The rose quartz stone represents eternal love, and it is generally regarded to have the healing power to resolve anger and disappointments. Ancient Greek myth tells of the stone receiving its color from the blood Aphrodite spilt in attempt to save her dying mortal lover Adonis. Both lovers bled over the stone, and its lasting stain is meant to represent eternal love.
Ben navigates them to an abandoned landing dock from the Old Republic era. He knows this planet well – its influence on him both soothing and nostalgic. She can feel it and this ever refining connection between them slowly precipitates from compassion and joy to rage and frustration in the light of his attack on the Dreadnought. Rey would otherwise pay attention to the seemingly endless green forests of emerald and the outlines of rose quartz carved city bathed in descending sun, but now she has only one single thought on her mind.
Poe has seen that expression already. One she had in battle or during the training with her quarterstaff, desperate to imagine the feel of Luke's light-saber in her hands. He learnt to love that gaze, like everything else on her.
So it is no surprising he finds some satisfaction when, upon landing, he hears a resounding sound of a slap behind his back and her threatening voice, sort of joyous low growl.
Pity he couldn't see it for himself, since he was preoccupied with assessment of damage done on "Falcon". The old junk became something of a great metaphor for his own self.
"If you try something like that ever again, I'll kill you myself".
Small smile forms on Ben's face – something almost apologetic and innocent about it. And just a small shade that flees over his face, but she doesn't detect it as she is overwhelmed with relief and wild joy.
Finn and Poe would personally still break open his skull, when presented with the chance, and Chewie… he is just torn apart. He was here before, and many times at that. He remembers acutely, which is not a surprise since chewbaccas are well known for their superior memory.
Don't embrace me – they're watching. You'll put yourself at odds with everyone else.
Rey, no - .
But the deed is already done. It's awkward and she has to climb all the way up to the tip of her toes, and he's painfully reluctant, but he doesn't recoil.
And it is a small victory on the part of the Light, Rey thinks.
In secrecy and in the dark recesses of her mind, she would dwell on the moment just after they defeated the Praetorians. With hall enshrouded in deadly calm, she could almost pretend they were the only remaining people in the galaxy. Rey imagined herself slowly approaching, climbing on tip of her toes so she might be at the same level with his face and embracing him with both her arms slowly and carefully. But she felt the touch would be too much for both of them to bear. She couldn't trust him, not quite. And he would have recoiled from her touch, she could sense it clearly. He almost jumped out of his own skin in that moving elevator. The wounds he suffered at Snoke's hands are deep.
His cheek sores. She really didn't spare him. Little more force than that, and she'd probably break his nose. But the skin gives in – the old wound is faintly bleeding where it's the thinnest. It is just one endless haze - the mortal dread and confusion to the point of insanity the moment she realized he wants to end his life, colliding with the dreadnought.
"Rey", Poe clears his throat and snaps her from her incoherent thoughts. "Chewie wants an apology for what you said before".
She blinks. She really can't remember. Everything is just one endless haze.
"The ship", Poe grins. "It's not quicker than the "Falcon". The poor guy is hurt".
The thing isn't really that funny, but something inside Rey snaps and she is on her backside, laughing frenziedly. Snorting and laughing, tears rolling from both sides of her face – her laughter so infective that even Poe's thoughts of licking Ben's brain matter dissipate like dust in the wind. He smirks, partially proud on his own joke that made her laugh so wildly.
She is filled with unbridled joy. At this point, she thinks she could punch her fist right through the First Order, to their very last Supremacy class battleship and defeat them all in one single blow.
"Come", Ben says eventually, struggling to smile (but the grimace is like a rusted device, it won't move again so easily after years of neglect). "They didn't detect us, but I don't know what to expect once we get to the… house".
On their way through to there, Rey recognizes there is more to this – to everything that happened, and he knows again more than he's conveying. She finds herself striding compliantly after him, like a pupil after her peer. Had they somehow managed to be at the Jedi academy at the same time, their everyday would probably feel exactly like this. Him, filtrating the information for her to process, and her, pestering him with her nerd-like inquisitiveness, scrambling at her feet behind him.
