something they think they shouldn't in another's company and then a pleasant flush had crawled over her freckled cheeks, a smile stealing over her features. She'd brought the book closer to herself as if to hide her face, but he knows. It's another scene that remains ever so vivid in his mind, their reunion on Pasaana, even if it's not quite as much as the part she's nearing now. She has to be just a few pages before tragedy strikes by now.

And sure enough, approximately five minutes later, his reader stares at the page in wide-eyed, horrified disbelief, and then promptly bursts into tears.

He had not seen this one coming.

A sob or two would have been appreciated; he has to admit that much. Emotional investment is his favourite part of what he does. But the way this stranger flips through the rest of the book, distracted as if suddenly eager to get it over with, eerily reminds him of himself; of soundless tears dripping down his face and onto the paper, unstoppable and overwhelming. He had been a child the first time he had cried over a character's death and it had been just like this – outrage mixed with the embarrassment of grief he had known even then is illogical.

"Sorry," she says at last, once she's at the end of the last page, as if she can feel his eyes on her even without looking. She glances towards his copy again as Ben offers a quiet, 'It's okay', and tentatively presses onwards. "You said you finished it, right?"

"I did." He has to ask. This – whatever it is that she's feeling – is exactly what he had intended, but he simply needs to know why. It's the same question that had tortured him ever since the start. Killing him off had been the right choice. The only one. It should have been bittersweet, not devastating. "How did you like it?"

"It's terrible." She sniffs again, closing the book with a thud and tossing it on the seat next to her. "It's good, writing-wise, obviously – they always are – but what kind of ending is that? He kept on talking about Kira and how she deserves the world and we end up with this?"

Well, that's just unfair. "She still has her friends, right? She can still be happy."

"Oh, fuck that." Her glare only intensifies when the reaction startles a laugh out of him. "We get all that talk about how Kylo's the only one who understands her and how she kept coming back to him because of that even though he broke her heart back in the second book, and Solo sells this as a happy ending? Miss me with that."

Oh. He hadn't really thought of it that way. Looking at her tear-stained face, it occurs to him that perhaps he should have. "But he's— He's Kylo Ren. Even if she thought she found her belonging with him, someone else could fill that void. He was of no use to her. He was of no use to anyone."

If anything, her expression grows all the more appalled. "That's a terrible thing to say! So if someone isn't useful, they don't deserve to live?"

"That is not what I said." It kind of is, though, even if he solely means himself. "But he's not just anyone; remember all those things he's done. No one could love a man like him." No one, ever, no matter what they say. "What else did you expect to happen?"

"A chance at life, maybe?" It's not really a question, so he doesn't bother to try and refute her this time. "And what about Kira? She loved him so much. That's why the books fell under the romance section as well as sci-fi. Has no one told this man that the genre has a happy ending as a requirement?"

No one had, in fact, told the man in question that.

"He was trying. Imagine how alone he must have felt all his life, with what he was going through." Ben struggles to swallow past the lump in his throat. I don't have to. "As alone as Kira was! He deserved a chance to have that much, and so did she."

"He didn't deserve anything." It irks him, how persistent she's being with this specific facet of his plot. Must be all the effort that he'd thrown into it that's making it so personal, although the idea of his efforts going unappreciated had never brought this infuriating sting to his eyes before; the same he'd felt all too often as a child right before he had, without fail, managed to wring himself out of his parents's grip and dash into his room before someone could see him cry. "Are you telling me Kira's happiness depended on Kylo? She—"

"She loved him. She loved him enough to try and stick around even when it didn't seem like he'd ever try to do any better. That's why she kept trusting him about everything even though he fucked her over yet again after he, well, fucked her."

He would have much preferred to focus on that part – his fellow passenger had passed by it an hour or two ago and, judging by facial expression alone, had not found it lacking – but she seems to be on a tangent now.

"And now Solo makes her go on with her life as if it's never been and pretty much spell out for us that it doesn't matter because she has all of those other people in her life – ones he thinks are better and more worthy – and all Kylo's good for is being thrown away like everyone's ever done in his entire damn life."

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

She's right. He had treated Kylo like garbage; had tried to lord over everyone the fact that he'd been unsalvageable and hopeless and so, so easy to discard, and—

—and he can't quite face that just now.

"There was no other possible end to his story. Who would have forgiven him for his crimes? They could have eloped, of course, if the books had been marketed to children, but my target audience is young adults and up and I'll have you know—"

His justification, flawless as it is, is cut mercilessly short.

"Your target audience?"

For a moment, the writer in him wishes he could've been a fly on the wall of this train car just now; wishes he could have seen the look on his own face after a slip that should have been so, so easy to avoid.

As is, there's not much to do but shrug helplessly and hold his hand out, as much an introduction as it is a white flag. "Ben Solo." Her hold is firm and steady – more than what he can say about his own. "Pleasure to meet you."

"Hi, Ben. I'm Rey." His reader – Rey – is less stiff about it than he is, but Ben can still feel the anticipation there, as well as the waterfall of questions ready to follow. He clears his throat, bracing himself for the remainder of her righteous fury now that she has her actual target in front of her.

"You mentioned you had a list—"

"Oh, I did." Thankfully, she looks more curious than angry now, and Ben is, as per usual for him, definitely eager to see where it leads her. "But I think I've got a new one now."

