A/N: Time to thank Vala411 for additional plot points and some very good suggestions. And also being an unofficial Beta.

TWO:

Consciousness returned swiftly, as was usual. Somehow in his life, he seemed to have had more than his fair share of unpleasant awakenings, frequently after nightmares but also from crashes, explosions, Snoke's punishments and of course, that night when he found Luke standing over him, a Lightsaber fizzing in his hand and a look of disgust on his face…

Sensations returned and immediately, he realised he was alone. Rey was gone, her body no longer clutched in his grasp and a faint sensation of panic fluttered in his chest. Firmly, he tamped it down: Rey was dead, her spirit melded with the Force as was her just reward for her heroism in ending the threat of Palpatine, once and for all. And maybe, that would mean he could reach for her, call for her…see her. Force Ghosts were not something the Sith considered though the Jedi revered their predecessors and visitations from an old Master were not infrequent when a Jedi needed guidance and a gentle pointer. Or so Luke had said. But did he qualify? Was he entitled to reach for her when his redemption had been incomplete and his crimes so heinous?

He moved slightly and realised that he was lying supine on a hard metal bed that was barely long enough for his tall frame. He could feel the familiar sensation of Bacta patches on his wounds and there was a gentle throbbing on his leg where there had been pain. Someone had treated his wounds-but as he tried to sit up, he realised there were binders around his wrists, the metal digging into his flesh and attaching him to the bed. Instinctively, he pulled against the restraints and reached for the Force to pry the simple restraints apart-and then he found…nothing.

His eyes snapped wide open and he took a couple of very fast, very anxious breaths. The Bond was a void of blackness, nothing where Rey should be-but now his connection to the Force was attenuated almost to the point of nullity. Was this his punishment, the price he paid for betraying the Sith and turning away from Darth Sidious or was it a side-effect of his injuries. Was this why he had failed Rey?

But then he lifted his head and he grimaced, his vision swimming and head spinning lightly. Nausea was roiling in his stomach and his limbs felt appreciably heavier than usual as he strained to move: he had been drugged. The twin emotions of relief and concern warred. Relief that he hadn't lost his power mixed with concern that someone had gone to the trouble to drug him enough to suppress his powers instead of killing him outright. That equation did not add up to a promising scenario. But who was his jailer and what could he expect from his hosts?

Except a swift and public death for his crimes, he thought grimly, resting his head back and closing his eyes. It had to be the Resistance, since the Final Order had been annihilated at the battle of Exegol, though that realisation filled him with no confidence at all. He had led the efforts to exterminate them and now they had won, would they be inclined to mercy for the highest ranked First Order Officer? Or would his death be proof of victory and satisfy the very humanoid need for revenge?

"I know you're awake." The door had opened while he was thinking and he lay still, hearing two bodies move to a few feet to his right and he forced his eyes open. He frowned slightly as his vision focussed and he recognised the deserter FN-2187, Finn as Rey had called him and Poe Dameron. The latter had his blaster aimed directly at Ben's head and he nodded.

"That's correct," he said neutrally. "I am awake." Poe's face twisted in anger.

"Y'know, I can't think of one good reason why I don't blow your head off, here and now," he growled.

"It would be a waste of the efforts your medics have put into patching me up," Ben replied evenly, his dark gaze fixed on the pilot's face.

"I could live with that," Poe said, his aim never wavering.

"You aren't a cold-blooded killer," Ben suggested. Poe twitched.

"You are," he ground out through his teeth.

"The Resistance stands for more than that." Ben's voice was a calm statement.

"No one will care."

"Rey would."

Even without access to the force, it was easy to sense the fury emanating from Poe and-to a lesser extent-Finn. But the tactician in Ben knew that Rey was his only leverage, though explaining their bond, getting any non-Force User to believe it would be an uphill struggle.

"Don't mention her name!" Finn snapped, as Ben sagged into the bed. He took a deep breath.

"Do you know why I was there?" he asked them.

