The Upsilon command shuttle pierced through the night skies of Chandrila, its black wings and body melting into the darkness. Its two pilots were seated next to each other at the controls. Hardly a word passed between them.
In fact, they hadn't spoken a word to each other ever since they fled the Eleutherian Plaza. Along the way they made a quick detour to an apartment building along Embassy Row, before hastily heading towards a clearing where the shuttle was parked. Upon entering, they had gone straight to the controls, startling the ship back to life. They didn't even put in the coordinates for their destination. There was no time to deliberate; they just needed to get out of the planet's orbit as soon as they could. Where they needed to go, that could be decided later.
Kylo tugged at the rose gold clasp that held his midnight blue velvet cloak in place to let it fall onto his chair. When was the last time he dressed up like this? Probably when he was nine or ten, accompanying his mother to one of the many parties her politicians friends hosted. He hated them back then, and after everything that happened earlier at the senatorial gala, he realized that he hated them still.
Next to him, his new co-pilot too looked like she had just escaped from the dreadful party. When he met her on the balcony, she looked like she could have fit in among the guests milling about in her gown of a shade similar to his and her caped sleeves. Her hair had been braided differently. Now she sat next to him like the scavenger that she was, her braid a mess, a clip-on earring gone, and she looked as miserable as he felt.
It was already hard to believe that they were now seated next to each other in his command shuttle, flying it together. What was even harder to believe was that during the fracas at the senatorial gala earlier, she had been the one to grab his hand and dragged him away to run from the angry senators and shocked Resistance officers.
She shattered the comfortable silence that had developed between them with a question he would rather not answer. "Are you alright?"
"I don't know," Kylo answered simply. "I imagine those so-called friends of yours must be surprised, to have the last Jedi running away with their enemy."
Her lips pursed into a smile as she shook her head. "Not all of them. Finn understands. The others will come round. Besides, they don't have two fleets and an assassin group coming after them. Or..."
Or a friend who turned her back on you immediately, she added silently.
Kylo said nothing, but she could sense how upset he was about that last part. It saturated the air between them the entire way from the Plaza. The messages that one of his Knights left for him to inform about the betrayals in the Knighthood and the First Order only added on to it. Even so, she could tell that he was making a conscious effort to gain control of his emotions. Things rattled in the control room in tune with the ebb and flow of what he was feeling, but that as about it. No destruction of machines or anything of that sort.
"Dureena's anger is understandable," he said finally. "I let Hosnian happen."
Her words still rang in his head.
"Murderer."
Dureena had said it as a whisper, but it was enough to cut.
"Dure..." Ben pleaded as looked up.
Dureena struggled to hold back her tears as she stepped away from him. But her haughty voice remained strong and steady. "Don't address me so familiarly. Not when you have all those blood on your hands. To think I thought you would be able to help Leo when..." She gave a hollow laugh. "I always thought it was wrong of Leia to send you away, but maybe she was right and I am mistaken. Look at you now. What good did her sacrifice do?"
He wondered what hurt more, to hear those words coming from her, or that those words came from her. Maybe all she cared for was the Ben who was Ben Solo. Her Ben. Whom she believed had returned to take up the politics his mother had left behind. Not him. If that was the case, then how unfortunate. Her Ben had died a long time ago.
His mind suddenly went to Leo, the boy he had briefly made his apprentice. After knowing the truth about Kylo's new identity, would Dureena fear that her son might follow his footsteps? She didn't understand the Force. Thalon feared the Force. Granted, the boy wasn't strong with the Force. At least, not yet. But there were many ways one could deepen the connection with the Force. For some, it was their emotions. The Jedi would have frowned on such methods. If he had continued to train Leo, he would teach him otherwise. The Force is everything that surrounds them, that flows through them. One's feelings is equally a part of the Force. The Jedi's biggest mistake was to have its younglings fear emotions as a destabilizing factor. Sadness, loneliness, anger, despair... These feelings were to be suppressed and overcome because it might drive them down the path of destruction. How foolish. That wasn't the way younglings should be taught.
His co-pilot's gentle words brought his attention back to the cockpit. "Ben, why didn't you explain to her that she was mistaken? That you didn't return to make use of her friendship to claim Chandrila for the First Order?"
Kylo glanced at her, his dark eyes unreadable. "Mistaken? No, she wasn't. I came to Chandrila as Supreme Leader. I was supposed to return to my flagship with a treaty between the Order and the Senate. Her presence would have helped me."
"If that were true, you wouldn't have reacted the way you did."
"No, you're naive, Rey. As always." Those words slipped from his mouth before he could help it. As always.
