AN: Thanks once again to everyone who reads and reviews! Sorry this chapter took a little longer than usual – it was pretty hard to write.

"Without a Heart"

By EsmeAmelia

Chapter 19

"Rey! No!"

Luke's cry was lost on his daughter as she charged at Ben and their lightsabers clashed again. Han could only stare at the son he had lost and the niece he was losing. "Ben! Rey!" he called again, but his tiny rasp of a voice went either unheard or ignored. He ground his teeth, wishing he could walk, wishing he could talk sense into them, wishing he could do something.

Suddenly Luke jumped up the steps, landing parallel to the fighting cousins and thrashing his lightsaber between their blades. "ENOUGH!" he shouted.

"Stay out of this," Rey hissed.

Ben gave his uncle an amused look. "Luke Skywalker. Did you get tired of sitting on an empty planet?"

"Both of you, stop this," Luke said in a surprisingly calm tone.

"He needs to die!" Rey snarled. "If no one else has the guts to kill him, I will!"

"Rey, ENOUGH!" Leia shouted as she ran up the stairs, staring at her son, blinking at him as if she wondered if he was real. "Ben . . ."

Even with his heart missing, Han felt his chest tighten. The confrontation on the bridge . . . the moment of hope before his near-death . . . was Leia heading there now? "Leia!" he called out as best he could, but once again his cry went either unheard or ignored.

Still frozen in a battle stance, Ben sneered at his mother. "Leia Organa. Why are you here?"

"I came for my husband – and for my son," said Leia in the determined voice Han knew so well. "I want my family back together. We all do."

"Well," Ben snapped, "it looks like the whole family is together." His glare now turned to his father, his breath heaving. "Are you happy, Han Solo?"

"Ben," said Han, "I'll say it again, come home."

Rey's breath heaved through her teeth like a predator about to leap. "HOW can any of you invite him back home after what he did to Han?"

Luke kept his lightsaber between the other two, a barricade separating them. "Rey, just stop."

"HOW can you say that?" Rey screamed. "Don't you remember how he killed your wife?"

Luke sighed, but his stance didn't waver. "Yes, I remember."

Han wrapped his arm tighter around Chewie's neck. "Chewie, take me closer to them."

[No,] Chewie immediately responded.

"C'mon Chewie . . ."

[I'm not losing you again!]

Han would have sighed if he'd been able. The Wookiee's top priority had always been protecting him. "Chewie, please," he persisted. "I need to talk to them." He gazed up at his long-time friend. "He needs his family."

Chewie gave a slight growl that Han couldn't exactly make out, but he thought he heard the Wookiee words for "stubborn" and "foolish" in there.

"C'mon, buddy," said Han. "I got you to protect me this time, don't I?"

Finally the Wookiee nodded – hesitantly, but still he nodded. He wrapped his arms as tightly around Han as he could without disturbing the breathing machine and headed for the steps, where Rey and Ben were still frozen in their battle stances as if each were waiting for the other to make a move and Luke and Leia were still begging them to stop it.

"Ben, listen to me," Leia was saying, her voice steadier than Han's had been on the bridge. "It's not too late to turn back. I know your father's been talking to you – didn't anything he said matter?"

"No," Ben responded in a quick, automatic voice. "He is nothing, just like you are nothing!"

"Ben . . . sweetheart . . ."

"HOW CAN YOU CALL HIM THAT?" Rey screamed loudly enough to echo around the room.

"Rey," Luke said in a firm, calm voice, "I know you're feeling a lot of anger – I've felt it too – but you need to fight it."

"Rey," said Han, "enough. You think killin' him's gonna fix me? Or bring back your mom? Or turn back time so you weren't alone all those years?"

Rey snarled. "Do you think not killing him will stop him from killing others? How long have you been trying with him? How long have all of you been trying?"

Ben, meanwhile, was smirking as if this were all a big joke. "They are indeed pitiful, aren't they?" His head turned to face his father, though the rest of his body remained poised to block Rey's attacks. "Well Han Solo, here we are again. Father, son, mother, uncle, cousin. Perhaps you would all like to die together."

"You ain't gonna kill me again," Han found himself saying, though his stomach tightened as he did so. "You ain't gonna kill any of us. I know you, Ben."

"Ben is GONE!"