"Serving Palpatine, helping him and the Final Order launch your fleet to crush all resistance across the Galaxy!" Finn said though his voice didn't sound wholly convinced.

"You'd already destroyed Kijimi as a demonstration-or had you forgotten that?" Poe added sharply.

"No," Ben sighed. This was going pretty much as he had expected. Though he wasn't dead yet, which was kind of a win.

"Then…"

"I was there for her. For Rey," he said with more force than he had intended. "I was there because Rey won. She was right. Somewhere in Kylo Ren, Ben Solo still existed. She found a way to finally kill Kylo Ren."

"How?" Finn's tone was inquisitive-he had been there on Kef Bir above Endor, though he hadn't seen the battle on the wreckage of the Death Star II from close enough quarters to understand everything that had happened. All he had known was that Rey had flown away and Ren had been alive. Ben's brow furrowed, deepening the ugly LightSaber scar from the confrontation on the Starkiller Base.

"She killed me," he said simply. "Or as close as. She ran me through, furious with me for everything, for destroying the Sith Wayfinder, for thwarting her, for being the Monster she wanted me not to be, for disappointing her in Snoke's Throne Room by offering her a chance to join me, for being the Supreme Leader of the First Order. For not allowing her to save me. And as I lay there, dying, she knelt down and saved me. She spared my life using her own life force to heal the lethal wound she had just inflicted on me. She was distraught that she had struck me in anger-because that isn't who she wanted to be. So she spared my life, despite who I was and what I had done. And then she went to face him. She took my ship, which had the other Wayfinder in."

"So she spared you," Poe sneered shifting his weight slightly but never moving the muzzle of his blaster by a millimetre.

"I can't explain," he murmured, pressing his lips together as he tried to frame his words. "The instant before she struck, I heard my mother. She reached out to me, touched me, called to me as her son, not as an enemy, not as the man who tried to crush the Resistance and exterminate them all-including her. Not as the man who murdered her husband. Not as Kylo. As Ben. And then I felt her die." He faltered and there was pain in his voice. "And then Rey expends her own life force to heal me. Because she didn't want to kill me, the person my mother had used the last of her life to reach out to. Even though she struck the killing blow herself, she saved me when she should have watched me die."

"Yeah, that's Rey," Finn murmured. "Loves an underdog, will help the helpless and befriend the friendless."

And I qualify for at least a couple of those definitions, Ben thought silently.

"I had a decision to make," Ben continued slowly. "To be the person I was, manipulated and lied to and abused until I became what Snoke and Palpatine made me, their weapon and servant. Or to be the son my mother died to try to reach." He stared at the ceiling. "He came to see me."

"Who?" Finn asked.

"Han. Dad." Ben looked over at the two Resistance Generals and offered the finest shadow of a smile. "He said nothing but that I wouldn't expect. I am pretty sure it was his ghost through the Force but I'm still not completely sure it wasn't my own subconscious, supplying me the reinforcement I needed to make the only decision I could. I have been manipulated most of my life and even though I have made many of my own decisions, many more have been…directed." He exhaled. "I threw it away. My LightSaber. My armour. My coms. Everything I could use to reach the First Order. I just needed to follow Rey. To help her. Because I knew…she couldn't do it alone. Alone, she would be subverted or killed and Palpatine would reign."

"Rey would never…" Finn cut in hotly and Poe added his voice to the protest.

"Palpatine had her cornered," Ben told them. "He threatened to annihilate the Resistance, wipe out whole worlds unless she joined him. Unless she surrendered to him. She was to strike him down and he would assume her body, being reborn. And then…the Final Order would rule forever."

"How do you know all this?" Poe asked him suspiciously, his eyes narrowing as he glared at the prisoner. Ben looked directly into his eyes.

"Rey and I shared a Force Bond," he said clearly.

"What?" Finn asked.

