Chapter Thirteen

Ben opened his eyes to bright lights and groaned. His head felt fuzzy and his body ached. He blinked several times, and shapes started forming around him. He was in bed, and a droid was resting next to him. As he sat up, it whirred to life and rose into the air. A medical droid. So he was in the medbay. He'd grown familiar enough with the place, but this was different. The equipment was much more sparse…because he was with the Resistance now. He looked down at himself, finding his body wrapped in a loose robe. His left arm was bandaged, and, as he drew it out from under the light blanket, it ended abruptly at his wrist. He touched the empty space where his hand should have been. It evoked the memory of intense pain, nearly on par with Snoke's Force lightning, and Rey, dressed in dark robes with yellow eyes and a double bladed red lightsaber. Rey…

Ben wished, at that moment, that he hadn't woken up. Because now he remembered that Rey was gone. He had felt her begin to slip away as she fell to the ground and he had tried to fill the hole his saber had made in her chest, tried to give her everything he had and he couldn't do even that. Ben covered his face with his hand, breathing heavily. It wasn't fair that after all of this, he was the one left standing. But his mother's people were safe…and that should have mattered.

The place where she should have been in their bond was hollow and blank. Ben wondered if she could come to him as a Force ghost, the way his mother did. He wished he could talk to her one last time, tell her…what? That he was sorry? That didn't seem to cut it.

Faint voices came through the wall by Ben's head. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying, something like "she doesn't look good…not healing….several days…" Ben wondered who was over there. Perhaps the woman he had seen the Empress cut. Unless…

Ben closed his eyes and sank into the Force. His connection felt dimmer than usual, and he realized that despite what was probably several days of rest, he was still tired and weak. But he was also persistent. He pushed himself deeper into the currents of the Force and reached out to the next room. There were three people. One was not very familiar. One felt like Finn, and, oh, yes, Ben would recognize this one anywhere. He bit back a sob. She felt weak and distant, scared and in pain, still shrouded in darkness, but alive. She was here and she was alive.

Ben allowed himself to lie back and slump onto the pillow in relief. Alive. Alive. Alive. Rey was alive. And then Ben remembered what he heard. She was alive for now, yes, but how much longer? He had to get to her.

Ben stood up, then took a deep breath as the room spun and faded in and out around him. He leaned against the wall and waited for the dizziness to pass. It didn't matter. Rey, Rey was all that mattered. Ben started toward the door, and the medical droid beeped angrily and whizzed in front of him. "I have to get out," he told it.

It bumped against him, beeping and pushing him back toward the bed. "No! I don't care," said Ben. "I have to get to Rey!"

He pushed the droid out of the way but it moved back into place, blocking his exit. "Where is your kriffing off switch?"

Weakly reaching for th Force, Ben yanked the droid as far from the door as he could, then made a dash for it. He slammed the door closed behind him and the droid thudded into it, still beeping almost too fast for Ben to decipher. He leaned up against the door frame, heart pounding with the exertion. He was in the hallway now. The Resistance seemed to either have decided that he had earned his freedom from guards or that in his condition, he wasn't enough of a threat to need them. Now he just had to get into the next room. He took a breath and opened the door.

Just inside was the medic who had cut Ben's shirt off when he first came to the Resistance. She would probably be difficult. But that didn't matter, because there was Rey. Ben pushed past the medic, making his way to her bedside. She was restrained with thick straps holding her wrists and shoulders to the bed. In case the Empress woke up, Ben figured. Finn sat next to her, and judging by the circles under his eyes, it had been a long time since he had left. One of Rey's limp hands was cradled in Finn's.

Ben stood frozen for a minute, staring down at Rey's pale, almost peaceful face.

Then the medic put herself between them. "Get away from my patient."

"Please, I can help her," said Ben, ripping his eyes away from Rey's purplish lips.

"Don't make me call Security," the medic spat.

Finn looked up. "You really think you can help her?"

"Yes," said Ben. He wasn't sure how much life he had left to give. But what he had, he would gladly give it all.

Finn turned to the medic. "I've seen them do this before. He has my authorization."

The medic gritted her teeth and bowed her head. "Yes, General."

Ben knelt next to the bed. He pulled up Rey's shirt and gently unwound bandages to reveal a deep hole in her chest. It had begun healing slightly around the edges, and the flesh far inside had started to reknit itself, but for the most part it remained open. The skin around it was inflamed and warm against Ben's cool fingers. He could barely feel the shallow rise and fall of her ribs.

Ben took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He tried to focus on the wound, and transferring his energy to Rey through his fingertips. And then, very slowly, the ragged flesh began to fill in, folding itself into nothing from the inside out. Ben felt the dizziness returning, and he broke contact with Rey and held onto the bed to steady himself. Finn put a hand on his back.

When the wave of unsteadiness passed, Ben looked down at the wound. It seemed healed for all that he could tell, a rough scar showing where the flesh had begun to heal on its own. Still, he pressed his hand over it again, searching for more that he could fix. Rey's cheeks were still light, near translucent. Yet, the pink was returning to her lips. Her eyelids flickered and blinked open.

Her eyes were still fiery yellow, rimmed with red. "Rey…" Ben breathed, reaching toward her before he could stop himself. She stared at him for a moment, her eyes almost unseeing. Then the red and yellow faded to warm hazel and she looked up into Ben's eyes and then Finn's, and she was struggling to sit up against the restraints. Ben leaned back, closing his eyes and releasing a shuddering breath as he felt their bond bloom back to life.

Finn scrambled to undo the straps holding Rey down and Ben tore into the ones closest to him. The restraints fell away and Rey sprang into Finn's arms.

Author's Note: One more chapter left!

Some notes one the last chapter: I'm not sure now whether it actually adds anything. Although, I do think there is something to be said for drawing out the answer to an audience's question (ie, whether Rey and Ben are okay, hehehe). I wanted to sort of check in on Rey, so I ended up writing that bit as a sort of fever dream while she's in this half-healed, not dead but not quite alive state—sort of her subconsciously processing everything that's happening to her.

As always, thanks for the reviews, and keep letting me know what you think about all this!