Alright, this chapter is going to be a bit of an outlier, as it is written from Rey's 3POV. There was no way for me to grasp the full urgency and immediacy of what happens through Ben's POV, and you will see why. I think I will probably only be 7 chapters out from finally finishing this story! At this stage, my determination and motivation to complete it is extremely high, so I think I'll be done in the next month or two. I hope you enjoy! I hope everyone is well. Please keep safe xx

"Rey, stop! It's too late!" Finn sprinted after her, trailing her quick pace as well as he could manage.

She knew it was not too late, not when she could feel Ben's terror reverberating throughout her entire being.

Not when she could feel the way he was desperately trying to come to terms with his imminent death.

Rey pushed through the soles of her feet, racing corridor after corridor, forcing the distance between Finn and herself.

The fire in her chest exploded with rage and determination.

She refused to let him die. She refused to accept the death Poe had just sentenced him.

If he would not allow Ben the time to escape, then she would claw with every fibre of her being to get to him.

"Rey!" Finn screamed once more, but she purposely drowned out the sound of his voice.

She threw the focus of every single cell within her body into the connection she shared with Ben. Calling on the light and the dark in equal measure, she wrapped herself in the energy, until the air around her seemed to thrum, a feeling so powerful it was audible.

"Ben," she murmured, brows knitting with a fierce and fiery purpose.

Everything around her faded momentarily as she consumed herself with the connection to Ben. Her surroundings shifted suddenly, and her stride was met with an emptiness as she felt herself falling.

Rey blinked desperately against the darkness, regaining her vision with enough time to see herself fall through the air, cascading towards a contorted scene of metal and fire.

Her feet caught the floor and she slid, falling across the deck as the dreadnaught hurtled through the atmosphere of Endor.

Rushing air and deafening explosions filled her ears and the deteriorating ship heaved, throwing her from her feet as another voice filled her mind.

"What is- Rey! You can't! This is a suicide mission! We are going to die!"

Finn collapsed next to Rey as he slid from the air behind her, the horror radiating franticly from his being as he watched the Moon of Endor race closer and closer.

"Take us back, Rey!" He cried, desperate. He knew they were less than a minute from guaranteed death.

Her body froze with an overpowering terror, her wide eyes trying to absorb the information that Finn had found his way onto the dreadnaught through her connection with Ben.

An explosion that punctured a wall across the upheaved expanse of the deck tore Rey from her paralysis.

She refused to get Finn killed.

She refused to leave Ben behind.

She refused.

"Ben!" She screeched, searching with her eyes, but knowing he was close through her other senses.

She could not feel his conscious mind anymore, but he was still close, she could feel him.

Rey's footing became unsteady and she was thrown against the wall, grasping onto a piece of equipment that jutted from the wall before her. Rifling desperately through the debris with her eyes and the force, she finally found him.

"Ben," she murmured, homing in on him. Rey turned to her right, as she felt his being near the viewing glass.

"Finn, hurry!" Rey threw herself through the rubble as quickly as were humanly possible, sliding across a control panel and pushing her way through sheets of metal.

Jumping over an obliterated screen casing, her vision cast to an arm that protruded from beneath contorted steel, connected to fingers that grasped the casing of a lightsaber.

It was Ben. It had to be.

Rey fell to the heap of panelling surrounding the arm, and she realised quickly that there would be no way to physically move the fallen equipment, even with herself and Finn. They were barely moments away from impact, and there was no means of escape.

There were no conventional means of escape.

Rey turned to Finn, grabbing his hand as he had once grabbed hers, on a faraway desert she had once called home.

"I need you to trust me."

Finn nodded without hesitation, thoughts of her secret connection with Kylo Ren discarded.

He had trusted her all along.

Rey pulled him towards Ben, and grabbed his hand within her spare one, gripping tightly onto them both.

She called to the light and the dark, as the light within Ben and the dark within Finn leant themselves to her, throwing fuel onto the fire that exploded from her being.

"Rey…" Finn sobbed, barely audible over the sound of screeching metal breaking up within the atmosphere.

The air around her sparked and shifted with an energy that vibrated through her body, radiating from the fingers she tightened around her friends' hands.

It was visceral; like an excruciating sensory deprivation, her ears burst with a deafening silence that crushed her.

The rushing air had calmed.

The piercing shrieks of tearing metal had disappeared, as though they had never existed.

If not for the ringing in her ears, she would have believed she had not made it aboard the dreadnaught.

If not for that ringing, and the hands she still clutched, she would not have believed she had made it out alive.

Rey's eyes jolted open to focus on Finn, whose breathing was laboured as he doubled over himself, shellshocked.

They were on the surface of Endor, back in the corridor of the Rebellion base that they had been racing through.

She gave Finn's hand a quick squeeze with her own, before letting it fly to meet the other fingers she clutched, afraid that if she let go, he would find him back amongst the wreckage of the vessel that imploded in the atmosphere.

She was terrified that Ben would disappear as he did each time their connection closed.

It was different this time. She had to make it so, otherwise he would fade from her senses as he always had.

But he was with her, still. He had not faded.

Ben was lying on the stone ground of the facility, but he was utterly still.

Her eyes finally tore over his entire body, taking is the damage that was visible to her eyes, but feeling through her senses that there was far more below the bloodied and bruised cheeks and eyes which held her gaze.

He was still breathing, but it was faint.

Was she too late?

No.

She refused. She would not lose him, not now.

Not after spending the past several months finding him.

Rey moved closer to his side, taking his hand more firmly, and rested the other palm upon his chest.

The warmth that radiated from him felt different than each time she had felt him through their bond. It was amplified, more radiant. It was as though the physical contact had been watered down before, but now it was more tangible.

Closing her eyes, she focused, bringing herself into balance within the grey.

Fear. Hope. Rage. Love. Abandonment. Belonging.

She drew it all within her, allowing it to swirl and collapse within her chest.

Life. Death. Destruction. Creation.

The energy thrummed through her, coursing between her fingertips.

She knew that she could heal him.

The unblemished skin of Ben's face and hands told her that she could.

Rey allowed the force to flow through her palm, towards the chest that rose and fell slowly underneath her.

She could feel the sweat forming at her brow, and it took every ounce of her being to draw her concentration.

The exhaustion ricocheted through her body and left her breathless at the same moment she heard Finn's loud gasp from beside her.

Rey's eyes flew open as Ben jolted upright from beneath her fingertips.