Tatooine-Outer Rim:
Ben came out of the small bathroom. He had showered and put on black pants and an anthracite gray tunic. He obviously still appreciated dark colors.
They had not exchanged a word after their intense experience a few minutes earlier. Both of them had come to their senses and Ben had jumped straight into the room behind the kitchen, leaving her panting and particularly shaken in the middle of the living room.
She knew now what had happened to him: the mutiny, and Ben hiding here for months while sharing the daily life of this woman, Sovan Real, and her son. She'd had access to life scenes, sensations, moments of doubt and confusion. Ben had meditated a lot and his fiery temper seemed to have subsided. Yet his convictions and his ideals had been called into question, and Rey had been able to feel his frustration and disappointment. He was helpless, did not know what to think or what to do. The conflict that ripped his soul had never been so violent, and the call of the Light never so deafening.
When Ben finally joined her in the living room, he took great care not to meet her eyes. He walked past her to take another look through the window, and a sweet smell of clean assaulted her nostrils. Rey then straightened instinctively in her seat. She was stinking, covered in dust from head to toe, with her top sticking to her skin.
She had the impression of her thoughts being spoken aloud when he said to her, "You can take a shower if you want to, and wash your clothes."
The scavenger didn't hesitate anymore. She got up and went to the bathroom but stopped in the doorway, realizing that she had nothing to wear until her clothes went into the sonicator.
"There should be clean laundry in the drawer next to you," she heard him add from the living room.
No. She was not going to wear one of his tunics, was she?
Her reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall swept away her last reluctance. Her three little buns were messy, her right cheek was covered with blood and, because of her goggles, she had two white circles around her eyes which made her looked like one of those little fructivorous creatures living in the forests of Arbra. She opened the drawer and took the first shirt from the pile. She then entered the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
She finally relaxed a little and removed the comlink hidden in her bra. It was sheer luck that she didn't lose it in the storm, and Ben didn't search her and find it. She activated the device and tried to contact C-3PO. After four unsuccessful attempts, she gave up. Something was scrambling the signal. Probably this damn storm. It was impossible to warn the droids that she had found Ben, so that they in turn could warn Leia. She gave an angry little grunt before hiding the comlink under the sink and taking off her dirty clothes with a sigh. She would have preferred to feel a stream of cool water pouring down her body, but the sonic shower was already better than nothing. She suspected that here, as on Jakku, water was a precious commodity that was not wasted on showering. Once clean, she ran her fingers through her hair to untangle it and examined the wound on her temple. The cut was not very deep and had already stopped bleeding. Better still, the drumming in her head had stopped. She put on the white linen shirt and rolled the sleeves up to her elbows. She picked up her things and added them to Ben's clothing in the sonicator near the shower, and then started the wash cycle.
She could wait here an hour, in the tiny bathroom, until her clothes were clean. But after five minutes of standing between the shower and the sink, she decided to go out.
Ben was eating a piece of brown bread, sitting by the window. On the coffee table, a piece of the same kind of bread and a bowl of steaming soup awaited her. When he saw her arriving in the living room, he stopped chewing. The shirt, though too big for her, scarcely covered the top of her tanned thighs, on which Ben's eyes lingered a little too long. Suddenly embarrassed by his own boldness, and seeing that Rey was now blushing, he lowered his eyes and went back to eating.
Rey sensed Ben's unease, which only amplified hers. She hurriedly climbed onto the bench, tightened her legs while taking care to keep her tunic down as much as possible, and took a bite of her bread.
The saber was still sitting on the counter and Ben was gazing out at the dark desert outside. Rey chewed open-mouthed, her foot tapping the ground as if to calm her sudden frustration.
Were they really going to stay like this, nibbling their bread in silence, after what had happened ?
"Why does the Force continue to connect us and send us these visions?" Rey finally asked directly. "I thought it was Snoke who controlled the link!"
Ben slowly raised his head.
"It seems not," he said, frowning.
"I saw your memories, Ben," she replied. "The attack of the Knights on your ship, your escape, the four months spent here, how you helped this woman and her son …"
She expected him to react negatively to the fact that she had called him by his real name. But he didn't. She even thought she detected a touch of satisfaction in his dark eyes.
"Arbra is a pretty nice planet ... You seem to like it a lot, and are having a good time with your friends there!"
Rey froze. Ben had just confirmed that her worst nightmare had come true: he'd had access to her memory, too. She saw him put his bread on the table and take a sip of soup before continuing.
