DISCLAIMER- I do not own Star Wars, nor any of the characters associated.
Rey watched as Ben broke away from her kiss, a new, genuine smile gracing his features. It was the first time she'd seen that on him, and she already knew she wanted more of it. She felt his elation through their bond. It was still fully intact, despite what Palpatine had taken from them. A dyad was never meant to be broken.
Suddenly, Rey felt Ben weaken. His smile faded as he began to fall backward, bringing her with him as he fell to the ground with silence.
"No! No, no, no… Ben! Be with me. BE WITH ME!" Rey screamed, feeling him slip further away. He'd given her his entire life force.
"This isn't how it's supposed to end," Rey heard as she looked up, seeing the translucent blue glowing force ghosts surrounding them. It was Luke who spoke, and Leia was standing next to him. There were more people surrounding her and Ben, but she couldn't place the faces to the voices she'd heard in her head only minutes ago.
"Help me, please," Rey cried, her hands on Ben's chest, begging for him to come back to her.
At once, all of the force ghosts in the circle leaned down and placed their hands on Ben's body. She felt the force around them strengthen immensely. Within moments, Rey felt the dyad bond she shared with Ben snap back into place and she knew he was alive. His eyes had yet to open though.
"My son will still need to heal, Rey. I trust you to take great care of him," Leia told her with a smile.
"Of course I will, always. Thank you, all of you," Rey told them all as she wiped her tears.
"One half of a dyad is never meant to live without the other. You share one soul between two bodies. Do me a favor, will you? Forget the 'Jedi code'. Both of you just need to do what feels right. The force will guide you; it won't steer you wrong," a young, curly haired man said. She knew just then that it must've been Anakin Skywalker.
She watched as Luke hit the man in the arm. "What, son? She's practically my granddaughter already. In fact, I've just adopted her. Now that Sidious is out of the way, I'll actually get to chat with my grandkids every now and then," Anakin said, confirming Rey's suspicions. Rey's ears perked up as she heard what he'd said. "Hey kid, feel free to call yourself a Skywalker anytime, well, until you become a Solo anyways."
Her cheeks went pink at his assumption, but she smiled, nonetheless. She had a name.
"You better get the both of you out of here, Rey, before the whole place caves in. Just remember, you have a family now," Leia said, looking down at her son, still unconscious. "We will be watching over you both."
All of the force ghosts disappeared, and Rey didn't have much time to dwell on it all because the whole planet seemed unstable. She stood up and looked down at Ben. Just like lifting rocks.
She channeled her force energy into lifting his body weight, which almost felt like nothing to her, much to her relief. Then she ran, him floating alongside her as she clipped the two lightsabers to her belt.
She dodged many falling boulders as they went, luckily all of them missing her passenger as well. Riding the circular force elevator, they finally made it to the top and she could see both the X-wing as well as a TIE. Looking to the skies above, the battle still half-way raging, she knew that the TIE would be able to seat both of them but would most likely be shot at by the spacecraft in atmo.
I'm sorry, Ben, but it's going to be a tight squeeze.
She lifted him with the force until he was sitting in the cockpit of Luke's x-wing, then she climbed in herself. Noticing the predicament, she blushed, but the shaking ground below them made her suck it up quickly and sit -on his lap- because it was a one-person star fighter and she had nowhere else to go. She was lucky enough that she was petite and shouldn't be aggravating any of his wounds as she leaned back into his chest, feeling relaxed at the soft thrumming of his heartbeat beneath her.
They took off and she immediately knew she had a big choice to make.
The resistance had become like a pseudo-family to her, but there was no way they would react kindly to Ben's presence. They'd likely lock him up or have him executed on the spot for his crimes committed as Kylo Ren.
He was her family now, and even Leia had said as much. She couldn't be without him, the other half of her soul. The resistance wouldn't understand that. Most of them were still scared of the force, and the things she could do with it, but a non-force user would never understand just how deep their bond ran. She needed to take him somewhere to heal, somewhere they both could heal.
Should she tell the resistance that she was still alive? No, she decided. They'd only come looking for her. She'd turned the locator beacon in the x-wing off before they took off, just in case. She'd see them again, Poe, Finn, and the others, she knew she would, but right now she needed to focus on Ben.
Her mind made up, she passed through the remnants of the battle, careful to leave Red Five unseen (especially since it was so recognizable) and took off at lightspeed, with one destination in mind.
Rey took a deep breath as they approached Ahch-To, bracing herself for landing on the hard, rocky surface where the remains of Ben's TIE Silencer were still smoldering. He had been unconscious the whole journey and she was definitely feeling the exhaustion from the day's events. Who knew dying and coming back could be so tiring?
She carefully lifted herself off of Ben's lap and down to the rock below, using the force to lift him out and bring him along with her to her hut.
Upon reaching the hut, she carefully placed Ben on the bed, brushing his hair out of his eyes, before walking across the way to Luke's hut to see if he had any bacta-patches laying around from when he'd lived there. Luckily, she found what she considered to be a terribly made up first-aid kit and set out back to her hut to assess the damage done to Ben and try to fix him up as best she could.
She walked in and kneeled in front of him. He looked so peaceful, just lying there, if she discounted the blood and dirt, of course. She could feel him through their bond and that soothed her better than any balm ever could.
She noticed that his leg was badly injured and quickly removed his pants, careful of his injury, leaving him in nothing but his underclothes and shirt. Rey could feel the heat in her cheeks the entire time she was undressing him but reminded herself that he needed to be tended to, and now was not the time to think such things.
She could tell his leg was broken and she closed her eyes, using the force to set it. She released a breath when it was over, thanking the force that he was unconscious and couldn't feel anything at the moment. She carefully bandaged his leg, unable to force heal him while she was so weak, herself. Hopefully it wouldn't take so long to regain her strength. Now that his leg was tended, she carefully pulled his damaged black sweater off and put it to the side with his pants.
It hurt her deeply knowing that the large hole made in the stomach of the sweater had been made from herself, having stabbed him with his own lightsaber. She cautiously wondered where that lightsaber had gone, but decided she'd ask him when he woke up.
There was a scar where she'd impaled him. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but a purple-ish looking scar was not it. It's over now. She reminded herself.
She spotted a large gash in his shoulder and carefully placed a large bacta-patch on it before using the force to sense if there were any more injuries. Upon finding none, other than just the occasional scrape the would be healed quickly, she covered him with a blanket and sat with her back up against the bed, resting her head near his and holding his outstretched hand in her own. Before she knew it, she'd fallen asleep.
A/N- My dearest readers, I simply couldn't help myself. I've been dying to write a good 'fix-it' for Star Wars, which deeply disappointed me in the last 10 minutes of the movie. I'm a die-hard Star Wars fan, and it completely gutted me that they like to redeem people, then immediately kill them off. I get it, from their perspective, I do, but it still tortures those of us who love a good happy ending. I've been Reylo all the way, from day one of the new trilogy. Anyways, my family has finally gotten over COVID, all except me, of course. I'm still having complications from it, and I now have the Flu on top of it, because my immune system tanked due to Covid. I know I'm not finished with my Twilight stories, but I got distracted by rewatching Star Wars while I'm in quarantine and have full access to Disney+. I promise I'll finish them, though!