CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Two Hours Later

Rain on a planet like this is normal. It's mundane. To everyone else on the mission, it's a nuisance at best and a safety hazard at worst. But to a child of the desert like Rey, it's nothing short of a miracle.

The air fight was resolved quickly. The First Order's dwindling number had been no match for the Resistance, who had and maintained the upper hand through the whole ordeal. In a near impossible turn, they lost nobody and only one First Order transport ship managed to escape.

Rey had stood in a hallway on the Falcon the entire time. Poe and Chewie had manned the ship, Rose was on top of any engine issues they faced, Ben sequestered himself back in the room, no longer needed for this part of the mission. And Rey… just stood there.

But she's not in the hallway anymore.

Now that the Falcon is on solid ground and the fighting is over, Rey has found her way back outside and she's sitting on the cold metal exit ramp of the ship. Her clothes are soaked through with rain and sweat. Absently, she wrings the hem of her pants and watches a rush of water squeeze out.

She's shivering, but it's not from the rain. It couldn't be, because this chill is coming from the inside out, and the rain is practically warm anyway.

Rey shuts her eyes, trying to focus on the miracle of water falling from the sky, but her mind keeps flashing back to what she wants to think about the least. A sequence of events that couldn't have taken more than fifteen seconds from start to finish replays in slower and slower motion each time, focusing in excruciating detail on the blur of every tree she ran past, every drop of rain that fell on her face, every splatter of mud that flew onto her legs, every ounce of rage she'd felt.

None of it actually serves to clarify anything.

She hadn't meant to do it — she'd known that even as it was happening. But the more she thinks about it, the more she wonders if maybe, that's not completely true. If maybe, just the tiniest bit, she had meant it.

She squeezes her eyes closed even tighter and the sequence replays, faster this time and intercut with other images — a desert, a transport ship, Ben in all black staring at her across the vast expanse of sand. And through all of it — lightning.

The hollow thud of footsteps coming down the ramp pulls her back to the present.

"Hey," Rose's voice is cautious, softer than it usually is. Rey can't tell if it's from pity or fear. She's not sure which is worse. "Mind if I join you?"

Rey shakes her head. The ramp isn't really wide enough for them to sit side by side, but that doesn't seem to deter Rose. She walks down the ramp, past where Rey is sitting, turns around to face her, and sits down, craning her neck up a little to make eye contact.

"I'm starting to think none of us will be dry again until we leave this planet," Rose says. "Feels nice though. It's gonna suck if it stops raining. Humidity's the worst."

Rey nods. She wants to respond, knows it's rude not to, but she just can't find any words to say.

Fortunately that doesn't seem to bother Rose much.

"I didn't think a week would be enough time to get out of the swing of things, but that was kind of exhausting, huh?"

"It was," Rey says quietly. Her voice doesn't feel like it belongs to her.

"Well, hopefully we won't have too many more missions like this on the horizon."

Silence falls over the girls again.

Torrents of rain come down, slamming into already water-worn earth. Tree branches thrash under its assault. Thunder rumbles in the distance. No lightning.

Rose takes in a breath and Rey braces herself. This is the part where Rose will ask what happened out there, or worse, how she's feeling. Surely, this is where she'll steer the conversation to the questions she must have.

"Anyway," Rose continues, "one of the backup generators blew a fuse and I could probably use some help repairing it. Come and find me if you're game."

Rey nods again, too thrown off guard for words as a wave of appreciation for her friend swells through her.

Rose stands back up and walks back into the ship, squeezing Rey's shoulder as she passes by.

Rey shuts her eyes and flashes of light streak across her eyelids. Whether it's from the storm or from her memory, she doesn't know, nor does she care.

Rain streams down her face as the thunder rolls.

The storm is unrelenting. But at least there's an order to the weather — rain, lightning, thunder. At least there's a reasonable expectation that eventually the pattern will stop. There'd been no order to what she did out there, no reason to believe she would ever come to a natural stop. And if it's so easy to dive in so deep into something so wrong…

She can feel the Force and the rain swirl around her in equal measure. She focuses on nothing but her beating heart until the only thing she can feel is the rain.