"You also had made contact with Maz Kanata again. That crazy old woman's theory is very interesting."
"What theory?" Rey asked, now on the defensive.
"The transfer that would have occurred between us during our little discussion on Starkiller."
"You mean when I was tied to a metal chair and you ripped through my mind?"
"We were enemies …"
"Aren't we still?"
"I'd like to believe that we are not."
Rey could now feel the pulse of her heart pounding in her throat and the tears rising in her eyes.
"I need to know why you did that," she said.
"Did what?"
He knew exactly what she meant, and Rey was now even more irritated.
"You could have stopped everything on the Supremacy. The fights, the war with the Resistance, the massacres, the deaths ... You could have listened to me and finally done something good!"
"I would have done 'something good' at the head of the First Order if you had stayed by my side."
And here they were.
Rey had the feeling that, once again, Ben's eyes wanted to delve into the depths of her soul, and she could not repress a shiver.
"You decided to let everyone die! The Resistance, your mother, my friends ... You just used me to kill Snoke and take his place. You took advantage of my empathy for you. You played with my feelings. When you told me that I was not nothing, not to you, it was only to make me give in, right? And what was your plan next? To make me bow to the all-powerful Kylo Ren and become what you've been to Snoke all these years? A loyal and obedient slave?"
Ben stared at her now with a mixture of disappointment and sadness.
"You still don't understand why I held out my hand to you, do you?" he whispered.
He was wrong, she had understood perfectly. That day, his imploring gaze, his shaking fingers, and his "please" pronounced with such emotion that she dreamed about it at night, had made her want to give in. But she couldn't tell him…
"All I know is that I didn't want your darkness."
She couldn't look him in the eye anymore.
"Everyone has some darkness inside, Rey. Even you, and you know it. You felt it on Starkiller when you hit me with your sword, and in the cave on Ahch-To when you heard the call of the Dark Side. You used it to challenge Snoke on the Supremacy and to fight the guards. You just refuse to cultivate that part of yourself as I did to become stronger."
"I do not see anyone strong in front of me now. I see someone hiding, doubting, and having no idea how he's going to get out," she added cynically.
Then Ben stood up, approached the bench and laid both hands flat on the coffee table to bend over her.
"So, what are you going to do now?" he asked.
She remained perfectly still and tried to control her breathing while holding his stare. His full lips were quivering. The nervous twitching under his left eye made a fleeting appearance. A little flustered by his sudden proximity, Rey struggled to find an answer.
"Capture me and take me to your dear rebel friends?" he suggested. "You can always try, I wish you good luck. Unless you want to try to 'save' me again, now that I have lost my place at the head of the First Order. Are you going to give me your speech full of good feelings in the manner of the great Jedi Master Luke Skywalker?"
Rey's throat tightened a little more.
"There is still Light in you. Everything I saw just now proves it," she retorted.
"No, there is nothing left to save, Rey. Accept it."
He had said these words without blinking, with the firm conviction of being right. He didn't want to be saved. He did not want to be the one who had offered her the galaxy anymore. The one who, on his knees, had begged her with his eyes not to leave him alone in the middle of the cold and empty command post on Crait. He wanted to be the monster she had seen in him before their shared Force connection had forced her to see him differently.
But Rey realized that she wanted to fight, that she was not going to let him get away with it so easily.
"Monsters do not save the lives of families in distress," she retorted as a final argument. "They do not spend hours contemplating sunsets, enduring the babbling of little boys who swoon with admiration before them. And they do not waste their time repairing connectors to prevent small farmers from losing their harvest…"
Without taking his eyes off of her, Ben slowly straightened up before moving back and sitting again near the window. Rey had instinctively tightened her arms around her as if, all of a sudden, lost in the middle of this desert, all heat had just left her body.
Ben's long black locks were now framing his profile. In the chiaroscuro of the room, he had never seemed as beautiful and fragile as at this moment. So, while staring at the storm outside, he answered:
"Monsters murder their fathers, slaughter innocent people, deny their families and dream only of revenge. Monsters don't become angels, Rey. Never."
Rey's heart felt then as if it had been plunged into an icy pit, at the bottom of which there was not an ounce of light.
OooooO
The last time he had the opportunity to watch her sleep was when she was a prisoner on Starkiller. Sheltered behind his mask, he had contemplated the satiny texture of her skin, her plump parted lips, the length of her eyelashes, and the constellation of freckles dotting her nose.
When he had taken off his helmet, she'd tried to hide her surprise in a defiant manner. She had not expected to see a human face behind this metal facade.
