Hey,

Thank you for all the support and being super patient! My husband surprised me with tickets for a vacation for three weeks abroad and I have been having a blast! I'm still not back yet but it's pouring here and I'm stuck indoors! I took so many pictures and haven't had a second to sit and write! I will still be posting but just not as frequently.

I really do wish I could post chapters closer together it takes so long to edit after I write it! I was trying to look for a beta before I left on vacation but it's on hold now. Realistically, I don't think I am going to be able to post once a week with all the holidays and vacations for the next little bit. But thanks for being awesome and patient! (have i mentioned patient?)

Don't forget to like and comment!

-Chefke

Chapter 3

Kylo was furious and terrified. He couldn't believe his mother heard them. What if Snoke heard them? They were both in very dangerous waters now. He needed to plan. He needed to play his cards right. He also needed to not smash Rey into anything. He gently lifted her with the force, her small body floating in front of him, her hair tumbling out of her buns. He sprinted at a steady pace, his Rey in front of him. They raced for about a half an hour through foliage, over fallen trees, and past a severely angry hornets nest. The forest was wet and slippery but he moved forward. He was trained better than to be defeated by some forest. He felt Uncle Luke closing in, as well as his diminutively deranged mother.

Fuck! He froze, his own mother had heard him going down... He sputtered feeling his bloody ears burn. He would never be able to face her. Never. Forget about the fact that Rey was her prodigy. A living example that you could be force sensitive and not be a Jedi or a Sith. You could be regular. Like his mother was regular, he scoffed. He had seen her shatter an entire glass paneled window several times in fits of rage. There was nothing regular about her.

She was just very good at hiding things, but so was he. He raced straight into Luke's hut, shutting all thoughts of his mother out of his head. Rey was snoring softly. It was cute. He smiled softly at her and tucked some of her loose hair behind her ears. She had such small ears he mused. He walked over to Luke's bed and gently laid her down. He reached under the bed and pulled out a blanket and covered her with it. She hadn't stirred once. He went into the kitchen and put up tea. If Luke was drinking he wouldn't be able to harass him too much. He paused as the machines clicked and whirred. Why wasn't he scared of Luke? Luke and his fa-

He sighed and sat down beside Rey. He wasn't afraid of Luke because Luke always had his back. 'No matter what, no matter where, and no matter who.' It was mantra they would chant together whenever he felt alone. Mara had made it up. He missed her sometimes. He knew it was his fault that Luke's marriage fell apart. Luke spent so much time with him Mara left for months at a time and he didn't notice. Ben Solo killer of a relationships. That was Ben Solo's legacy. It was one of the reasons he needed to leave so badly. He needed to be someone else, something else. Kylo Ren. But there were other things. Other terrifying things. The voi-

His mind stopped short at the sound of ship preparing to land. Leia. He needed to get out. He needed to hide. He looked down at Rey. She was fast asleep. He scanned the room quickly. There was nothing in here that would speak of his presence. He masked his force signature and looked to see the lonely brown door in the corner of the room. It looked like it hadn't been opened it years. Even the security key pad was dusty, not that security was needed in the head of the Jedi enclave's home. It had been Mara's workshop. Luke never disturbed her workshop, partially because it drove him crazy when he went in there. It was messy and dirty and there was often food all over the place. Little Ben had loved it. He used to swing his legs over the bench while he handed his aunt different tools.

'Ben.'

'It's Kylo.' He replied gruffly. He knew Luke was just trying to annoy him. It was working.

'I'm your uncle. I'm going to call you Ben, no matter what the rest of the galaxy calls you.' He could hear a ship lowering it's landing gear.

'She'll be here any minute.'

'So talk to her. Let's all talk. We can fix this as a family.' He tried to bite back his laugh. He really did.

'We never had a family Luke, just a lot of people shifting responsibility for a kid around.'

'Ben. You were loved. You ARE loved, by so many. Please. Let's talk. We just need to sit and get back to that love.'

'No. I won't.' He knew he sounded petulant but he didn't care.

'Won't or can't? There's a difference.'

'No, Luke. I can't and I won't. You want to talk. I'll talk but to you, not to her.'

With one last look at Rey, he punched the code into the pad. The door whooshed open and he quickly exited through the door. It closed behind him filling what was once light with darkness. He sat down in a meditative stance, waiting. She was coming.

.

.

.

Ben looked up at his Uncle, his eye's frozen in fear. It was always fear when it came to his mother. Luke reached a hand out but he disappeared into Mara's old room muttering as he went. He felt a twinge of pride, Mara loved him like a son and he her. Regardless, it was a smart choice it was a place Leia would never enter out of hatred for Mara. She disliked her when Luke and her got married but her disapproval quickly grew to hatred when their marriage started to fall apart. She loved too fiercely sometimes. Even though Mara had been the one to finally break their marriage; the faults were equally blame on the both of them.

