Coruscant is filled with First Resistance banners and with troops and with citizens. The city is ancient, decadent and strong in both sides of the Force. A strange place – a beautiful, but crumbling former capital. It becomes him, in a way.
Rey sniffs the air from under her hood. Stench of mechanical oil, of dust and of dirt. The skyscrapers soaring high, almost touching the belly of the Supremacy class ship hovering above it.
Even she is awe-struck for a moment how opulent the celebration is. The air vibrates with military trumpets and yells. Confetti fall on her like snow and dissipate into a myriad of fireflies – an optical illusion created from salt crystals. There will be fireworks later, and light sculptures – rare, delicate and hard to come by.
But as the small group of rebels ploughs their way through the celebrating crowd, Rey feels the leash is pulled tighter. She picks up someone's gloating sneer. She almost hears the murmurs of the treacherous generals.
She almost feels sorry for Kylo Ren.
He did this for her. He was confounded by his Master's manipulation as much as she was. They were fed with what they wanted to see – she saw him turned, the very image of Ben Solo resurrected that made her heart quicken. He was fed with whatever it was he wanted to see – her, turned? But how?
If it wasn't for her, he wouldn't be here. In a way, her actions precipitated this.
If only you came with me. Stopped the holocaust. Joined me. Why haven't you?
Sometimes, in her sleep, she reiterates that joyful outcome – him, stopping the slaughter of evacuation caravan from the communication pod in the Throne Room, buying the small fleet time to escape, saving all those unnecessarily lost lives. Him, running from that accursed place with her. Him, joining them at Crait with hands held high, trying to convince the Resistance to trust him. Him, finally re-united with his mother.
Soft light falls on Crait, not much unlike that soft light she saw in her mind's eye on Coruscant. They land his shuttle like it's nothing more than a dry leaf on light breeze. The Resistance is in dismay – they want to shoot at the enemy, but see her running their way.
"Don't shoot!" She screams, her tone betraying unbridled joy.
Leia. Leia comes forth from the shadows of the almost closed vast door. Poe advices her against it, but she gestures at him as to reassure him.
She walks out slowly. His own steps slow almost to a hold. They exchange voiceless words long before she embraces him, like they did a long time ago, when he was but a child looking to be comforted after a nightmare that sent him crying. (Had he been dreaming of this waking nightmare of his life instead of ogres and specters even then?)
He has to lean in. He has to lower himself so that little woman can embrace him and land a kiss on his scarred cheek.
He is finally at home. Ben is finally at home.
The impression is so strong and so heart-wrenching it makes her cry every single time as she wakes up, pillow soaked with her pure tears.
But it never came to pass – he obliterated the planet, and Leia has died.
Luke has died. Dead heroes everywhere, and now, dead leaders too.
Sometimes, the hope is what kills people. The expectation of the things that will never come to be. (She dreams of this much more often than of her killing him with Luke's saber – this never brings the relief she craves for. No peace in a massacre.)
It is this strange place – she can feel the Force swirling, the Dark Side and the Light dancing in the air like these annoying, beautiful glittering confetti. Swaying her left and right.
Enjoy the slaughterhouse? Help him? Leave him to the fate he chose?
But she remembers that gaze he gave to Snoke's corpse. He was burying his past. Burying his former loyalty – he isn't a born traitor, she sensed it acutely. Snoke's death pained him, regardless of how much he realized the creature was a monster that would, in the end, use him for his powers.
She even sees Han Solo's death differently now – he was conflicted until his father's very last heart-beat and beyond that. He really was struck in the middle and torn in half, like that Prime Jedi mosaic in Ahch-to. But the creature bridled both the Dark and the Light Side. It meditated peacefully between the opposites. And Ben... Ben was torn apart.
Ben was not free.
She is frozen when it's her time to plant the bomb at the side of the prototype. First she volunteered eagerly (Poe even winked and said: "For the rebellion"). But now, the time holds to a standstill. Poe's voice in her audio device becomes a white noise, a static.
The Force connects her to another sound. It comes from the top of 100 stories high Imperial building some few hundred meters in front of her. There is a squadron of Stormtroopers mere feet from her, controlling the flow of the citizens on the sidewalks.
„Kylo Ren, I arrest you on the behalf of the First Order, for crimes committed against our late Leader and against our leadership; for the survival of the First Order and the restoration of the galaxy..."
She is too far away and he is too far gone. He won't go without a fight, but it's all futile from the start. There are simply too many of them, and no allies – only murderers and trained soldier-slaves.
The prototype crawls slowly past her as she finally snaps out of her daydream. She discards the bomb at that nearest squadron of Stormtroopers, storms the fighter and using the utter confusion in the streets (her comrades not an exception), she flies the fighter right up to that vast balcony that serves as a landing pod as well.