Six Hours Later

Poe's been talking for what feels like a lifetime. They're all gathered in the main hold, listening intently as he goes over outcomes and outlines their plan for the rest of their time here.

Rey sits between Rose and Jannah. Ben still isn't cleared to sit in on briefings. She assumes he's in his room, but she's been actively blocking out the Force for hours, so she wouldn't really know.

The majority of the danger is gone. Now it's all a matter of politics.

Poe and Finn are heading back out in the morning to negotiate terms of surrender, but they only need a few more people to go with them.

Poe asks for volunteers.

Rey doesn't raise her hand.


Four Hours Later

It's not raining anymore and she misses it. The air is hot and thick as if all the rainwater suspended mid-air, condensed, and heated up.

Humidity's the worst, Rose had said.

Rose is wrong. Dry desert heat is the worst, but this is a close second.

But Rey doesn't miss the rain just for the way it broke up the suffocating air of the planet, but also for the noise it provided.

Everything is silent now, which might be okay under other circumstances, but Ben is standing beside her and he hasn't said a word since their night watch shift began fifteen minutes ago.

She could tap back into the Force, open their bond, and force a conversation if she wanted to. But so could he, and he hasn't. He has to feel that she's not connected to anything right now. He must be wondering why.

But he says nothing, so neither does she.

It's too cloudy to see any stars — the sky is a mottled mix of black and shades of grey. The clouds, already bloated again with water, break up the colors as they slowly drift through the sky. There's a beauty to the way it all blends and blurs together that she wishes she could appreciate. But it's all too much of a reflection of how she feels for it to be anything she really wants to look at. Those different shades of dark, blotting out whatever light should be shining against it.

This was supposed to be over. Getting rid of Palpatine was supposed to be the thing that eliminated all those parts of her she'd tried to keep hidden. Wasn't it? Wasn't that moment in Exegol supposed to be the moment that eradicated the darkness and replaced it with light? Wasn't it supposed to be some sort of turning point? Some accumulation of everything she'd learned and experienced over the past year?

So many times, this past week, she'd felt something so close to peace that she'd thought all the uncertainty, all the conflict was behind her. She'd been able to accept, even, that some little flecks of darkness existed in her as long as they remained dormant. And yet, all she's proven to herself today is that she's still just a live wire underneath it all, ready to give into aggression and rage at any moment.

She hadn't even had to think about it. It had just happened, and for the split second before she realized what she was doing — before the chilled terror flooded in — all she had felt was good. She'd felt powerful — not necessarily in control, but not as out of control as she'd like to let herself believe.

It's a frightening thought, but it's one that she can't get out of her head no matter how hard she tries. She's run it all through in her mind enough times to know that for a mindless, blazing instant, she had reveled in what she was doing.

Rey doesn't realize she's shaking until she feels Ben's warm, soft hand cover her entire shoulder.

"Cold?" he murmurs, just as softly as he's said all of his monosyllabic sentences since they ran onto the Falcon this afternoon. Just as gently as when he'd placed a hand on her back to guide her down the ramp when their shift began.

"I'm okay," she replies. It's a bit of a shock to hear her voice sound as normal and even as it does.

"Take this anyway."

Rey doesn't have time to protest before Ben's jacket — worn, gundark leather, certainly belonged to someone else before it was loaned to him as a starter wardrobe — is being lightly draped over her shoulders.

"I'll do a lap around the ship," Ben says.

He walks away before she can thank him.

Ben fades into the dark, the back of his head blending seamlessly with the ink black night. Rey has a sudden, clutching urge to ignite her lightsaber just to use its glow to see him for a few more seconds.

She could ask him why he held her hand on the walk through the ship, but couldn't look her in the eyes. Why he gave her his jacket without hesitation, but walked away from her just as easily.

She could open the bond and find out.

She doesn't.


Eight Hours Later

She's sweating when she wakes up.

Jannah and Rose are still deep asleep in their respective beds, having just come in from their watch a few hours ago, and Rey's glad for that.

