Fourteen:

Kaalan Kon Kolb was the master of all he surveyed. Bulky and thickset with tough greyish skin and clothed in silks and metallic fabrics, he cut an imposing figure. His club was as elaborate as his dress, mirrored walls and brilliant lights chasing away any shadows and foiling any attempts at fraud or cheating. Gamers and chancers mingled around the tables and half-clad dancers of all varieties writhed and ground away in their cages while the band delivered their best. Any employee who disappointed Kolb tended to end up marooned on the airless surface with a blaster hole in their face.

Moving through the vibrant multicoloured throng, Poe fashioned a bright smile on his handsome face. Calmly, he pushed to the bar and ordered three generic drinks, smiling as three portions of a greenish liquid were delivered. Finn and Chewie flanked him as they all huddled at the bar, sipping the drink. There were three intakes of breath and then Chewie gave a loud moan.

"Yeah," Poe agreed. "I remembered it being better as well…" Finn cast him a look.

"It couldn't be much worse," he commented. "So what now?" Poe sighed and leaned forward towards the barman.

"Can you tell Kaalan that Poe Dameron wants to speak with him on a Resistance matter?" he murmured and the man nodded, waved to his colleague and vanished into the crowd.

"Is that wise?" Finn asked him as the former pilot shrugged.

"We're Generals in the Resistance who are trying to locate another of our best fighters by getting help for the man who can take us to get her," Poe reasoned. Chewie gave a low moan.

"I agree," Finn said. "Weak." Poe cast him a glance.

"So now you speak Wookiee?" he teased his friend.

"That needed no translating," Finn told him easily and sipped his horrible drink. "You know this grows on you."

"So does Hothian Bindweed," Poe grumbled.

"Mister Kolb will see you-Poe Dameron," a gruff voice said behind him and they turned to see a broad faced reptilian with black eyes and little golden scales over his cheeks.

"Hey, Queedo-good to see you!" Poe replied as the creature gave him a snort.

"If you weren't Resistance, Mister Kolb would have shot you the moment you set foot in Kineva," Queedo sneered, his face twisted in a disgusted look. "But word has it that the Resistance has won, leaving the First Order scattered and broken. So killing the leader of the Resistance would be bad business." Poe nodded, resting his almost-untouched cup on the bar and glancing at his friends. As one, they rose and followed him around the periphery of the room, past the bar and through a beaded screen that concealed a discreet forcefield into Kaalan Kon Kolb's private salon.

The room was dominated with writhing and gyrating humanoid dancers, wearing little but a few strips of silk and smiles, and a golden throne containing the solid shape of Kolb. Armoured enforcers had station in the corners of the room, all bearing blasters that Poe knew Kolb would be very willing to use. He grinned as he faced the man who ran Kineva.

"Kaalan!" he greeted the Boss.

"General Poe Dameron," Kolb growled, his voice like two rocks grinding together. "You owe me a cargo of spice…" Frowning, Poe glanced at his companions.

"I was under the impression that the Crew had already sorted that misunderstanding out," he replied with complete confidence. "And if not, we can negotiate...once we secure your help. We need your healer Tamini for our crew mate…"

"Who may or may not be the infamous Supreme Leader of the First Order, Kylo Ren," Kolb commented. Poe gave a shrug.

"He may look like him but last I heard, Kylo Ren had a nasty slash across his face that our friend Rey gave him with a lightsaber," Finn offered. "Our friend Ben doesn't have one." Kolb inspected him with interest.

"You are the traitor to the First Order, the Trooper who defected?" he guessed and then his gaze slid to the Wookiee. "And we've met, Chewbacca. When Han Solo borrowed my ship to go in pursuit of the Millennium Falcon…" Chewie gave a low moan. Kolb snorted. "So what am I likely to get in return for lending my healer?"

"I don't suppose the goodwill of the Resistance is good enough?" Poe asked him. The gang leader chuckled.

"You aren't dead," he explained. "That's the limit of my goodwill." Nodding to himself, Poe looked over at his friends, expecting the answer and studiously ignoring the guards covering them with blasters.

