Author's Note: This was originally written and posted in 2017, pre-TLJ, as part of the Reylo Fanfiction Anthology. I had the theme of "birth", and chose to attempt a non-cracky go at writing Kylo's redemption arc.
The sun was high on D'Qar when the Falcon blotted it out. Leia ventured closer to the landing pad, others following in her wake. All of them stared at the legendary ship like a newborn looked to their mother.
The ramp opened with a hiss of steam.
Leia had become, over the years, so used to that cocky grin, that jacket. For a moment, she registered the wounds but not the face. Her mind simply replaced it with Han's cocksure grin. Then Luke's voice entered her head— Leia —grasping for her, and she moved forward. Reaching him, she slid herself underneath her brother's outstretched arm and took his weight.
Together, they hobbled through the silent, awed crowd.
They didn't verbally speak until he sat in the infirmary behind flimsy plastic. Doctor Kalonia, as she did with all patients, calmly looked over his wounds and tutted. Her wise eyes had sparked momentarily with excitement when she'd seen him, but Leia was glad to see her faith rewarded when Kalonia straightened her back, going about her business like he was another foot soldier.
"What happened?" Leia asked. He was perched on the edge of the examination table, doing up the buttons of his borrowed Resistance uniform. His robes had been beyond repair, burned and tattered from battle.
Luke looked up at her question. Leia blinked, swallowing a smile. He was so small in the uniform, so shrunken for a moment that the lines around his eyes disappeared and he was young again. Then he ran his fingers through his grey hair, stroked his beard, and the illusion was gone.
"Tell me you felt it," he said softly. She felt around in the Force for his meaning. It had been so long since she actively used the Force in that way, for that protracted length of time, she was stinging and aching from it. Soon she knew. She nodded and pulled up a chair, sitting opposite him.
"I did – but not when I first met her," she said, her eyes twinkling, "You are the more intuitive of us."
Tell the truth, it was always Han out of the three of them who had followed instinct, for better or worse, but her brother sat before her and he was broken, being put back together. She couldn't, didn't wish to, open so fresh a wound.
"I took her to Ossus," he said after some silence. Leia half-knew that planet from idle mentions outside of the civil war of the Galactic Senate, when his academy was a budding idea. He said it had been fresh and green, peaceful outside of the politics and the aftermath of the battle. Luke sighed.
"I hoped she would find something among the ruins that could help her – understand. Leia, he—" Luke avoided her eyes, staring at the wall behind her, "he found us. Fought us. When I woke, I was alone. I climbed into the Falcon and came to the only place I could."
Leia slipped her fingers between his gloved one, feeling the hard machinery underneath the leather.
"Luke," she said softly. Her brother spoke with not yet expressed grief, and years of regret. "You must tell me what happened. The Resistance will help."
Luke shook his head. He squeezed her hand tighter. All at once, she felt it; something much bigger than her brother, than Rey, than her son. Trepidation grew in her blood.
"The Force is waiting," her brother murmured. "For what, I don't yet know. But it's so much bigger, Leia. So much bigger than I ever believed."
You're a monster— the island, I see the island— Han Solo— Han Solo can't save you—
All whispers, detached and disconnected, their voices blurred into the same singular hush. Engines hummed underneath him, but they weren't the deep, discombobulating hum of the Finalizer. They were lighter in weight, higher in pitch.
"Scavenger," he breathed, rolling his head to the side. He squeezed his eyes shut. Despite his training, despite all he had learned, he had been the one defeated. He clenched his fists.
Kylo slowly opened his eyes. His blood ran cold. His body froze with the realisation of what surrounded him. The cabin of a TIE fighter. A stolen TIE fighter.
Behind the high rounded pane of glass were the stars of the Outer Rim, with Ossus and the Deep Core far behind. He must've been out for hours. The realisation gnawed at him.
"Scavenger…" he repeated. No reply. He glanced over the array of ammunition before him. Missiles, cannons, mag pulses. One toggle on his left allowed him to switch between all three, a sight on his right allowed for aim.
"Where are we going?" he asked into the still present silence. All that training under Snoke. Hours, defeated and triumphant, all for nothing. And throughout, she'd haunted him.
He sensed the scavenger now, shining silver and new, bitter with determination. He dipped into her head. She flinched, pushing back, edging him away from her thoughts, but he saw it. The cliffs, the ocean of Ahch-To. That was it then. That was her plan now she had captured him.
Kylo gave a short laugh, a bitter hollow one. "Desperation doesn't suit you scavenger."
"It's not desperation," she snapped. He felt her anger like it was his own. She felt like she did as a child, held back by Unkar Plutt, screaming at the top of her lungs. "You're the one who lost."
"You've no-one!" Kylo barked. The image of Ahch-To still permeated his head. She saw it in water and sunlight, but his memory took over the image of it in his head. In his memory, he saw only fire and ash. "Not even your precious master."
"My master—" There were fat tears rolling down her cheeks, white hot with her anger. Even the echoes, running down his face from dry eyes, burned his flesh.
Over them, a starship entered out of hyperspace. Kylo peered up through the rounded glass, and a grin tugged at the corner of his lips. His tracker was undetected by her then, if Hux could find the scavenger this quickly.
The Finalizer slowly approached. Its silhouette fell over the fighter, and the planet below. The scavenger's panic spiked through the Force. Kylo's grin widened.
A fleet of TIE fighters scattered over the stars, rapidly approaching them. Their speed slowed as they surrounded them.
"Give up," Kylo snarled. "You have nowhere to go."
Behind him, she breathed hard. The panels before him bleeped and lit up. Kylo frowned. The Force moved around, tracing over the weaponry. The toggle moved, slowly, like a child doing something for the first time. Kylo gripped it, bringing it to its centre, pushing at her use of the Force.
A yelp from the scavenger and the connection was broken. Letting go of the toggle, Kylo laughed.
"Bind me next time," he said.
She was determined; he had to confess that about her. If she focused her power, like his Knights, she could be dressed in black. Stood by his side, his apprentice, his equal—
The whole fighter tilted downwards until Kylo saw the underbelly of the Finalizer.
His laugh became a growl, the growl becoming a roar as the scavenger pushed the vessel down, down the path of the stars, out of the shadow of the Finalizer. The TIEs gave chase, crowding their vessel.
"Stop this!" Kylo screamed among the melee, "You've nowhere to go!"
A missile shot, a single punishment for the scavenger's resistance, hit their left wing.
Tumbling, tumbling, falling and spinning. She yowled some guttural desperation to right the ship as they fell to the planet below. Kylo looked beyond the rounded glass, up at the rapidly shrinking First Order and down at the planet. It was blue, swirling, perfect.
He closed his eyes.