Then he had approached her, begun to question her, and the aura emanating from Rey's body had acted upon him like a magnet. He had been irresistibly attracted to this girl from nowhere who'd dared to challenge him. He had not, at first, understood why. It was so new to him. She had something special, unique. He suspected that the Force had wanted to play with them.
And now she was lying in front of him again, breathing softly and curled up on the little bunk in the living room.
She was beautiful.
He felt drained by the many questions he'd had to answer. She'd wanted to know why she hadn't felt his presence on Hoth before he was more than a few feet away from her in the infirmary. He then explained that he was able to hide from other Force users, a skill which Snoke had taught him. Cutting off contact with his knights after the mutiny was imperative in order to escape them. And even here, at the other end of the galaxy, he had to keep doing it and stay alert. Next, the conversation had drifted to Rey's parents. Through their previous connection, Ben had seen the young woman's trip to Jakku, the visit she'd made to Unkar Plutt, and the brooch belonging to her father that led her to believe that her family was linked with Naboo. She wanted to delve into the past, while he would've given anything to erase from his mind what his uncle Luke had shown him four months ago.
He still could not believe that the great Darth Vader had turned away from the Dark Side in the last moments of his life for the love of a son (and a daughter) he didn't even know he had ... The truth had shaken him more than he wanted to admit and he did not yet know what to do with this revelation. Rey hadn't had access to this memory involving his uncle's Force ghost, or she would have already addressed the subject.
He and Rey had continued to discuss Good and Evil for another hour. Then she'd been silent for a long time, drunk her cold soup, and yielded to the comfort offered by the small futon. She was obviously no longer afraid that he would attack her because she fell asleep quickly after that.
Ben ran his hand through his hair before gently rubbing his forehead. He was letting himself be overcome by sleep, too. When he turned his head to her again, he saw that Rey was occupying the entire surface of the bunk. His gaze slid slowly over the scavenger's tanned legs and he licked his lips. He imagined grazing her ankles with his fingertips, caressing her calves, moving up to the silky skin of her thighs, passing under her linen tunic and ...
Oh Maker, it was not the moment to think about that!
He got up abruptly, grabbed his saber and, gasping for breath, he walked noiselessly down the stairs to the basement. Once in the shed, he leaned against the small workbench and took a few seconds to repress the wave of desire currently shaking his lower abdomen.
The storm outside was calming down and the sun was going to rise in a few hours …
He retrieved his precious briefcase from a drawer. He then grabbed a canvas bag and put his weapon and some rations in it. He closed it all, sighed loudly, and ran his hand nervously through his hair before taking a few seconds to think.
Since Rey had found him, he had no choice but to leave Tatooine as soon as possible.
OoooooO
Planet Malachor - Outer Rim:
"You see, Tehari, this temple has a fabulous story. It was built by the Sith a thousand standard years before the rise of the Empire. All the most powerful knights of the Dark Side have come to gather here. And that's not all…"
The child was sitting at the feet of Elias and drinking in his words.
"In the past, the heart of the temple housed a weapon powered by a blood-red giant kyber crystal, which had been extracted from the depths of Ilium. This super-weapon was the most devastating ever built in the entire galaxy and could only be controlled with a holocron."
"A holocron? What is that, Master?" the child asked.
"Holocrons look like little boxes. They're artifacts, very precious and very rare, made and used by the Jedi and Sith in times past. Many were destroyed, others were lost."
"What are they for?"
"These objects contain knowledge in the form of texts and holographic messages, but they can also sometimes be used as activators for different devices," Elias explained.
"Oh …" the child was fascinated. "And what happened ? Why does the weapon you mentioned no longer exist, Master?"
"Jedi led an assault on the temple. The Sith knights fought hard to repel them. But during the fight, the weapon was inadvertently activated and all the combatants without exception were petrified on the battlefield."
"Are they all those stone silhouettes standing at the foot of the pyramid?"
Elias nodded as the little boy, gaping, waited for the end of the story.
"No one dared to venture on the planet after that. Everyone was too afraid that the weapon would fire again. Much later, under the reign of Dark Sidious and his apprentice Darth Vader, this place was once again desecrated by Jedi. Vader tried to stop them in vain. The holocron was extracted from its receptacle and taken away from the temple. The pyramid was destroyed as well as the super-weapon."
"How do you know all this, my Lord?"
His young apprentice was so excited and Elias saw himself in his place, about ten years back, just as captivated and attentive when Snoke narrated the adventures of Dark Side knights.
