Rise of Skywalker left a gaping hole in my heart, and I decided to write this to make it better. I feel like there are plenty of fics out detailing the how Ben survived, that I wanted to just jump straight into the meat of things, the life after that I really want to see. There is an explanation though! It comes from a confused Ben needing answers.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

It was with a slow, painful sort of feeling that Ben Solo came back to awareness. At first, his mind was just a haze of pain and confusion, but slowly things started coming back to him. First dragging himself up from the chasm that he had been thrown into, finding Rey dead, to lastly sacrificing himself to save her.

At least…that's what he had thought. But was this really death? He had thought that death would have been just short of nothingness, devoid of any sort of feeling, and not constant pain. But then…the more he thought on it, the more he came to realize that there was a gentle warmth coming from somewhere. Following the source, he soon found himself staring up at what could only be described as the inside of an older ship.

Getting more confused by the moment, he looked around, his eyes finally falling on a familiar figure, fast asleep with her head on the bed he must have been placed on. He then noticed that the source of the warmth that he had followed was the fact of a hand holding tightly onto his, as if afraid of letting go.

Rey was here and actually holding his hand

Ben couldn't help a small smile and let out a relived sigh at the thought. It was over. Everything was over and Rey was with him.

This is what he had always wanted

Feeling more content then he could ever remember, he gently wrapped his fingers around Rey's. While he had many questions of how they had ended up here, those could wait. He found himself to he be rather tired and had no intentions of waking Rey from her own rest. He closed his eyes again, perfectly fine with just basking in the moment. If he could have his way he would never let it end. It was perfect, and he thought that perhaps he could finally find peace.

But then, what if this was just a dream

Frowning, he tried to push the doubtful voice in the back of his head away. He decided instead to try and focus on the warmth from Rey's hand, and not the growing fear that if he were to open his eyes again he would see nothing but the sterile white ceiling of his room aboard his battleship. He squeezed Rey's hand tighter, trying to ground himself before –

"Ben?"

The voice that broke through his tumultuous thoughts was quiet, yet hopeful. Braving the fear of seeing a white ceiling for the greater chance of seeing someone special, Ben slowly opened his eyes once more, finding to his ever growing relief that Rey was still there, in person and not just a dream inside his head.

"You're awake." Rey smiled softly at him, and Ben found himself mesmerized by the sight

She's so beautiful

He realized with a tint of sadness that this was the first time that he had ever seen her with a genuine smile, devoid of any sort of fear or doubt. This smile however, was full of warmth and care.

"How are you feeling?" She asked, noticeably taking in the sight of the bandages he was currently covered in.

"I've felt worse." He winced as he tried to sit up, holding his aching middle. He honestly wouldn't be surprised if she were about to tell him that be had broken a few ribs.

"You really should stay laying down, you're still pretty injured." She said with a frown. She paused for a moment then before adding, "what do you mean you've had worse? You almost died, Ben."

He shrugged briefly, before regretting the action. "It's not like my training was exactly gentle. Besides," he began on the matter of sitting up, "I wanted a better look at you."

Rey glanced away at that, looking as if she was trying not to blush.

A moment of silence passed between the two, but right as Ben was about to ask what had happened while he had been out, a loud alarm began ringing throughout the ship.

Rey's head snapped up. "No, no, not now!" She quickly got up from her seat and raced towards what he could only guess was the direction of the cockpit, letting go of his hand in the process.

Ben frowned at the action, missing the warmth of her hand already. Even if he knew it wasn't that far away, watching her leave was still more painful then he cared to admit. He definitely couldn't stand to just sit there and wait for her to come back (for however long that would take)

That is, if she does come back

Shaking his head slowly to clear the thought, Ben slowly swung his legs over the edge of the makeshift bed, and braced himself to follow her.

/

Rey raced into the Falcon's cockpit, quickly pulling up the readout from the alarm. Despite how frantic she had been coming here, she had at least managed to set the sensors to notify her if any resistance registered ships had entered the atmosphere.

After hours of nothing, however, she had let her guard down, even going so far as to fall asleep! Grumbling to herself about her slip in judgment, she started getting ready to take off.

Of course Finn would come looking for you, what were you thinking!

She was just about ready to take off when she noticed Ben approaching from behind.

"What are you doing? You should still be in bed!" He was holding onto the side of the door for support, face visibly paler then what would be considered healthy.

"And you need a co-pilot." He stated simply, making his way into the seat next to her.

"I can pilot on my own! You should be resting."

"You need me."

They stared at each other, each equally stubborn, each refusing to back down.

As the alarms grew louder and the ship Finn was on got ever closer, Rey sighed. He was already there and it would make him worse off if she made him go back now.

"Alright fine, just be careful."

He didn't say anything more, but she did catch the smug grin that formed on his face before she turned back to the controls. As annoying as it was, she couldn't deny the part of her that loved it. That loved they could do that, small squabbles over nothing, instead of life or death.

/

They had lost their pursuers for now, and were well on their way to the neighboring system.

"We need somewhere that they won't think to look for us," Rey was saying, "somewhere so insane that they wouldn't think twice about it."

"We could go to Jakku. They probably wouldn't think that you would want to go back there." Ben suggested.

"What's the other reason?" Rey asked instead.

While their bond had been weakened by Palpatine, it was still there, whispering things to each other. He knew just how worried she had been about him; and she knew there was another reason he wanted to go to Jakku.

Ben paused a moment before answering. "I want to know about where you grew up, how you lived." He had come to the recent realization that while he knew of her strength and her determination to always do the right thing – he didn't know anything else. He didn't know how she lived before everything started, what her favorite past time was – in the end he decided that he wanted to know everything about her, starting with the place she had called home.

