They had been on their way to Ahch-To, so it was easy to be dropped off there. It seemed to make sense; it was both "the most un-find-able place in the galaxy" and the place where Rey's connection to Kylo had slid into place. Finn hadn't made it easy on her; in fact, he'd flat-out refused to let her go – until he had seen, beneath her fear, that something in her desired it. He held her at arm's length for a moment, considering her determined expression, before folding her into a tight embrace. Rey felt the fierceness of his love for her – each counted the other as a first friend outside the lives of lonely torment they had led until so recently – and returned it warmly. As uncertain as she felt of what she was doing and as little as she understood about the path before her, she could feel that Finn believed she was doing the right thing. Everyone aboard the Falcon was a hero now, including Finn, and as they had sat in the hold recounting the past few days to one another before arriving on the island, they had come to a joint realization that their shared purpose was not going to lead them down the same path. Fortunately, they also sensed that even across the galaxy they would be working together.
But Finn's objections were small compared to what she had felt from the rest of the crew. Seasoned fighters, they had weathered incredible loss in the past months. Their faith in the Force, in the Light, their gratitude toward her and hope for what lay ahead, was not enough to conceal their despair at Leia's departure. They had gathered all together once more, and Leia had presented her plan. Muted gasps erupted throughout the room; Poe would not meet her eye. Indeed, Poe had barely spoken to her; after a brief and private conference with Leia, from which he'd emerged with wet eyes and a brutal scowl, he'd spent the intervening hours consulting with the rest of the crew. They were splitting up; some still had homes to go to, but most had no other life to which they could return. They were committed – and scared. It wasn't the end of the Resistance, but it was the end of something just as important: their family. She felt herself inside it, surrounded by all the belonging that she'd wanted. But amidst the whispers, tears, and hugs that echoed around her, Rey found herself an outsider still. The family she had wanted was being torn apart. Her power, her connection to their enemy – it was destroying them.
When the time came, Leia hadn't made much of her own goodbye. She had stood silently, looked each survivor in the eye, and turned away. Rey felt awkward helping her down the ramp onto the wet rocks below. Chewie bellowed with almost parental irritation as he herded a few stowaway porgs off the ship behind them. Rey had noted, in the hours since their cockpit conference, that although Leia's light had grown brighter she had withdrawn a bit. She seemed remote; an odd peace had settled over her. She was unsteady on her feet, and Rey felt oddly protective of her as they stood on the steps winding up the hillside, watching the Falcon depart into a cloudy sky.
In her satchel, Rey carried the Jedi texts, purloined from Luke, to be returned to the island's temple – and the two halves of Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber. She smiled softly to herself and turned to support the General beside her. One hand at her back, the other holding her wizened hand, Rey slowly made her way up the hill with Leia Organa.
The island's caretakers were none too pleased to see her, and Rey reflected sadly that she hated this part of her experience on the island. Like a fathier in a Canto Bight cocktail bar, she'd arrived uninvited and within hours shattered the peace of this place, gracelessly blasting and slicing through the sacred space that these stout figures had labored for centuries to maintain. She was an outsider, an interloper, undeserving. But the caretakers had recognized the regal demeanor of her companion and set about preparing separate huts for the guests immediately. As the sky darkened, Rey left Leia in the larger of the two, wrapped in a warm blanket before a blazing fire. The woman seemed not to hear her go; she sat on the meager cot, both hands resting on her cane, her eyes fixed on the fire.
Rey tripped wearily toward her own hut, marveling that just a few days ago she had fought Luke Skywalker on these very steps. Shouted at him, in the rain. Offered him his lightsaber, a last chance to stand and do right by his nephew and the Force. He had declined, and she had gone in his stead, believing so firmly in her own righteous vision. She had won the battle, but lost the war. And now… now she had returned, to seek Ben Solo through the Force.
She had not seen or felt him through their bond since she had closed the Falcon door on Crait. She believed Snoke's death had severed it, and doubted she had the power to reach him on her own… not that he would answer if she did. But as she sat, legs crossed, before her own fire, she felt a tremor in her chest. She thrilled at the thought of the Force connecting them. She quivered with doubt wondering who she might find on the other end of the line. Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order? Or Ben Solo, his heartache transparent in an unwavering gaze? Worst of all was the dread, a pain that threatened to break her in half like Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber: the thought of what Leia had asked her to do.
She felt these things flow through her, sat within them, felt them pass. She let her eyes look through the fire, and beyond it. She became present to herself, felt her legs folded beneath her, the weight of her on the stone floor of the tiny dwelling. Her arms relaxed at her sides, grew heavier. The sensations of her body, once discrete, dissolved into one another as she moved her awareness outward. The cool, musty around her; the ancient stone walls of the hut; the island, the sea, the globe of the planet; and then… space. As Luke had taught her – just once – she reached out into the Force. She felt it all, full and rich and crushingly, gorgeously painful. The pain and pleasure mingled, and she invited them further in even as she felt further outward. Outward and outward, until she felt –
"Ben," she breathed.