"You know, I have always been fascinated by this place. One day, I took advantage of a mission my former master had given me to come here to Malachor and explore the ruins. I went down to the foundations of the temple, where the heart of the weapon once was. Nothing remained, except some pieces of crystal still intact. I picked them up and went back with them."
Real red crystals from the original weapon. For him, it was a real treasure and he had believed that if, this time, he offered them to Snoke, his gesture would be rewarded. But the latter, completely obsessed with the formation of his precious disciple Kylo, had shown little interest in his present. The vile old man had even made the affront of offering half the crystals to Ren, and then returned the remaining pieces to him. Despite this, Elias had still begged him to take him as a second apprentice, a practice that was new among the Sith and the Jedi. But Snoke loved to maintain the rivalry and animosity between his knights of Ren, believing that it was an integral part of their initiation into the Dark Side. The young man had pleaded his case so well that Snoke had found the challenge to his liking and had finally accepted. Elias was only instructed to reveal nothing to others. And so, during all these years, he too had benefited from the teachings of the powerful dark lord without anyone knowing. He had been an attentive, discreet apprentice and by dint of determination and will, he had finally returned to the good graces of Supreme Leader Snoke and shared some of his little secrets ...
"Where is the holocron now, Master?"
Tehari was just finishing his question when Sylla burst into the hall and headed straight for them. Elias dismissed the little boy with a wave of his hand. The history class was over. The child stood up and slipped away in silence. The dark amazon then planted herself in front of Elias before greeting him with a nod and declaring triumphantly:
"I know where Kylo is. One of our prisoners dealt with him on Tatooine."
The news snatched a frown from the blond knight.
"I always thought he hated the desert," he jeered before getting up to face Sylla.
"Let me go there," she begged, her eyes black as the night and already shining with rage.
"Are you sure about this intel? This prisoner may have lied."
"I probed his mind. He did not lie. Kylo was in Bestine in a makeshift clinic with a kid. He had his lightsaber, and killed the two scoundrels who accompanied the prisoner."
As she spoke, Elias seemed lost in thought.
"So he is alive…" he murmured. "We cannot afford to let him go again. I'll go."
Sylla tensed and clenched her teeth, her whole body protesting silently.
"So you don't think I can handle it alone," she said.
Elias met the young woman's proud gaze and sighed. He could not decently answer her that, indeed, he had no confidence in her. Despite all that Kylo had done, Elias was sure that she was still in love with him, and so her desire to kill him could easily evaporate like snow in the sun in front of Kylo Ren imploring forgiveness and promising her wonders. He was afraid of that. But maybe he was wrong — Sylla's hatred may be steadfast now.
No, there was a bigger problem: facing her, Ren would have the opportunity to tell his story. He could tell her that Elias had lied to everyone, that he was Snoke's other apprentice, that he had killed Bram in order to frame Kylo, and that he was the real assassin of Jor ... But would she believe him?
Anyway, Kylo Ren had to be eliminated without attracting attention, which meant not involving Hux's troops.
Sending Sylla was not such a bad idea in the end. At best, the work was done, and in the worst case, she was killed.
A minor loss.
"Please Elias, let me take care of him. If he is there, I promise you to bring him bound hand and foot so that you can kill him yourself."
The knight stared at her.
"Have you ever forgotten what happened on the Finalizer? The four of you were not even able to take him down! He killed Bram and almost did the same to all of you! Do you really think you're up to dealing with him alone?"
Sylla knew Elias was right. She was just struggling to digest the fact that they had all been swept away like straw by their old Master.
"I'll be ready this time. You have no idea what a scorned woman can do to take revenge, even less if I am that woman."
Elias felt ready to give in. Even if Kylo tried to turn Sylla against him, he would deny everything, pretending that the son of Leia Organa just wanted to save his own neck.
"I know Hux shouldn't be involved, but I can take several squadrons of stormtroopers, if you want. I can…"
"No!" Elias exclaimed. "The soldiers do not need to know that Kylo is no longer at the head of the First Order."
Sylla nodded. Then, after a few seconds of reflection, Elias declared:
"OK, you go. But first, round up all the Hutt mercenaries there who are already looking for him, and have them back you up. Don't allow Kylo say a word; don't even let him lift a finger. I want you to get rid of him once and for all."
OoooooO
Tatooine-Outer Rim:
Rey woke with a start. She took a few seconds to emerge from the fog of sleep and realize where she was. A slight draft between her thighs reminded her that she was lying on the bunk wearing only a too-short shirt. She then took a panicked look all around her. She had just closed her eyes for a few minutes and had fallen asleep like a log in the same room as ...