Rey smiled softly at that, a sight he was sure that he would never get tired of. "Maybe at some point, but I wouldn't say it's exactly the place for someone recovering."

"I can handle later."

"That doesn't solve our problem of where to go, though."

Ben thought for a moment, before carefully reaching over and pulling up a map of the galaxy. He motioned to a planet at the edge of the system they were heading to. "We could go here," he began, "it's used to be under empire occupation, but it was abandoned once it fell."

"Alright, it's worth a try."

Silence had fallen over them again, and Ben was contemplating wither now would be a good time to ask about what had happened, now that all of the immediate problems had been solved. He had a working idea of what had occurred, gathered from what they had just been doing, along from what he could feel from Rey.

After he had passed out on Exogol, Rey must have called for help, which is how they ended up on this ship. He figured at first they must have gone to the resistance base (you just finished a war, where else would you go?) and then at some point she must have taken over the ship and ran off (probably while everyone was busy celebrating), leaving just the two of them aboard. It must've taken some convincing to get him on the ship on the first place, as he was fairly certain that the only one who saw him as just 'Ben' was Rey.

Everyone else sees you for the monster that you are

He knew she felt guilty for leaving her friends behind, but also that she had no intention of going back, at least not yet. One day maybe, seemed to be her general concession. He couldn't remember the last time someone had given up everything they knew just for him, and it left an unfamiliar, yet welcome warmth in his heart.

The sound of a spark filled the air, and Ben's eyes fluttered open (when had he fallen asleep?). He looked up and over to see Rey standing in front of an open side panel, wires dangling below it.

After a brief moment passed, she paused and looked over at him. "Sorry, did I wake you?"

"No, it's fine." He moved to adjust in his seat so that he could see her better, but thought better of it after the motion caused a sharp pain through chest. "What are you doing?"

As if sensing his intentions, Rey moved to sit back in her chair, so that she was more in his line of sight. "I'm trying to make it harder for us to be tracked by anyone who might be in range. I think I've got it though."

"I see."

There was silence for a moment before she asked, "What is it that you want to ask? There seems to be something that you've wanted to know for awhile now."

"How did you…" He paused, trying to figure out how to formulate his question, "How did we get on this ship?"

"You don't already know?"

"I want to hear it from you."

He was done taking things by force. It had never gotten him any closer to what he truly wanted, and he had told himself that now was the time to stop that practice.

/

"I want to hear it from you."

Rey couldn't help a small smile. Ben was smart; she knew full well that he could've just as easily figured out what had happened or just gotten what he needed to know from her mind, the same way that he had always seemed to know what she was thinking before.

He's trying

It meant a lot to her. He was trying to change his ways, reinforcing the knowledge that Kylo Ren had died on the wreckage of the Death Star, leaving Ben free in the aftermath.

And so, she told him everything that happened from the time he passed out, to when he woke up.

After he had passed out out on Exogol, Rey had sent out a cry for help, knowing that in her current state that she wouldn't have been able to get him to safety in time by herself. Unsurprisingly, Finn, Poe, and Chewie had been the ones who had come to her aid. It had taken some doing, but she had managed to convince Fin and the others to watch over Ben in the Millennium Falcon while she got Luke's X-Wing off the planet.

At first, she had followed them back to the resistance base, but once there Maz reminded her through the force that to everyone else, she had just delivered The Supreme Leader of the first order, and that Leia had wanted her son to live.

And so, instead of joining in on the celebrations, she had ran to the Falcon and taken off, before anyone else could go back inside and found out who was inside, taking them to the nearest inhabited planet that she could find.

Not many knew what the face of Kylo Ren actually looked like, most just knew him by the mask. Of this she was grateful, as then she could easily introduce him as just Ben. She managed to pass them off as survivors of the war, but that her partner was in desperate need of help. On the chance that anyone from the resistance had followed her, she had insisted that everything be done within the falcon, on the instance that she had to make a quick run for it.

Thankfully no one came; leaving her free to pace nervously behind those that were providing Ben with the medical attention that was needed.

She made sure to tell him everything, including the part with how bad she felt bad leaving everyone, without even so much as an explanation. She knew they weren't ready to understand yet, but hoped that they would in time.

They were finally in a position where they could be together and were free to explore their bond; she wasn't about to give up that chance, not after waiting for so long.

/

Ben listened carefully to Rey's story, only speaking up occasionally for clarification on who someone was, as he admitted a bit sheepishly that besides her, he had never bothered to learn anyone else's names.

She hadn't said it in so many words, but he knew that 'they aren't ready to understand yet' was just another way of saying 'they only see you as a murderous monster and it would be the opposite of safe to keep you with them'. While he was still more then a little happy that she was with him (how had he gotten so lucky?) thinking about all the wrongs he'd done, the fact that the whole war was his basically his fault – threatened to overshadow any joy that came from Rey's presence.

Even after everyone else had given up on him, when he himself was lost within his own hatred and anguish – somehow she still saw him. She was there when no one else was.

After she had finished her tale, there was only one thing he wanted to do. Slowly, a bit unsure, Ben reached out with his good arm for her to take his hand. After all –

What if when she held it earlier was just a fluke

Rey looked surprised for a moment, as if it wasn't the reaction she had been expecting, but

What if she still doesn't take it what if what if

it passed quickly and soon settled into a smile. She reached out and gently took his hand in hers. "You're not alone, not anymore. We have each other, remember?"

Annnddd there's the first chapter! Next time we'll get to the planet that Rey and Ben have decided to take refuge on, and where they decide what to do next as Ben recovers.

-Xire

Till next time!