She smiles. Darkness is all but forgotten now.
And it's not only that. She understands by now that, the same way every kyber crystal has its own hidden life, every single planet acts as one unique living being with its own character and life. Naboo reverberates with warmth and nostalgia, with promise of things unfolding and with hope – but there is a permeating sadness in this place, as well. This planet resisted long and stubborn against the Empire, and then against the First Order. It fell, and then it rose again, and then the wheel was spun once again. There was inherent stamina to this place – a kind of invincible life-giving energy that can't be snuffed out.
It is now in the hands of the First Order, ever since the Hosnian cataclysm. But the First Order's rule here is uncertain, to her amazement and much delight. She senses the planet is full of living and breathing resistance. It doesn't matter they didn't appear on Crait – the very fact they exist breathes new hope.
"Poe", she turns to the general. "What are your intels on this place?"
He practically re-formulates her exact thoughts from before: a remaining core of the Resistance, full of sympathizers and "sleepers" – many friends and loyal acquaintances of the late General Organa still alive, at least according to their not-so-distant information. He again has to concur with Ben Solo.
Wait, did he say: Ben Solo?
"Poe", Rey raises her eyebrows and her expression lights up.
"It is just a slip of the tongue, kid", he grunts back, but can't bear for her to lose that enthusiasm. (He should rise above this bunch of kids, Poe thinks. His approaching 35th birthday should feel differently, not like this hectic running around the galaxy following the conflicted man-child of his late chief commander and he dares say, late friend.)
"It's here", Ben whispers back at them mixing anticipation and relief and sadness.
Chewie makes a low growl.
"I know, uncle Chew…" Ben whispers back almost automatically and bites on his lip. The beast's growl turns to a long, sad wail.
"The Stormtroopers", Ben swallows hard and whips his head back to where that sound comes, discernible only to him and Chewie.
"Leave it to me", he says and strides out in the open with little too much eagerness.
"You will proceed with your patrol and leave the house unwatched", he says in a low, authoritative tone.
Rey holds her breath. With the wear and tear of the battle, crumpled, dressed in that mishmash of stolen First Order uniforms and with their battered, out-dated blasters, a freely walking Chewbacca notwithstanding, they really look as conspicuous as anyone in the galaxy. A child would recognize Resistance from afar, not a dozen of well trained Stormtroopers.
He is still so proud and so arrogant. Hadn't he outstretched himself, drunk with the victory over the Dreadnought? She doesn't question his powers, she only questions if it is possible to subdue twelve men with Force all at once, and after all they've already been through.
Rey clenches her fists around her blaster. She really needs her saber alive and well. She could almost wish it back to existence. She focuses on the approaching men instead and makes a mental count of them in her head. Ben's Force thickens around him and she sends her own initiative like millions of invisible fine threads there with him.
Never go without me, not ever again – do you hear me?
But he is focused and therefore much more efficient than she is.
The commanding Stormtrooper, the one who only seconds ago growled at him to state the reason of his visit, since he's dangerously close to the prohibited zone, now stands mute and absent-minded.
"We'll proceed with our patrol and leave the house unwatched", he repeats almost perfectly and his men follow him as he strides away.
They wait until the squadron is lost from their sight. Rey can feel Poe flexing behind her.
"Damn it", he murmurs.
Even Ben looks slightly taken aback with the fact it all went so easily.
"Come", he gestures at them all again.
There is a glistening wall reflecting the last remaining rays of setting sun. It is white marble painted with the pink hue of the sunset. Dark cypresses encircle the entrance. It hasn't been abandoned very long time ago, but it is left in the state of haste and confusion and hasn't been revisited ever since, parts of hospital equipment and broken data pads scattered on the sideway zigzagging up to the entrance.
Ben knows the code. It hasn't changed. Something nostalgic about it – he enters the digits with outmost care, like he wants to savor every second of it. The door opens with a soft click.
They're inside.