Something shifted in the room; the dancing firelight grew dimmer beyond her closed eyelids, and it brought her back to herself. She listened for a moment, then snapped her eyes open.
He sat clothed in black, leaning forward, elbows on his knees and gloveless hands slightly outstretched, as though toward the warmth of the flames between them. His face angled forward, as though he had just happened to glance up from the fire and into her eyes. His gaze held, and something flickered in his expression. Pain and pleasure, just like hers, but it was not the galaxy that he saw; only her. Her heart leapt and she drew a breath, suddenly afraid of his silence.
"Ben," she started again, but slowly. "I'm sorry."
He cocked his head to one side, pressing his lips together and looking back down into the fire. An apology. In the day since she had disappeared behind the door of the Falcon, he had been incandescent with emotion. Rage. Humiliation. Fear. These he was used to; they were sources of torment, but also power – his ever-present companions under Snoke. But there were others, too, less familiar. The first thing he had noticed was the loneliness. He had felt alone, before, but this was different. The spacious silence in his consciousness where, he now realized, Snoke had been, for years, pressing against him… it was palpable. As the hours passed, it had filled with all the things his devotion to the Dark Side had withheld from him. Mostly pain. He had felt the pain of his parents' estrangement, his father's subsequent distance, his uncle's betrayal. But that pain, twisted and intensified by Snoke, had become defensive anger, a hot flood of rage that consumed him and drove him to violence that even he found, at first, shocking. With Snoke suddenly gone, that rage had lost its amplifier and had dulled, slowly. A fog had lifted, becoming translucent like the mist on the mirror of the cave, somewhere below them now, in which Rey had sought her parents. What resolved before him was simple and similar – though, he felt, many times worse: Ben Solo and his grief. Anguish over the betrayals and humiliations of the past dozen years of his life, yes – and crushing, unbearable shame and regret for the part he'd played in his ascension, his undoing. Rey had called him a monster – he remembered with perfect clarity the misery in her eyes as she'd spat the words at him – and he had been proud of it. But now, he saw only himself. Powerful. Hated. Feared. Broken. Inconsolable. What he had lost… he couldn't get it back. What he had achieved… he didn't want it.
"I don't want it." He muttered, not meeting her gaze.
"Ben, I—" she started, pain gently twisting her features, tears pricking her eyes.
She had not understood him. "Not your apology. None of it. I don't want – any of this." He shifted his weight, sat up straighter, his eyes settling determinedly on her face.
She flinched, not comprehending his words or the piercing there-ness of him, penetrating and vulnerable, hurting and yearning all at once. She remembered Snoke's voice in her ear, in her head, screaming through her: Give me everything. Here it was: everything. She wanted to recoil. It was too much, his everything. Worse, she recognized it now; she had already seen it. It was the look that had called her to him. The look she had trusted, reached out for with tears in her eyes only days ago. But even as she tried to pull away, something inside her held steady, crept softly toward him.
"Snoke is gone," he continued. "But so is his voice in my head. In the throne room, I felt his influence start to fade. His Darkness, his shattering cruelty. As we fought together, something – came through the cracks. It was right. We are right, together. I'm a monster, yes. But what I offered you in that moment wasn't… wasn't what I'd offered you before. I don't know what I have to offer you now. I don't know what parts of me are me and what parts were him. Where Kylo Ren ends and…"
"… and Ben Solo begins." She finished.
A silence settled between them. Slowly, as though afraid to startle him, Rey straightened, unfolding her legs, standing. She took two steps, skirting the fire. He followed her with his eyes, tense, waiting. She stopped within reach of him, and slowly – ever so slowly – extended her hand. The warm glow of the fire danced across her palm as he looked from it up to her face. He studied her: the tenderness in her eyes, her softly parted lips, the faint flush in her cheeks. He could not take his eyes off of her. As slowly as he could, he raised his own hand, drawing his fingertips across her faintly calloused palm. He continued toward the soft, taut skin of her wrist. He faltered, hesitated, then stilled himself. Gently, firmly, he pressed into her, closed his fingers around her. The warmth of his touch shocked them both. His fear was palpable, but so was his desire. The gentleness of it rippled through her awareness. Her solidity, the reality of her, kind and unafraid, present for him and to him and with him… he held his breath.
"Ben, I'm sorry." She repeated. "There's so much that I – I want to tell you, that—" Now it was her turn to falter. "I came to tell you that… now, more than ever, you are not alone."
She had never seen him smile, and he did not then, not exactly. But something in his face relaxed, and tentative joy spread from his eyes outward, lifting the corners of his lips almost imperceptibly. Mesmerized by the light she saw brightening within him, she gasped softly. "I know," he murmured, and was gone.