'Luke! Luke! Come out here!' Leia. Shit. He wanted to go after Ben, he wanted to comfort him like he had so many times before.

'Ben...' He whispered. He sighed and sat down on the rug meditating while he listened to his sister's boots methodically beat down on the path to this door. He could still hear the engine of her ship running. No doubt she landed it on his garden.

Luke opened his eyes to see Leia stride into the hut as regal and poised as the day Luke met her. She was wearing dark grey general robes with her hair pinned up in a chignon. Even without Alderaan she was the embodiment of Alderaanian beauty and poise. She was a princess.

'You need to see this. I did some research on the way here. I thought I felt... I thought I felt Kylo Ren through the force but the more I think about it the more I think I just felt Rey and someone else... So I did some research.' She handed Luke a data pad. He calmly accepted it. He needed to keep her attention drawn on him and nothing else. He didn't want her to have an excuse to search the house, to go where she shouldn't.

'I thought our Rey might be seeing someone. The logical choice would be that Poe Dameron or Finn. Because of her value as an asset and our original suspicions regarding her ancestry I did research and DNA workups on both of them.' He clicked on the first report. His eyes froze on the bold red headline on the top of the page.

'He's force sensitive.' He said in disbelief. 'Finn is force sensitive. How, how was this missed?'

'I don't know. But he spends a lot of time with one of my best agents and your student. As for the familial on Finn the blood test showed relation to Lando. Maybe the force was gifting Lando with a son for what he did for us, who knows. What I do know is that the Empire wanted revenge on Lando for his betrayal during our stay there. They took his only son from him and killed his wife. We owe Lando our lives, Luke. We will have to protect his son.'

'Finn deserved a better life than this.' He said frowning at the report. Finn had been taken by the First Order as a punishment to Lando Calrissian. It was a cruel joke, he thought his wife and son were dead and all the while they had his son carrying out missions against his own family and people. Poor Lando, poor Finn. They wiped whatever childhood memories he had. Then they didn't even have the decency to give him a name, just a number.

'Sons tend to pay for their father's mistakes. We learned that the hard way.' She replied coldly. He wasn't sure if she was talking about him or Han and Ben. He wasn't going to ask.

'Check the main file.' He returned to the main screen and checked the main file. It was on Rey. Her blood came back. She was twenty-five percent match for twiilek DNA. Another twenty-five percent was a match to a DNA sample she said had obtained from Caleb Dume in what remained of a Jedi temple on a planet Lothal. She was a match. She was the granddaughter of Jedi Master Caleb Dume, the last padawan.

'We're sure she's a Dume then?' He ignored her pained look at the last statement.

'I ran a blood work up out of Mandalore. It's confirmed. You can tell her when she wakes up.' She nodded towards Rey sleeping on the couch.

'I still have no idea how you managed to obtain a blood sample from Caleb Dume.' He muttered.

'You just have to know where to look...' He raised an eyebrow at his sister. She sighed dramatically.

'I backtracked from their son's birth the date of his conception. There was only one place they could have been. I had the entire area canvassed. Luckily, it was deserted then and deserted now as well. I managed to obtain DNA samples for both Caleb Dume and the last princess of Ryloth, Hera Syndulla.'

'Wow. Remind me never to do anything sneaky around you.'

'You're a terrible liar Luke. I wouldn't even bother.' He almost laughed.

'I still don't like this. We know next to nothing about Finn. I want to find out more, more than what I was able to find.' He glared at her.

'What? I deal in intelligence. The only reason I'm still alive is because I'm cautious.' She shrugged.

'He's Lando's son.' He was truly exasperated now. He was pretty sure she liked him the first time they met. What changed?

'He's not Lando.' She retorted.

He sensed her temper flaring so he sat down on one of his chairs and sighed. The chair creaked and his sister looked around in obvious distaste. He made everything in his home with his hands. It was a calming technique when his days were at their worst. He was proud of his little home and his chairs, table, kitchenette, and his little sofa bed that Rey was currently sleeping on. Leia didn't share his enthusiasm.

'So, you trusted him before to rescue Rey and to protect the Galaxy from Starkiller Base but as soon as you find out he's force sensitive you don't trust him? Really Leia? Why bother interacting with me at all if you're going to label us and dispense with all of the hatred?'

'You're different.'

'Why?'

'You're my brother.'

'So?' She placed her head in her hands.