She knows how she must have looked, jolting out of bed, wild-eyed and ready to attack, and that is decidedly not the image she wants to give off today.

She can't specifically remember falling asleep — just getting through her shift with Ben, him walking her to her bunk before whispering a quick goodnight and kissing her on the cheek. She'd been exhausted despite not doing much other than taking leisurely strolls around the Falcon. It had almost been as if the effort of keeping herself closed off from Ben had been more strenuous than anything else she'd done in the past week.

Maybe that was exactly the case.

She'd collapsed into bed, mind still running wild with worries and implications and when she'd closed her eyes, she'd seen flashes of light and thought there was no way she'd get any rest.

And technically, that's true. She went to sleep, but she didn't rest.

Her head feels too heavy and the room too cold.

When Rose wakes up, she'll ask if there are any repairs left to do.


Seven Hours Later

The fuse was easy to repair, but this is the Falcon — one problem begets another.

Now she and Rose are hunched over their own individual projects in the engine room. Nothing's so pressing that they actually need to fix it in any timely manner, but if the choice is between doing work and being left alone with her thoughts, work wins out by a landslide today.

This is the closest Rey's felt to being herself in the past day — a sheen of sweat on her forehead, hands getting increasingly dirty, arm hair singed in a few spots from wires that sparked.

She hasn't had to talk much aside from offering solutions and suggesting other parts of the ship that could use a tune up. That's fine. Rose talks enough for the both of them. She flits between stories about their other friends, and trouble she and her sister got up to growing up, and Maz's latest vague allusion to her storied romantic past with such engaging ease, Rey thinks Rose might have made an excellent entertainer in another life.

All Rey has to do is listen, and enjoy, and get her work done. It feels good to use her hands, to do something physical that creates more than it destroys. It's mindless work in the best way. Nothing but the problem in front of her exists. Nothing else matters.

So she doesn't take the time out to check if the bond between her and Ben is still open. She doesn't worry about the fact that she hasn't been able to feel him in over a day. It doesn't matter. Not right now.

Except — if she's being honest with herself — it does matter. Of course it does.

There's a screw loose on one of the panels. She really should tighten it.


Three Hours Later

Dinner is a lively affair. Finn, Poe, and company returned in the evening without incident, having successfully established new allies on the planet while eliminating the last of the threat. They're all leaving the planet in the morning and there's a palpable sense of relief. Everyone is more talkative, and more jovial, their smiles a little brighter than they've been since they left Ajan Kloss.

Almost everyone.

Sometime between when Rey and Rose had parted to freshen up for dinner and now, someone (Rose, she's almost certain, judging by the way Rose had offered him the seat between herself and Rey without a moment's hesitation when he walked in) had managed to actually coax Ben out of his room and convince him to eat with them.

He hasn't said a word through the entire meal — not that anyone's really addressed him directly. But they also haven't seemed uncomfortable at having him here, and even in Rey's distracted state, she's able to find herself thankful for that.

Still, it's disconcerting that he hasn't really spoken to her beyond a quick nod when she'd told him she was glad he was joining them all.

The bond between them is still closed, or broken for all Rey knows. She'd finally gathered the courage to tap back into the Force when they'd all sat down at the table. She'd thought that Ben might reach out through their connection if he was uncomfortable being in a group setting, looking to hold her hand metaphorically if not physically. She would have welcomed it. But he's kept to himself as much from her as everyone else. Unfailingly polite, exceedingly careful with his every move, yet separate.

He hasn't been like this around her in so long — has never really been like this around her, not even when they were enemies. Even then he'd been so open, so ready to be open with her. But now…

There's no use in hoping for other reasons anymore. The answer is clear. It must have been what he saw her do out there.

Poe calls for them to all raise their cups in a toast.

It must have reminded him of the person who destroyed his life, who he fought so hard to finally break free of. How could it not have reminded him of that?

And now that means that she reminds him of it, all of it, everything he's tried to leave behind. And here she is, not just bearing the same name from the same bloodline, but the same power as well.

She misses the end of the toast. Jannah taps her cup against Rey's and they all drink, so she must have missed it.