He's rarely looked forward to it more.

"Go ahead, then."

~.~

"Remember when his dad got interviewed and he called him a morbid little shit when asked about this book? Mr Solo, if you're out there, I'm sorry for not listening while I still could." Ben snorts into his tea, but Rey is relentless. "Can't imagine what his edgy teen phrase must have been. The horror this man has witnessed."

"She's wrong about that one," he objects as soon as she looks up at him in something between expectation and her specific brand of 'I told you so'. "No one has read anything from my edgy teen phrase." He'd ventured briefly into poetry back then, and a bunch of short stories he would prefer to never think about even if he has kept them, but he'd never inflicted them upon any of his parents. Some cries for help had been too obvious to see the light of day.

"What makes you think this one's a she?"

"They all are. Men just think Kylo's cool because he has a laser sword." He has actually interacted with fans, no matter what she thinks, and the patterns are unmistakable. "They don't care about his salvation."

"You're such a tool."

"Oh, you know it."

Ever since their shared train ride and the coffee date that Ben had subsequently asked her on – to make the time for the lengthy discussion she'd clearly had in mind, of course – Rey had made it her hobby to let him know that he'd been wrong about the fate of one of his main characters in as many ways as she can, mostly through the voice of the people. Nothing she reads to him is outright mean – they're all clearly fans, if distraught ones – but other than that, the variety of angered responses had been astonishing, ranging from lengthy essays mourning the state of modern literature in his general part of the world to one-word responses like 'Jail'. There's also a petition asking for a continuation that has amassed about twenty-five thousand signatures, as she had helpfully informed him, much to his astonishment. She's quite tireless about it and if she had known him a little better than she's supposed to by now – though it still surprises him, sometimes, how quickly they'd started to understand each other's inner workings – he would have thought she'd been trying to prove him something that doesn't really have anything to do with Kylo this whole time.

"There are a few that work your initials into a sentence in a very clever way, if you'd like to hear them."

"I'd rather not." His last name is unusual enough as it is and it's not really any better when shortened in that specific way. "You know what is bullshit? That so many people," the 'you included' goes without saying and she knows it, given the way her eyes narrow back at him, "feel the need to look past two and a half books's worth of mistakes over a romance."

"What I think is bullshit is the idea that he can't learn to do better. Think of the possibilities he could have now that he's free from the Emperor's influence."

"You seem hell bent on forgiving him."

"And you seem hell bent on thinking there's no going back for anyone, ever, no matter their circumstances."

"Not everyone ever," Ben protests before he can stop himself, though he knows it's only going to make his case that much more obvious. "Only—"

"Only one specific person, got it."

Her eyes are way too knowing, way too familiar for someone who's known him for a week, and if she keeps making him this outrageously angry, he might have no choice but to start loving her for it.

For the first time in his life, the idea doesn't feel like a curse that he's about to inflict on someone.

~.~

Ben is very nearly finished by the time he hears the front door open. It's already late – it's night outside and he hadn't even noticed it happening, given the pitch darkness reining in his flat by now – and he starts, lowering the laptop's screen to reduce its glare and keep Rey's eyes off of it at the same time.

It had been a long few weeks. He's not always easy to live with, as evinced by his frustratingly lengthy list of roommates before he'd finally accumulated enough money for his own place, and he suspects it's a significantly more complicated feat when he and said roommate are romantically involved.

The past few months had felt like a dream – fascinating and life-changing and better than anything he could have ever imagined, but a dream all the same – and the realisation that it's not one is almost as surreal as the fact that he's about to put to rights the one thing that had actually brought said change about.

In fact, he already has. There's just the introduction left, and he'd been given the reins over that section; his editor way too overwhelmed by the control over a book he hadn't expected would ever exist to deal with the onslaught of sentiment he had clearly suspected such a book would unleash in Ben himself. Rey doesn't know a thing about any of that, of course – after the first few bouts of introducing him to the love of the people, she had announced that she would prefer to only see what he's written once he gives it to her instead of reading about it online for months on end before that. He had gladly accepted and had been more than happy to encourage the idea as much as possible in the hopes that he could keep it all under wraps. Her not knowing the plot is one thing, keeping the entire operation from her quite another, but he had done it. Just this one introduction, and the book would start the process of being out into the world – and, hopefully, directly into Rey's hands.

For now, as he hears her lock the door, he hastily saves the file and gets up to meet her, stretching his stiff limbs after hours of working. It's been days on end of working for hours with barely a break in-between, but it's going to be worth it, according to his editor. Better yet, Ben himself thinks so, wary as he is to admit it. Some of the more prominent critics in the literature industry have already sussed out the direction of this unexpected continuation and the words pandering and fanservice had started springing up recently, but it's all right – he'd started out the project with the realisation that it would be about what he wants, and what he wants, as it turns out, is this. Absolution, where he can create it; new beginnings, if they're possible. The world is his to make, so they are, and if there's anything he wants to underline in his work, it's that – more than moral lessons, than catharsis, than finality, he wants peace. It's in the dedication after the title page, too, hidden away from his girlfriend's eyes as he greets her and asks about her trip, while his laptop lays forgotten in his study.

To Rey and Kira, for seeing when I didn't.