No, no, no ... he hadn't ran away, right ?
She leapt to the window to find that the storm had stopped. She rushed to the bathroom and retrieved her own belongings. She dressed quickly and grabbed the comlink hidden under the sink. At least Ben hadn't found it.
When she returned to the living room, she noticed that the coat hanging on the hook was gone. She let out an exasperated sigh before descending to the basement. Obviously empty. She went up, struggled a little against the door blocked by the accumulated sand — how had he left the hut? — and finally managed to go out to inspect the surroundings. Behind the hut, she discovered a small shelter. A large tarp and ropes were lying on the ground. She deduced that this was where Ben must have kept his landspeeder. He had to cover it and tie it before the storm, and now he'd left with it, leaving her alone and without a vehicle to return to the Millennium Falcon.
"C-3PO do you hear me?" she cried a little breathlessly in the device.
"Miss Rey! Finally! R2 and I were so worried! But where are you? Is everything alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine! The storm destroyed my speeder but I'm safe. But now, I'm going to have to walk to the ship and it'll take me at least an hour," she grumbled as she finished adjusting her turban on her head. "You're waiting for me, okay?"
"Copy that, Miss Rey! R2 and I do not move from here!"
OooooO
Not having her staff in hand was very destabilizing. She felt like a limb or something was missing. She took the way back to the Falcon, struggling to walk. Mounds of sand had been carried by the storm and she soon arrived in front of the half-buried remains of her speeder. She couldn't believe her eyes when she found her staff next to the engine.
"Yes!" she exclaimed with enthusiasm.
She then took to the road again, thinking about Ben.
Where was he?
He could have gone anywhere: Bestine, Mos Eisley, Mos Espa ... She was sure he was going to try to leave Tatooine now that he knew he was discovered. Did he have a shuttle? She hadn't seen anything around the cabin. Maybe he had left it in that woman's farm.
In any case, what could she do now?
She had confirmation that the First Order had declared Ben "the most wanted man in the galaxy," but she had once again failed miserably with him. He now knew where the Resistance was and had just evaporated into the wild, abandoning her in the middle of the desert.
This expedition was a real fiasco.
The massive silhouette of the Falcon appeared between two rocky peaks. She warned C-3PO via the comlink that she was arriving, and the ramp lowered.
"You are finally here, Miss Rey! Praised be the Maker, you are safe!" the golden droid exclaimed when Rey burst into the cockpit.
"Bipdupbipbipdupdup," R2-D2 added.
"Yes I know, sorry for worrying you both."
Rey then asked the robots to check the hyperdrive system and when she was finally alone, she stepped into the pilot's seat and put on the communications helmet. She contacted Leia on a private channel and told her what had happened in a pitiful tone.
"I'm so sorry ... It happened so fast, I couldn't control anything. I put you all in danger, I blame myself so much."
"Rey, please, stop it. What is done is done," the general answered.
"But Leia, he knows you're on Arbra!"
"I know Rey, but honestly, what do you think he can do as long as he has the First Order at his heels? Those old 'friends' want him dead. So unless he is captured by this Elias or he succeeds, by some miracle, at regaining his position as Supreme Leader, in either case we have nothing to fear in the immediate future. And you know that we are always alert and ready to evacuate just in case."
Leia was right, but Rey could not shake off the feeling of guilt and worry that was gnawing at her heart.
"What do you plan to do now?" the Resistance leader asked.
"I don't know... Any advice?"
Rey heard Leia sigh.
"The wisest course of action would be to come back here to Arbra…"
Indeed, it was obviously the thing to do. But why did she perceive an entirely different message in the conditional used by the general?
"I will contact you again later, okay?" Rey concluded before ending the communication.
C-3PO and R2-D2 appeared on the cockpit threshold.
"Miss Rey, we checked everything. Systems are fully operational. We can leave this planet whenever you want and finally return to the base."
The little blue and gray robot confirmed this news with a series of happy stridulations. Rey's gaze was lost in contemplation of the heat-vibrating skyline. In the depths of the ocher plain, she could distinguish the distant and tiny silhouette of a dozen moisture vaporizers. She took a deep breath and one last thought suddenly crossed her mind.
"We're not going to leave right away," she said, regretting immediately that she was undermining the droids' good mood. "We will first make a small stop at Sovan Real's farm."
OooooO