"… and you'll have to show Finn how you did that. He wouldn't shut up about that move all night last night," she hears Rose say.

Ben chuckles softly, faint color rising in his cheeks when he replies, "Maybe not right away, it's more on the advanced end of things."

"Well it did look pretty advanced."

It's funny, Rey thinks, how just a few days ago, Rose wanted nothing to do with Ben, and now here she is, inviting him to meals and making small talk.

At least she'd been right when she'd told Ben her friends are the forgiving type.


One Hour Later

Rey gets through the rest of dinner, smiling and laughing where appropriate, hoping her smile doesn't look as forced as it feels.

Everyone finally disperses for the night — Rose and Jannah to their watch shift and the rest to bed. Ben makes it to the doorway before Rey does, but he waits for her — a good sign — and together they walk through the corridors of the ship, back to Rey's bunk.

They're standing by the door, only a few inches apart but it feels like galaxies between them. She could reach out and touch him, she wants to, she almost does…

And then it happens.

The bond opens — she knows she didn't open it on purpose and he looks too surprised to have done it either, so this must have happened spontaneously, some quirk of the Force. But it doesn't matter. He can see everything in her head, everything she's thinking and feeling if he looks.

He doesn't.

Instead all he does is avert his eyes and mumble, "well, goodnight," to the floor.

And Rey's heart sinks.

And he turns to leave.

And she feels like she's drowning, and even though she knows that he's just walking to his room, it feels like he's walking away forever and something in her snaps and says she needs to say something now and it doesn't even feel like her own voice when she says, "Ben, wait."

He stops immediately.

"Come back here?" she says.

He comes back. She waits until he's standing right in front of her before she speaks again, partly because she's searching for the right words to say. She can't seem to find them.

"Was there something you needed, Rey?" he asks, still speaking as quietly as he did at dinner.

"You can't leave yet," she blurts out.

Ben finally looks her in the eye, his brow furrowed.

"Well of course not, those were the terms of—"

"No, I don't mean the Resistance. Well I do. I don't want you to leave them either, but if you want to leave, you can't do it yet."

"Why would I— I don't want to leave. But if you want me to—"

"Why in the world would I want you to?"

Ben sighs and looks away. She can feel his unease through the bond — thank goodness it's back — and can tell just how badly he doesn't want to say whatever he's about to say.

"Because," he says before he shuts his mouth and works his jaw. "Because of yesterday."

She moves on instinct and before he can move away, she's grabbed his hand.

All of a sudden, moments from the past day flash through her mind, but it all looks different. The edges blur, the angle is higher than she's used to, she herself features in most of the moments. So this is through his point of view, then.

She watches him meet her at her room to start their night shift. She feels his confusion at finding she'd cut herself off from the Force. She sees the wary glances she'd given him out of the corner of her eye, her nerves sitting next to him at dinner, his inability to find her all day, the way she'd flinched just a little when he'd put his hand on her back.

Rey pulls away. Ben is once again not looking at her, but she can see the tears in his downcast eyes.

"Will you come in?" she motions to the room. "It seems we have a bit to discuss."


Twenty Minutes Later

One of the biggest perks of the bond is that — when they're both willing — it makes it very easy to communicate.

It doesn't take long for them to figure out where they each went wrong in their assumptions from the past day.

"You seemed so shaken when we got back onto the ship," Ben explains. He's sitting on her bed, clutching her hand like he thinks she'll run away if he lets go. "I know what I'm like in a battle. I thought you saw me and remembered how I was… before… and it was just too similar. Too much to accept."

"Why didn't you just ask me?" she says.

"I planned to. When we lifted off, I thought maybe you just needed some space. And I was more than happy to give it to you — as much as you needed. But then our watch started and I realized you'd completely shut me out. My mind went to the worst."

