CHAPTER FOUR

It's dark when Rey finally opens her eyes. So dark, in fact, that she has to blink a few times just to be sure her eyes are actually open. She's lying flat on her back and for one sickening moment, she worries she's dreamed the whole past day. Her mind takes her back to Exegol, back to the horror of lying on the ground, collapsed before the Sith throne, alone and about to die. Everything that came after was some cruel hallucination, a revival and a rescue that never happened.

No, she tells herself. It was all real, and it all happened, and you are safe now. Palpatine is dead and you are alive. Your friends are alive, Ben is alive, you are alive.

She repeats that in her mind once, twice, three times, and again. She thinks the words until she remembers that they're true. She replays her journey, recalling each excruciating step that she took from that throne room to now. She tells herself the story of her own survival until she feels a small wet drop trickle from her eye down her cheek. She thinks the words until she believes them.

And she wonders how long it will be before the dark stops terrifying her.

She feels less exhausted now than she did when she landed on the Base. How many hours ago must that have been at this point? Could it be that she lost the entire rest of the day after she practically collapsed in her friend's arms? That would explain why it's so hideously dark in this room.

Her eyes are adjusting, albeit slowly, and she can just make out the dimensions of the room she's found herself in. It's small. The bed she's lying in takes up one corner of the room and she can feel something wrapped around her arm that must be keeping track of her pulse or her temperature or something. Next to the bed is a monitor, no doubt hooked up to whatever is around her arm. The room is mostly bare except for that, save a few trays against the wall opposite her that are stocked with bandages and other supplies.

This is one of the medical treatment rooms — that's not hard to figure out. She's never personally stayed in one — the injuries she's sustained in training have never been severe enough to land her an overnight stay — but she's been inside one of these a time or two and recognizes it all the same.

This is one of only three private rooms on the whole base — most people are treated in the triage center Maz set up when the base was first formed.

It's possible, Rey thinks, that she's sharing one of these walls with Ben. He might be a mere few inches of concrete away from her. But shouldn't she be able to feel him if he's that close?

She reaches out with her mind, waiting to feel that small, indescribable sensation that comes when the force bond she shares with Ben locks into place. She searches, trying to find that link to him, missing it for the first time in what feels like forever.

She's not nearly as tired as she had been earlier. Already she can feel her strength returning to her, though she doubts she'll actually have the energy to get out of this bed and walk around for a while yet.

There's nothing coming from the other end of the bond, at least not right now, so she settles for trusting her friends, believing that they will care for him as one of their own. If not for his sake, then for hers.

Rey pushes herself up to a sitting position, feeling the deep ache in her muscles and hearing the soft pops of her joints as she moves. It takes so much effort just to do something as simple as sit up straight. She's not used to physical exertion being this difficult for her, but then again she's never endured quite the amount of abuse she's put her body through recently.

She takes a moment to slow her breathing and savors the feeling of fresh, clean air in her lungs. There's so many trees on this planet, the air always feels pure and good, even inside this tiny room.

Her energy returns to her much faster than it would have a few hours ago. That's good. That means she's already healing.

She reaches behind herself and pulls the pillow up so it rests behind her back, forming a barrier between herself and the headboard of the bed.

It's quiet in her little room. All she can hear is the sound of her own breathing and the light beep beep beep of the monitor beside her.

If she'd had any question about it being nighttime, she's now sure. Nothing is ever this silent or this still unless it's night. There's a shift in the air when day slides into night, a quieting of all the things that spend their time in the sun. The force is always there, of course, humming underneath it all, alive and eternal in its own way, wrapping itself around her and everyone else and all the planets in all the galaxies.

It's that soft vibration, that life source itself, that she holds on to, clutching it as it anchors her to herself.

Not for the first time in the past few days, she thinks to herself how ridiculous it is that she's still alive.

She tries not to think too long or too hard about all the things that should have killed her — not just today, but every day since her birth. She focuses on clearing her mind, a skill she's honed through her years of Jedi training. She empties her head of all the extraneous thoughts, nods off somewhere in the middle of it all… until the sounds of not-too-far-away voices catch her attention.

If they were nearly anyone else, she'd be able to tune them out. But she knows those two voices, could pick them out in any crowd, just as easily as she picked out their faces when she got out of the X-Wing.

Finn and Poe are right outside her door.

"Just let her rest," she can hear Poe say. "We have all the time in the world to talk to her later today."

"Trust me, she's awake," Finn whispers back.

"But we don't have to be. C'mon, let's just go back to bed."

Rey can practically hear the way Poe must be rolling his eyes right now.

"She's been alone for hours, days, the least we can do is not leave her alone right now. Besides, we're supposed to be up in a few anyway."

The door to her hospital room clicks open and Rey turns to see the silhouette of her friends standing against the predawn sky, which is already shifting from inky black to a softer navy blue.

"Finn was right, I am awake," Rey rasps, her voice not sounding like her own. It's scratchy both from disuse in sleep and overuse during all the hours that led up to that.

Finn and Poe walk all the way into the room. Her eyes have adjusted well enough to the dark that she's able to see Poe grope around the wall for a few seconds before finding a light switch and flipping it on.

Harsh fluorescents flood the room and Rey squints against them, the brightness seeming too harsh for this time of day. Still, she's grateful to not be engulfed in the near-pitch black anymore.

"Glad to see you're up," Poe says as a greeting.

"Told you she would be," Finn mutters.

"I'm assuming you felt it?

"Yes, in fact, I did. And isn't now a great time to talk about that too?"

"I think it is," Rey chimes in before those two can get too deep into their back and forth.