'You're all I have left.' She whispered between her fingers. It was a serious display of emotion from her. She was generally scared of showing her emotions, she was a general after all.

'You have a son, Leia.' He whispered gently. He placed a hand on her shoulder, sending comforting thoughts through the force.

'No.' She replied shortly shrugging his hand off and walking away her back facing him.

'Leia.' He was using his be reasonable voice.

'Tell me it's not true. Luke. I've been too afraid to read the report that she sub-' She went silent for a moment her head bowed. When she raised her head her eyes were cold and her face unreadable.

'Ben. My little Ben. Did he kill him? Did he kill Han?' Luke's sister looked as if her world was lost to her again. He looked down at his feet.

'I'm so sorry Leia.' He whispered. His throat was dry and his chest ached. This was a pain like nothing he had ever experienced before. But nothing he was feeling compared to what he saw on his twin sister's face. She collapsed to the floor faster than Luke could catch her and she sobbed. He lowered himself to the floor and held her while she screamed and she shook. He held her while she cursed her son and while she yelled until her voice was raw. When she could do no more than shake, she closed her eyes and laid her head on Luke's chest.

'I will never forgive him, Luke.'

'Hush Leia.'

'No Luke. Han and I... we weren't perfect. But I loved him. More than I ever loved anything. When I lost Alderaan-' She choked and new tears poured from her eyes. Luke felt alarmed. Leia was the strong one. Even at her hardest times... 'When I lost Alderaan I blamed myself. I was their princess. I was supposed to protect them. Instead I got my entire home world destroyed and didn't even have the decency to go with them. Han... Han knew what to say and when not to. He found me crying in the boiler room several days later. I made him swear he would never tell anyone. He said he hadn't been planning on it. Everyone needed to cry sometimes.'

Luke was silent. He didn't know what to say. He knew they had grown close on the ship but he didn't know the details. He knew that she always held him at arms length and it drove Han crazy. It was why he called her your worship. She hated it. He wanted to bother her as much as she bothered him. He only really ever loved one woman once he met her. He couldn't even see other women even after they divorced. She was all he ever wanted and he had felt like a failure that he hadn't made it work. Ben having to leave to the Jedi Temple was even worse for him. It was just him and Chewie. For a while it was just him because Chewie went to help re-populate Kashyyk. Han definitely didn't have an easy life.

'I'm so sorry little sister.' He whispered. He could feel her smile in his chest. She pulled back and looked up at him. She had a broken smile across her face.

'You never call me that.'

'I know.' She sat up and wiped her eyes. She dusted her robes and straightened her back looking out of the window of the hut towards her ship. She stared outside for a while while she regained her composure. She opened her comms and radioed the on board droid to start preflight checks. They walked together in silence towards the ship. Kylo was going to have a hard time coping

'I'm going to find him Luke. If I have to tear apart the Galaxy and rip whatever cold thing beats in his chest, I will.' Luke whirled in alarm.

'Leia. He's your son.'

'No, Luke. He's no son of mine. He's not welcome to the Organa or Solo name. Ben Solo died the day I left him to become a Jedi.'

'Leia-' He started.

'I'm not blaming you. Some people are rotten inside-'

'LEIA!' Luke yelled. He had had enough. 'He is your son. He may have made mistakes but this is grief talking. You need to leave that grief here on the island. You're a Commander and you need to make level headed decisions.' She shrugged.

'You're being rash. It's dangerous, Leia.' She scoffed.

'Rash. He killed my husband. He committed patricide. He's not my son and may the force help him if we cross paths.'

'Leia. I don't want you to leave like this. You're going to get yourself hurt or killed!'

'Then what? I have nothing left but my position and I can't leave it. Thanks to Kylo Ren I need to keep the Republic from falling apart.'

'And Snoke.'

'What?'

'You forgot about Supreme Leader Snoke. Leia please do not make this a familial crusade. The Skywalker's have had enough of those.'

'He made it a crusade when he left our home and became a traitor. When he killed his own father.' She dusted off her robes and backed away from Luke.

'I have spoken to the want Lando's son trained by you. He is on his way. I am leaving him in your care. Poe Dameron has insisted on flying him here and he volunteered for supply runs every three weeks. I am going to try and alternate it to a different pilot.' He started to hand her back the data pad when she raised a hand.

'Keep the data pad. Goodbye Luke, be careful.'

With that she turned around a stalked up the ramp and onto her ship. Never had Luke been more relieved for his sister to leave, she needed to cool off. He could literally feel Ben shrinking in the force, like he was a ball getting smaller and smaller. He was destined to fail this boy repeatedly he thought miserably. He'd give up his life for this boy, like Han. All he wanted was for him to be happy.