"Okay, Kaalan-let's negotiate," he said.

-o0o-

The sensation of his mother's mind, wrapping around him in love and longing was pierced with the sudden horrific sensation of his own lightsaber piercing his body. His eyes widened and mouth opened in a soundless gasp. Rey looked up, her eyes dark with hatred and anger as she stilled, the blade crackling and burning through his body. And then she deactivated the blade, stumbling back as she realised what she had done.

"Leia," she breathed as he too felt the sudden disturbance in the Force, the final snap of his mother's affection. Many light years away, General Leia Organa's lifeless body slumped back onto her cot in the rebel base of Ajan Kloss but on Kef Bir, the broken remnants of the man who had once been her son felt his heart break. His legs buckled and he fell, the crumpled metal of the ruins of the Death Star supporting him as he gasped, feeling his life ebb.

Rey was crying, tears trickling down her cheeks in the double grief of the loss of Leia, the only mother figure she had ever known and the knowledge of what she had just done. She had won, delivering him a fatal blow and now, as his life faded, he could only look up at her. Finally, slowly, her eyes met his. There was dismay, shame...and then decision. Unable to understand, to believe what he was seeing, he watched her drop to her knees by him, resting her hand on his body, the touch featherlight and yet carrying the weight of a world. His breathing was growing shallower and erratic, his body growing cold as he felt it: the surge of energy, of life that flowed from her into him. Before his eyes, the hideous hole in his body rippled and closed, the skin repairing itself, becoming new. He took a deep breath, feeling his strength return in a rush and he looked up into her beautiful face. Under her watchful eye, the scar faded from his face and the other injuries from that battle on the Starkiller Base melted away. She pulled her hand back.

"I wanted to take your hand," she whispered. He took a shuddering breath, sensing her emotions. "Ben's hand."

And then it all came crashing down around him, amid the violent spray and cold of Kef Bir. He had lost. Kylo Ren had lost. Everything he was, everything he stood for was defeated. She had it all in her grasp, had embraced the darkness of anger and hatred to defeat him...and she had renounced it. Even when she won, she would not let him die. She had loved his mother and that love and her own inner light had impelled her to give him some of her own life force to save him, despite everything he had done, every evil he had perpetrated against Rey and the Resistance. Despite the unforgivable crime of killing his father, his mother had still loved him-and Rey had spared his life.

He was done.

So he watched as she ran to his Silencer and took the unique craft with the sole remaining Sith Wayfinder, soaring into the grey sky. And he had stood there, his mind an utter mess of contradictions, grief and shame, the freezing waves soaking his body as his mind had conjured the ghost of the man he had wanted to speak to the most.

"Hey kid."

The voice was exactly as he remembered it, the tone filled with warmth at odds with his previous vision. The grey hair framed the familiar, rugged face and the twinkling eyes of his father-intact, not pierced by his lightsaber as he had been when he died. And he was dry while Ben was soaked to the bone.

Why did he think of himself as Ben all of a sudden when he had spent a decade erasing his birth identity for Snoke's attack dog and apprentice, Kylo Ren?

"I miss you, son."

The words pierced his heart, the surge of guilt crippling. Since Rey broke him, defeated him for what could only be the last time, his armour seemed to have shattered and his worst sins were swirling around him in a black smog, images playing over and over in his mind. He had done so many terrible, unforgivable things that he wondered if the parade would drive him mad but central to every montage was that moment he had driven the lightsaber into his father's heart, the wide, shocked look in his face and the tender, brief touch of his hand to Ben's cheek before he fell away.

I killed him to free myself but instead, it tore me in two.

'Your son is dead." The words were a stubborn echo of every answer he had given since he made that decision in the ruins of the temple. Ben Solo was dead, broken by Snoke and replaced by Kylo Ren. He had no idea what he was now. But his father knew.

"No. Kylo Ren is dead. My son is alive."