Han slightly shook his head, trying in vain to push memories of the bridge out of his head. "You're wrong. I know for sure you're wrong this time. You're scared, you're confused, but you're still our Ben deep down." He blinked at his son, his eyes moistening. "I'll never breathe again. I'll never smell again. My heart, hand, and foot are gone forever . . . but if you came back to us I'd be the happiest man in the universe." The little boy he loved danced around in his mind – literally danced, his tiny feet on Leia's feet, his hands clasped in his mother's, both of them laughing as they danced in a small circle to Han's clapping and off-key singing.

"Ben, you've read my mind," Han continued. "You know I'm tellin' the truth. The first words I ever said to you are still true – I love you, Ben."

After glancing from her husband to her son and back again, Leia stepped forward, close enough for Ben to slice through her if he chose, yet Han strangely wasn't afraid of that happening. Maybe it was the tiny bit of Force-sensitivity Ben said he had, but he felt like his wife was safe.

"Ben," she said in that same steady voice, reaching out and stroking his shoulder in a motherly fashion, "we all love you. Even with everything you've done to Han, to the Jedi, you're still my baby. I carried you in my womb and nothing can ever change that."

Ben said nothing – he only stared at his parents with those wide, uncertain eyes he'd had on the bridge.

"Ben," said Luke, "I'm sorry I failed as a teacher and an uncle . . . but I forgive you . . . and I'm sure if your aunt were alive she would forgive you too . . ."

Chewie roared that he could forgive Ben too – so long as he never hurt Han again.

Ben's gaze whipped around his family, his face looking almost frightened. The lightsaber trembled a bit in his hands, but he still said nothing.

Then he looked at his father with a single tear streaming down his cheek.

He might have said something, might have allowed the light side to take him back, but there was one family member who hadn't offered him forgiveness.

Rey suddenly let out a blood-curdling scream, similar to the screams Ben had given when Han had shown him memories. In the moment of guards having been let down, her lightsaber pushed Luke's aside.

And sliced through Ben's wrists.

"REY! NO!" Luke shouted as Ben's hands and lightsaber went flying and Ben cried out in pain. In sheer rage, she raised her lightsaber again, but her father grabbed her wrists from behind, preventing her from inflicting further damage.

"Rey, DON'T do this!" he yelled.

"He has to die!" she screamed, struggling in his grasp. "He has to die, he has to die, he has to die!"

Luke wrapped his arms around her from behind and gently deactivated her lightsaber. "Rey, come on . . . walk away while you still can . . . please . . . walk away . . ."

Suddenly, as if she only just realized what she had done, Rey stopped struggling and within a moment, her body started shaking and she sobbed heavily into her father's chest.

Meanwhile, Ben had collapsed on the stairs, blood pouring out of his wrists – Rey's cut had been far less clean than Ben's had been.

"BEN!" Leia shouted, instantly kneeling down next to him and ripping a strip of fabric from her pants leg. "Here son, hold still." She wrapped the fabric around his right stump, where the blood quickly soaked it up.

"Chewie, put me down," said Han, and for once Chewie didn't argue – he gently placed Han down on his son's other side. "Leia, here," he said quickly, offering the sleeve that covered his own stump.

Leia ripped off part of the sleeve and wrapped up Ben's other stump while Han stroked his son's sweat-drenched hair with his only hand. "It's gonna be okay, son," he whispered. "It's gonna be okay . . ."

Ben only looked up at his father, his face pale and trembling, his breath short and ragged.

Leia's commlink suddenly beeped, which she answered while keeping her other hand on her son's stump. "Yes?"

"General Organa," said Poe's voice, "we're here!"

"Good," said Leia. "Trace my signal here and sweep the area for Snoke. We have Ky . . . we have my son here and he is in need of medical attention. Hurry!"

"Copy that, General," said Poe.

Several minutes passed with the only sounds being Rey's sobs, Han's breathing machine, and Ben's shallow gasps. It appeared that he was struggling to remain conscious as his eyes flitted between his parents. Han kept stroking his hair, trying to ignore the fact that Ben hadn't actually returned to them.

Finally Poe and several other Resistance members came rushing in with a stretcher hovering between them and 3PO and R2 trailing behind them.

". . . it appears that General Solo must have been in some terrible predicament," 3PO was telling him. "Why he might have even . . . oh my, what has happened here?"

The soldiers lifted Ben up and placed him on the stretcher, where his eyes finally closed, though Han couldn't tell whether or not he had actually passed out.

"Be careful with him!" Leia ordered. "Be careful!"

"We will, General," said Poe. He glanced down at Han. "So . . . how are you alive?"

Han couldn't answer. He could only stare after his son.