He cringed as he felt the walls go back up between them. The walls he was so happy to have finally pierced after so many years. People forget the power that their words yield. He was surprised Leia of all people forgot, it was one wrong word that had caused the destruction of her home world after all. She was a living breathing reminder for Luke to always test the waters before he jumped in.

Today, Leia dived off a diving board at the wrong end of a pool. Today, Leia lost her son that much he could sense through the force. Luke prayed his nephew was not lost to him as well.

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.

.

He knew it was stupid but his mother's words stung. He needed her to believe he was evil for his plan to work. He needed everyone to believe he was evil. He just didn't think it would be that easy. He was sitting on his spot on the side board. He opened his eyes to see a tool in his hands, as if he was waiting for Mara to ask him to pass it to her.

'Ben' Luke called softly from the other side of the door.

'Can I come in Ben?' He would have been a great father. Why didn't he ever have children? Oh, right. Little annoying Ben Solo. A crash startled him and he looked around to a room of tools scattered on the floor. He sighed. Great, now he was loosing control. He felt like a padawan all over again. The door slammed open and Luke came running in. He clasped his face in his hands and oddly, Kylo let him. He was searching his face, then his hands... He was checking for injuries.

'Are you okay? I heard a crash and I couldn't get the door open...'

'I'm fine.' He hopped off of table the tool still in his hand. He couldn't let it go. He was losing a lot today. The stupid tool seemed to much to part with.

'Ben, please.'

'Don't Luke. You heard her. I have no right to that name.'

'She doesn't mean it. She's consumed by grief. Let her grieve.'

'If she wants a war than a war she will get, I swear this to you Uncle.' He was silent for a moment.

'You will always be my little Ben. No matter what happens, no matter what roads we cross. You will always be a son to me and Mara. Always.'

'Really? Even after I ruined your marriage like I ruined dear old Mom and Dad's?' He spat. He was being spiteful for no reason. Luke didn't deserve this, but there was no one else to bear the brunt of his anger. He was Luke and he would take it, he always did.

'What? You thought... Ben!' He looked up to see Luke... angry. That stopped him in his tracks. This was a first. He had seen Luke in every emotion but never... angry.

'Your parents couldn't workout their marriage because they were both too different and each too far apart from each other. They didn't try to make it work so they didn't. They should have put your first and they didn't. Your father lived his whole life regretting that.'

'You're full of-'

'He told me Ben.' He felt his throat go dry and his eyes sting. It was necessary. Everything was necessary. Except for this damn trip. He had no idea how he was going to get away with this stupidity. Snoke was going to kill him and then everything will have been for nothing. All the sacrifice.

'And Mara?' He whispered at Luke.

'Mara and I.' He ran his hands through his hair and then paused at her workshop chair. He ran a hand across it fondly and Kylo wondered idly if he should be sitting on the table or if needed to be thoroughly sanitized.

'I ignored Mara for too long. I didn't see the signs. I didn't hear her when she kept telling me she was upset or lonely. This was before I took you in. I was starting a new Jedi Order I was enamored. I forgot I had more than one duty. Then I took you in and I thought things got better. We fought less and she smiled more. We fought less because she found someone else. Someone who listened to her. By the time I wizened up and realized something was going on she was gone.' Kylo was silent. Perfect Uncle Luke and Auntie Mara were not perfect anymore.

'Wow.'

'Really Ben?'

'Sorry. Just wow. You were always perfect to me. But then there was a point when...'

'I wasn't.'

'Yeah, but the one thing I always thought you were perfect about was with Mara. I didn't realize...'

'You saved what could have been the ugliest divorce in all of the galaxies.' He thought for a moment.

'Oh, no. She found my father didn't she?'

'Han...'

'Luke, answer the question.'

'Yes and No. She said she realized something was wrong when she went undercover in the umm... bad slave triad with Han for several months. Your mother was insanely jealous and I didn't mind. It was Han. I didn't think anything was wrong. Looking back, I think she wanted me to be protective. I knew Han would never do anything and he would never betray my trust but that wasn't enough for her. She wanted to be wanted. She was, but it wasn't enough. She needed more than I could give. Then we couldn't have kids and I needed me for the school and...'

'It's okay Uncle Luke.' He stood up and collided with Luke who went in for a hug.

'You were a blessing in our lives Ben. A small miracle for two lonely public servants. So thank you, Ben.' He squeezed tight and then let go. He stepped back ushering him out of Mara's workshop.

'I've missed you, Ben. What do you say we wake up Rey?'