"You mean you invaded her mind and ransacked it like you did mine!" Poe growled and lurched forward, the muzzle resting hard against Ben's temple. "You kriffing monster. You raped her mind like you did mine and used her like…"

"NO!" The denial was vehement and for a second, the blackness of anger surged through him but he pushed it away. Never again would he allow it to control him as it had for so many years! Instead, words tumbled over his lips as he tried to make the pilot understand and knowing that no words would ever explain the bond truly. "No-I would never hurt Rey. Never. We have been bonded since Starkiller, I think. I saw her with Luke on Ahch-To while she was training, allowing me to converse with her. And yes, I tried to enter her mind-and she entered mine, seeing things I never wanted her-or anyone-to see. We even physically touched through the bond…" He paused and calmed himself. "I saw her on Kijimi, I sensed her heading to Kef Bir and met her there. She passed her LightSaber to me through the Bond while I was losing to the Knights of Ren on Exegol. I felt her die. I tried to get her back. I tried to get her back…" He swallowed again. "I tried to give her my life…but it didn't work."

"Why should it?" Finn asked, his eyes confused.

"Because I poured everything through the bond," Ben said, his voice raw with pain. "But she was gone. I would happily have given everything to her. Everything. But she's free."

Abruptly, Poe pulled back and holstered his blaster.

"I'm keeping guards on the door," he said. "You will remain here until you are fit for a cell. You will remain drugged and unable to use the Force. You're not going anywhere."

"Except before a firing squad," Ben said quietly. Poe flinched.

"We've already had seventeen worlds contact us to render you to them for justice," he said as Finn cast an uneasy look at the former Supreme Commander.

"Only seventeen?" Ben commented, the corner of his mouth lifted in a slight smirk. "I should be insulted."

"Don't be," Poe snapped. "Word gets around. There will be more. And bounty hunters. And a few of our own people will feel like taking a pop at you as well-hence the guards."

"Unless they are the guards," Ben reminded him. Finn nodded.

"He has a point," he murmured into Poe's ear.

"I always used to change the allocations of my guards randomly, since Hux commanded a high degree of devotion from his men and changing them around tended to scupper any he may have persuaded to try to murder their Supreme Commander," Ben added wryly. "And I never trusted any of his guards in any case."

"Doesn't sound like a friendly place," Poe snarked and Ben closed his eyes.

"To be in the First Order is to be alone,' he said as Finn nodded absently, his eyes unfocussing for a second. "No friends, no family, no ties at all. But Rey, who had no one, strove to build ties, to create a family where she had none."

"You had parents-and you betrayed and murdered them!" Poe growled as Ben grimaced.

"My Mother made her own choices," he sighed, not admitting the murder of his father that he would never atone for. "But she used her last remaining life force to reach me so yes, I bear responsibility for her death." Taking a shuddering breath, Poe headed for the door.

"I hope our guards are more reliable," he commented as he swung out of the door. Finn paused for a longer moment.

"You were in Rey's head?" he asked, the tiny flare of jealousy subliminal and almost imperceptible. Almost. Ben nodded.

"Intermittently," he confessed. "It was like a door that could be pulled open or closed from either side…but which sometimes swung open of its own accord. I could feel strong emotions, thoughts sometimes…but she became better and better at shielding herself from me."

"Can't think why," Finn said and then he paused. "You're only alive because of Rey. You were holding her when we found you. You looked like you were protecting her." He tensed against the binders because he was getting cramped but really, there was nothing more to say. Except one thing.

"Where is she?' he asked, his brow furrowing again.

"Her body is in stasis while we try to clean up after the battle," Finn revealed. "The place is still crazy. And we need to do it right…" Ben shook his head, his dark eyes flooded with confusion.

"You don't understand," he said gruffly. "She's a Force User, a Jedi! There shouldn't be a body, because she's become one with the force. Unless she wasn't allowed to become one. But…she was all Light. There was no darkness in her. She rejected Palpatine. She shouldn't be denied the peace of eternity within the Force." He looked at Finn.

"Something is wrong."