She looks around the room, and realizing there are no chairs in sight, motions for the two to sit on the edge of her bed.

Finn sits immediately and Poe grudgingly perches next to him, barely stifling a yawn.

"So," Rey says, "what is it you've been meaning to tell me all this time?"

She's fairly certain she already knows. She's thought there was something stronger than mere intuition or luck that's been guiding him for a while. She's thought, at times, that she could feel it, that awareness that she herself has been trained to be so in tune with.

Still, she's filled with a certain awestruck wonder when he actually says the words out loud.

"I'm Force sensitive," he says.

She reflects his smile back at him.

"How long have you known?"

"I wasn't sure until recently, but I think maybe some part of me has always known, from the minute I defected from the First Order. I think it's what drew me away from there. And what drew me to you," he turns to look at Poe. "To both of you."

She did so much of the talking yesterday, it feels nice to be the one listening this time around. Rey leans back and lets the men regale her with a step-by-step breakdown of everything that happened from the time they started tracking her flight in Luke's X-Wing to the moment they knew they'd won the battle.

Finn talks at length about how fearless Poe had been even in the face of defeat, Poe tells Rey about Finn's brilliant idea for a ground attack. She listens as they debate minor details — which ship showed up when, if Rose went left or if she went right and Jannah went left, exactly how large that final explosion was — and she feels, not for the first time, incredibly grateful that somehow, somehow, they all survived.

She asks a few questions here and there, fills in holes whenever they're not quite sure what happened or how. But for the most part, she just listens and enjoys their presence.

They talk long enough for a small shaft of light to filter in from under the door, until Rey is certain that the sun is shining brightly overhead above all the other, ridiculously fortunate people who lived to see the end of the battle.

They talk and talk and she's fairly certain they would continue talking for the rest of the day, but Maz throws the door open, bringing with her, as Rey suspected, the bright light of early afternoon.

"I have been looking everywhere for you two," she scolds Finn and Poe before turning her attention to Rey, "and you are supposed to be resting."

"I am resting, I haven't left this bed all day," Rey protests.

Maz's disapproving stare is all the motivation Rey needs to make her slide down a little deeper into bed.

"Out, out now," Maz shoos Finn and Poe out of the room, when she notices them making no moves to leave. "If I don't get a chance to check up on her, then she won't get a chance to be cleared and I'll have to keep her here indefinitely."

The thought of even one more night in this small room, isolated from everyone else, not able to see or talk to her friends, or Ben…

"Get out and let me prove to Maz that I am perfectly okay," Rey snaps at Finn and Poe, who are still standing in the doorway.

The two men leave and Maz sets to work checking Rey's temperature, examining her vital signs.

"I am perfectly okay, yes?" Rey asks after several silent seconds.

"You seem to be," Maz says.

"Then why did I collapse yesterday?"

"You were up for almost forty-eight hours with no sleep, no food, you fought in a battle, and — as I understand it — died, came back to life, and brought someone else back to life. It's a wonder you didn't collapse sooner."

"So I was just tired? Doesn't this seem like a bit of an overreaction then?"

"It does," Maz finally stops her ministrations to look Rey in the eye. "But I wanted to make sure it was just exhaustion and nothing to do with your connection to Ben Solo. Considering the fact that you're already awake—"

"How is he?" Rey can feel her heart pounding in her chest. She'd been doing such a good job of not worrying all morning, but just hearing his name is enough to bring it all back.

"We already set his leg and you are not going to heal it for him until your strength is all the way back up."

Rey pushes herself up and peels off the layers of blankets that have been shrouding her.

"Where is he?"

"The other private room, but— sit back down!"

Rey stands, clutching the side of the bed, all of her muscles shaking, for another second in what she hopes is a show of reluctance. In truth, she would have sat down without being told — she didn't realize how much energy she would expend just by jumping out of bed.

She lowers herself back down with false hesitancy but genuine frustration.

"There's no point tiring yourself out to go see someone who's still comatose."

"He hasn't woken up yet?"

It's an odd mix of sensations that Rey is feeling. On one hand, her heart has dropped all the way down to her stomach at the news that he's still out. But on the other hand, the tight knot that her stomach had tied itself into at the sound of his name is loosening.

Rey's not sure what face she's making, but it must be concerning enough for Maz to take a step toward her and inject a little more care into her typically matter-of-fact way of speaking.

"Aside from the injuries, he seems to be fine too. Finn told me the abbreviated version of what happened to you out there. It seems like Ben sustained deeper injuries than you did, but there's nothing to be worried about yet."

"He shouldn't have to be alone," Rey swallows the lump in her throat.

"Chewbacca hasn't left his side. And I've been checking on him regularly."

"You'll tell me when he wakes up?"

"I have a feeling you'll already know."

Rey takes a deep breath, and it feels just as good as that first deep breath did hours and hours ago. Perhaps the mere ability to breathe will never seem like less than a miracle to her for the rest of her life, she thinks.

She takes another deep breath just because she can, letting it out on a slow exhale and marveling at the way her heart rate slows when she does it.

Maz watches, and it strikes Rey that perhaps Maz also thinks it's a miracle she's still breathing.

"Get some more rest. I'd like to keep you here one more night, but you're free to walk around the base whenever you feel up to it."

Maz makes her way back to the door, then stops and turns to look at Rey one more time, the faintest hint of a smile ghosting across her face.

"You're not the only one who's glad to have him here," Maz says softly. "I was there, with Leia when she left this world. And I do believe she did it, trusting that there would be people who were glad that her son has finally returned home."