Rey comes to the place where they left the TIE silencer the night before. Although it's hard to orientate on this planet since skies are overcast and foggy, it somehow unmistakably smells of morning, fresh and new.
Both doors are wide open and only now she realizes all its brutal and preposterous size and shape. His engineers deliberated on the design for a long time. The wings look like they are carved in obsidian, although she never saw one – but she somehow knows what they were going for. Say what you will about the First Order, but they have their esthetics all planned out.
"Come", she hears his voice from the inside. She got used to these one-liners.
The ship still smells like Dagobah swamp, which is a silly thing, she thinks. It's almost like it was being ritually cleansed from the First Order. And the windows are still misty. Her first impulse is to clean them with her wrapped elbow. She hates stained technology – probably an old habit instilled by Unkar.
"Let it go", he says again. "Look at the engine".
The main control panel to the engine shows the line of fuel slowly ascending to steady 25%.
"It's all there is", he says. "I poured all of them in. If we don't use the guns or the energy shields, we can go as far as Bespin or Utapau".
Or Tatooine, she thinks but stays still. She gleans for a moment.
"What about the communications? I can tell Chewie to pick us up. "Falcon" can jump: I over-rode the hyper-drive module with…"
The moment of her engineering exaltation soon wanes as she sees his expression.
"You honestly thing the creature would let me onboard the ship? Or let me anywhere near him, for that matter?"
"You saw what happened on Coruscant. They covered for me. They didn't abandon me".
"Oh, I do not underestimate wookie's loyalty: he has that in abundance. But did he know who where you with on this ship, or he just presumed you stole the craft to make one of your partisan points"?
She halts – she hasn't had the chance to think it through. She simply supposed that Poe communicated to Chewie what has happened, but what if communication was broken between them as soon as that mayhem broke out in the streets?
He rubs the misted windows with his glove and the dim light of the planet intensifies in the cockpit.
"Rey", he says, lowering his tone. "I know how to fix the blade. Why hasn't your Resistance helped you with it? Why hasn't your Master come when you needed him the most?"
Rey almost gasps.
"They couldn't allow me to go to Ahch-to because… because we have no ships, Ben", she exclaimed the universally known truth. "Everything was intended for quick evacuation. I couldn't leave all those people behind – they need me. And a Jedi isn't his saber, after all".
She finds it too painful to talk to him about Luke. Because if she did, she'd see only Kylo Ren in him, not Ben – Rey doesn't know what tugs at her heart more, the absence of her teacher or Ben Solo unredeemable.
He turns to look at her and there is almost a faint cynical smile forming on his lips.
(Rey finds that small grimace unsettling.)
"You don't need them, Rey", he says. "You don't need anyone's permission to do what needs to be done. And you need your saber. You know you do. Jedi nonsense aside, it's the best weapon the galaxy has even given birth to. No one replicated its technology except for the Sith, and Jedi. And now, it's only the two us left".
Rey goes one step back. Not another offer, not this again – but he does have a point. She feels incomplete without Luke's saber. The kyber core is alive, she can attest to it, but it is hibernating ever since their tug of war in the Throne Room.
Rey clenches her fist around the quarterstaff she used as a walking stick (and to remove the small crawling pest from her path – she doesn't intend to squash them).
For the first time in these two days, she becomes acutely aware that he still has his saber with him, his blaster gun and the knowledge of the ship he basically created. She only has her blaster gun, no ammunition and her old quarterstaff.
He is completely aware that he has the higher ground here – but only in here.
"Ben", she swallows hard and her voice almost breaks. "Don't do this, Ben. Don't go there again".
"Rey", his answer is an unexpected one. "Force brought us here. It didn't pull us to Hoth, or to Kashyyk or to Sullust or wherever it is that your rebels flee to. It brought us here with a purpose. It connected us on Coruscant with a purpose. I am not going anywhere – I am simply drawn to conclusions".
Even the tips of her earlobes now burn – this is awkward. This is beyond awkward. This feels intimate and true. And outrageous – he almost sounds like a fully fledged Jedi – almost.
He sees all her confusion all at once and makes yet another unprecedented move: he removes the saber from its scabbard and offers it to her. Rey looks down on the saber with shock: the saber murmurs peacefully to her. She remembers. Too much rage, too much of a Dark Side, but it yielded to her once. It wants to yield again.
"Here", he says. "Take it. I don't want to harm you, Rey. Not you. Not ever".
"Except on Crait", she exclaims bitterly, and that awkward moment finally snaps.
He shakes his head.
"No", he whispers. "No. I didn't".
She waves her hand at him, exasperated.
"It doesn't matter now, anyway".
She's gone. They're all gone.
But he does have a point – again. His mindless rage at "Falcon" aside, he had enough time to command his troops to go back to the shuttle and follow "Falcon" from Crait. He could've sent TIE fighters' in swarms after them. But he let them go – and she didn't ask herself why not even once ever since.
Either way, she was a fool for believing he would snap from the Dark Side just like that – but the Throne Room was so exalting, so enticing and felt so right. He could sense it too.
It just wasn't enough.
"Keep it", she says dryly and moves the saber away from herself. Perhaps this is exactly what he predicted it would happen – she would refuse it anyway, but the offer might make him look better. He still was a dark apprentice in a way – he was familiar with the ways of deception. He even managed to deceive Snoke, so why wouldn't he be able to deceive her as well?
But he again appears strangely undeterred. He lowers the saber gently on the pilot's seat.
"Consider it", he says. "The communication pod is ready. I left you the instructions how to scramble the signal".
"Where are you going?" She looks at him with dismay as he stalks away from the ship.
"Talk to your Resistance", he retorts. "I need to find another place. We'll meet here in two hours or however long you need to track your friends".
She follows him with her gaze until he disappears behind the dense wall of trees.
Stranger things, she thinks.