Rey didn't look too pleased with the comment. She turned her chair away from him and looked ahead at the dark expanse of space in front of them. They had left Chandrila's orbits a while ago, but were flying aimlessly in its galactic sector. How long would it be before the First Order starts to detect this ship's movements? They needed to find a place to land, or at least stow this ship away and acquire another one to escape in.
It didn't occur to her earlier, but flying off in a command shuttle with the Supreme Leader of the First Order? A sense of guilt washed over her. Would this vindicate the holovid that had been anonymously sent to the senators' and the Resistance members' commlinks earlier?
The narrative in that holovid was mostly true. His interception of her on the bridge at the Supremacy. Their moment in the elevator. His murder of Snoke. Their annihilation of the Praetorian Guard. His offer to join him to rule the galaxy. It was all true - except she hadn't accepted his extended hand.
Poe and the Resistance weren't impressed. They also weren't convinced that the image was doctored, despite her attempts to insist otherwise. Not even Finn standing up for her was enough to sway them. The former Stormtrooper was instead berated by Poe and Commander D'Acy for withholding information from them.
Amidst the Resistance's internal altercation, Ben and Senator Adras were caught up in a crisis of their own. Ben's refusal to deny that he was indeed Kylo Ren had broken her heart. When he admitted to having killed Han as per the rumours circulating in Republican space, the senator had slapped him. Ben didn't retaliate. He didn't even try to stop her when she walked away, summoning the senators for an emergency session.
Instead he had stood there, lost and distraught. That was when Rey knew he must have lied about making use of the senator's long-time friendship to secure Chandrila's surrender. It wasn't Kylo Ren who trembled when Senator Adras tore her son away from him and warned him to never approach Leo again. It also wasn't Kylo's hand that Rey tugged at as they fled from the plaza together, after Finn urged her to in the middle of his physical fracas with Poe. It was Ben.
It was also Ben who sounded resigned in the cockpit right now. "The First Order can track this ship."
"Yes, but we can signal jam it. Run a decoy course. Get another ship from elsewhere." Rey wasn't going to join him in his commiseration. She swiveled her chair towards him and reached out to grasp his hand. His eyes widened at the sudden contact. Rey ignored it as she continued in a firm voice, "Ben, you're not alone. I'll help you. I'll stand with you."
He tore his eyes away from her gaze. "We need to go off-world. But much of it is under First Order space. If what Caerra told me was true, then much of the former Centrist worlds will not be our allies." He paused before adding, "I'm sure the Resistance by now would have alerted the remnants of the Republic that still support them. If not your friends, then Dureena..."
"There are still neutral planets," Rey insisted.
He almost scoffed at her words. "Rey, don't be naive. Our faces must be broadcasted everywhere by now. We were at the heart of the Republic." He grimaced. "The video wasn't targeted just at the Chandrilan Senate members. Even your friends received it. No doubt the holonetwork must have picked up on it."
"Then we'll just look for a planet with terrible signal," Rey was adamant to not give up. She blurted out the first place that came to her mind. "Ach-to."
Ben frowned. "Where?"
"Ach-to," Rey breathed. She tried to send him a mental imagery of the island. Its seas. Its caves. Its peaceful community, including the caretakers who must not like her very much. Its isolation. She could sense how appealing the idea was for him. "No one goes there. You'll be safe."
"And you? Your Resistance friends know about the place."
Rey shook her head. "Only what I've told them. They don't...exactly know where it is."
Except Chewbacca. Ben was in her mind as much as she was in his, so clearly he picked this information up, but he let it slide. He had to remind her of something else.
"You want to return to the Order?" Rey asked him in disbelief as she slipped her hand away.
"I have no wish to join the Resistance, Rey, if that is what you are asking," he told her flatly. "I only wish to deal with the traitors."
"But Ben..." Rey's voice faltered.
"It's still not too late if you want to return to the Resistance. If you join me, then you must know what my aims are and what they are not."
Rey too knew what her aims were. Someone had bequeathed them to her a few months back, and once again in the last few moments of her life - because she trusted Rey. She believed in Rey, as much as she believed in her son.
"He will come back, Rey," Leia had whispered to her as she pressed a small holocron into her hands. "And when he comes back, give him this. He will understand." The princess had touched Rey's face lovingly as she made the girl promise, "If he comes to you, help him, Rey. I made the mistake of losing hope in him. Believing for that split second as perhaps Luke did, that my son is gone. Ben felt that. Please, Rey. Don't let him give up hope on himself."
She wanted to believe in Leia. She wanted to believe in Ben. One day he will understand what he has to do, who he has to be. But for now, while he was still lost in the darkness, she should be the one to constantly remind him of the light.
She had plunged into her darkness in Ach-to. He will re-find his light on that same Jedi island.
Rey took a deep breath and said, "I understand. It doesn't change anything. I want to be with you. I'm staying."