The confidence was beyond question, the kindly compassion of a man who was gone. Maybe this version of his father had existed and he just never registered-but Ben suspected this was the version he had yearned for over all those years when Han Solo had vanished, trying hard to be a man he was not and failing. There had been good times-and bad, days when his father hadn't been there, birthdays missed, promises broken because General Solo had reverted to the smuggler and general rogue, Han Solo. The truth swirled painfully around him.

"You're just a memory." His voice was hoarse.

"Your memory," Han reminded him, staring into the pinched face. Then he sighed. "Come home."

Home. What was home? Where was home? Not the house he had grown up in, abandoned when the parents he had loved had broken apart and dumped their son with his Uncle because they were scared of his powers and more scared of the responsibility and sacrifice required to look after him and raise him instead of continuing on as they always had. Not the temple with Skywalker, the place where he had been lied to, held back, ostracised and finally condemned to be put down like a diseased beast, too tainted by Snoke to be granted any chance for redemption or hope. Not the First Order where he could not return in failure, knowing already they would turn to Palpatine and kill or subjugate him if he fell into their hands. Certainly not with Rey, who had made her feelings clear when he disappointed her on the Supremacy.

Home was people. Home was belonging. Home was warmth and security and maybe love. And he had none of those things. Maybe once, briefly. But now…? Only one person had steadfastly clung to a desire to bring him home.

"It's too late. She's gone."

It was like an open wound that no one could heal. His mother. He hadn't been able to kill her on the Raddus, his thumb moving away from the firing control when he sensed her presence. His relief when he felt her alive, buried deep under the layers of anger to prevent Snoke from sensing. His conflict as he had led the attack of Crait, a small part of him recognising Luke's diversion for what it was and not caring because it gave her a chance. She was the only home he had left-and he had felt her die, felt her final, loving caress forgiving him for slaying her partner and husband, the only man she had ever loved though she couldn't live with him. Forgiveness he had never deserved and never would.

"Ben…" The word was another stab. They still called him by his birth name though he had done nothing but bring shame to the name of their old friend and mentor. He swallowed and the words stuck in his throat. The same words he had said before he had ignited the blade and perpetrated his worst crime.

"I know what I have to do...but I don't know if I have the strength to do it."

Han had smiled then.

"You do."

"Dad…"

Han had nodded.

"I know," he said.

And then he had flung the lightsaber into the furious seas-and himself with it.

-o0o-

Rey spun, her hand conjuring Leia's lightsaber and activating it with the same motion. The monster-and it was a monster, all bulk and tentacles and spiny, gangly limbs, scuttled closer, towering above her as she backed away.

"Go," she urged it, putting her whole force into the compulsion.

The monster kept on coming, a stench of putrefaction beginning to wash over her. She resisted the urge to gag, even though she was technically dead and therefore had no lunch to lose.

"Foolish child-do you think I would be influenced by your weak attempts to replicate what I mastered decades before you were even considered?" the monster droned.

"You're dead...destroyed!" she spat, the saber raised. "I destroyed you myself. Your own power expunged you from existence! You're gone!"

"The powers of the Sith are extensive and dark, far greater than any that you could possibly imagine!" the Palpatine-monster taunted her in his precise, rich voice. "Some of which are considered unnatural…"

"Which kept you alive thirty years after you should have been destroyed on the Death Star," Rey hissed. "But your own powers annihilated you on Exegol!"

"I am all the Sith!" the monster sneered, the waves of evil rolling off the creature. "I cannot be destroyed!" A scream burst from her throat and she bisected the creature with her lightsaber. Hurricane force winds swirled around her, battering her as a dark laugh echoed in her ears.

"You strike me down and I am reborn in your body!" the monster taunted her. "I will become more powerful than you could ever imagine-Emperor forever, the Galaxy crushed under my heel until the end of time…"

"Rey!" Her head snapped up.

"Ben?"

A wash of pain surged down the bond, reminding her that he was still alive and suffering. But there was determination there, a clear and cool calculation as he mentally embraced her.