"But even when the bond opened back up, you still—"

"I thought I already knew what I'd see in your mind," he hangs his head. "It's the same reason I couldn't look you in the eye all day. I didn't want to see it. Everything's felt too good to be true and I thought maybe if I just didn't look, I could hold on to it being that way for just a little bit longer. Because I thought I knew that when I looked, it would be over, and I'd know that you'd finally seen it. That same thing in me that…"

Whether he's unwilling or unable to finish that sentence, Rey's not sure. But it doesn't really matter. She knows what he was going to say. She knows the end of that sentence.

He thought she'd finally seen the same thing in him that his parents and Luke saw. He thought she'd react the same way. She knows without him having to say it.

Because she can feel it rolling off of him in waves in a way it hasn't since they first left Exegol. Hiding underneath it all is still that fear. Fear that she'll remember everything he's done and tell him to leave. Fear that whatever spell is holding her to him will break, and when it does she won't want to look at him or speak to him ever again. Fear that she'll send him away.

And she knows, now even better than before, that he would go the second she told him to.

"Ben, I want to make something very clear. I'm not scared of you. I've never been scared of you, even when I maybe should have been. I've never felt safer than when you were fighting by my side, and that didn't change just because you got aggressive on a battlefield."

Ben lets out a deep, shuddering breath.

"Then you should know it's no different for you," he says.

"That is different though." Rey tries to pull her hand away but he just holds on tighter.

It seems foolish now, to think they'd be able to focus the entire conversation on him. She should have known that some way or another they'd get around to addressing her side of things, considering the fact that he saw her version of the day's events at the same time she saw his.

She looks away, unable to hold his gaze. She expects him to keep holding onto her hand, to coax the words out of her that he must know are in her mind.

Instead he pulls away, and for one brief second she thinks he's going to drop the whole thing.

Until he moves so his back is against the wall. He pulls her to him until she's caged between his legs, back against his chest, his arms wrapped tight around her stomach.

"Okay," he says, pressing his lips to her hair, "if you can't tell me, tell the wall."

"Ben this is ridiculous. Obviously I'd still be telling you."

"Try it anyway," he gives her middle a gentle squeeze.

Ben doesn't say anything else. She feels him breathing behind her and after a few moments she realizes she's synced her breathing with his. Their chests rise and fall in unison. Warmth spreads through the bond.

She stares at the smooth, blank wall, and suddenly her mind is anything but that. There are so many places to start, so many feelings and fears all swirling together. She doesn't know what to make of any of it — until she does. Until one specific thought swims to the forefront of her mind and sticks there, refusing to go away until it's spoken out loud. Her eyes brim with tears.

"You said I have his power," she chokes out.

Ben stops breathing.

"That was misguided on my part," he says finally.

"But it's true. You saw it out there on Pasaana and we saw it again yesterday."

"Rey, lightning didn't just belong to Palpatine. Theoretically anyone could—"

"Not anyone. Not a Jedi." She takes a deep breath and steels herself to say the thing that's steadily been creeping into her mind, despite her efforts to ignore it all day. "He said he wanted me to kill him. He said that would transfer what he was to me. And I did kill him. And I thought that was the right thing to do, but what if it wasn't? What if it amplified whatever was already wrong with me?"

"Rey, you're not like him. You know you're not." Ben's head drops to her shoulder. His lips graze her shoulder. "And there's absolutely nothing wrong with you. You don't have his power, you have your own power. And what he did with his has no bearing on what you do with yours."

"I did the wrong thing out there. That's not the way a Jedi is supposed to behave. I'm not supposed to be angry, I'm not — I'm not supposed to feel, I'm supposed to be at peace."

He doesn't say anything for so long she thinks maybe she's stumped him. Maybe she's won this argument — although winning would look a lot like losing in this case.

Then he takes a deep, steady breath.

"Maybe," he says carefully, "that's been the problem for a long time — for longer than either of us has been alive, I mean. Giving into rage and fear never ends well. I'll be the first to admit that. But maybe choosing to feel nothing and calling it peace is just as dangerous."

His words linger in the air. The rain must have started back up again. A crack of thunder sounds from somewhere far away. Ben's heart beats against her ear.

"Maybe the balance is somewhere in between?" she whispers.

Ben turns his head and kisses her cheek.

"I think both of us will be able to find it."