"It's an illusion, Rey," he breathed. "This place is filled with Darkness. I can feel it. And the Darkness always tries to seduce you-through anger, fear, hatred...even love." Her eyes widened.

"Love is lightness," she corrected him. "It gives you strength, focusses your mind and reminds you why you risk all, why you are prepared to make the sacrifice…"

"Protective love, maybe," he told her, struggling against his torture. "But possessive love, jealous love can be just as destructive. It's what turned my grandfather. It's what destroyed him." He groaned. "They're trying to inflame the darkness within you-the anger at being abandoned, the fears, the insecurity, the loss, the hatred of those who stole your life from you. But I know that you are stronger than that. Use my strength as a shield, Rey. I am always here for you."

"I have to get you free," she argued, looking around and back at his trapped shape. As she watched, he writhed again.

"Rey-watch out," he sighed. "Push down the emotions and clear your mind. Concentrate on not hating, on reaching for life and restoring the Balance between us." He reached out at her across the Bond, desperately searching for her warmth, her luminous glow. She stilled, the lightsaber clicking off as she embraced him, feeling his warmth instil her with his strength. He had been far more trained than she, servant of two distinctly imperfect masters but clever enough to learn from both, to reach beyond only what they had offered to uncover the truth. Around her, the hurricane calmed, the pieces of the monster vanished and the red light faded. Only Ben remained in his prison, the sour scent of putrefaction wafting around her as she slowly approached. She winced, the familiar stab of a mind driving into her, wantonly crushing her barriers and clawing at her memories. And she knew that mind, knew the feel of that cold, empty pit, soaked in blackness and cold and cruelty.

Snoke!

Her surprise lasted a few seconds before she reasserted herself. She had grown in the year since Snoke's death, her skill and control developing as her powers exponentially expanded. When she had surrendered herself on the Supremacy, he had taken advantage of her in her naivete, her nascent-though prodigious-powers poorly trained and uncertain: this time she was ready. Gritting her teeth and narrowing her eyes, she flung him out and crossed the uneven floor, the lightsaber igniting once more.

"Ben…" she breathed, resting her hand flat against the barrier. His dark eyes widened as he stared into her hazel gaze. Shaking, he hesitatingly managed to raise his larger hand to press against hers, only separated by the crackling energy of the barrier.

"Rey," he breathed. "I will...get you back. I promise…" She gave a short bark of a laugh, dry and bitter.

"You can't even get out of here," she told him. "You're trapped, right?" His expressive face looked stricken for a moment before he nodded.

"This is a Sith stronghold," he told her. "Go to the light. Stay away from here or you may become trapped."

"How did this happen?" she asked. He gave a grim smile.

"Not all the Sith were completely destroyed-and it seems the stragglers want their revenge on me," he sighed. "This is Sith magic. A…Force cell." Her eyes widened.

"You mean you are actually trapped here?" she repeated, seeing the despair in his eyes.

"Yes," he admitted, his voice low. "Your friends are caring for my body but unless I get out of here, it will eventually die-while I am trapped here forever." He frowned. "But I don't know who actually captured me. I was meditating, reaching out to the Force, trying to regain my balance and understand what was happening to me. And how I could right the wrong and restore you." Her eyes widened.

"Ben...maybe this is a sign we shouldn't even try this,' she breathed, the sense of her words suddenly striking her. And there was a dangerous presence out there-one that was powerful enough to capture Ben Solo. There had been a part of her that was hoping it could be done, that she would be able to return to her friends...but she had accepted what was done as well. She had known what she risked when she faced Palpatine and she willingly paid the price. It seemed the Universe wanted to maintain the status quo.

Rey of Jakku died and Ben Solo, the mass-murderer, genocide and Supreme Leader of the First Order, Kylo Ren-lived.

"No," he breathed, a fresh burst of energy arching through his body once more. "Rey...I know you were not meant to die."

"Live for me, Ben," she said and raised the lightsaber. ""Remember me." The quiet hum sounded as the blade deployed. Then she raised the weapon and slashed through the barrier.

There was an explosion and he was gone.