Chapter 4

Rey was meditating when she heard a knock on the door. "Come in," she said. She had lost track of time since her conversation with Ben, but it had to be getting late on the planet. Her joints were stiff from sitting still so long, but she felt at peace with the force again.

Poe and Finn entered the room together. Finn went immediately to her and sat down next to her, whereas Poe meanderied his way into the room, examining the porgs and other contents before standing next to them. Finn impatiently patted the ground next to him, and Poe grinned at his friend and sat down too.

"Well you're right, it would be rude to remain standing," Poe said.

"It would be rude. If the hero of the Resistance sits, so should we," Finn said.

Rey smiled and shook her head. "You're both heroes too, even if things didn't go according to plan, and you both fought bravely on Crait." There had been much news of the battle of Crait and how Finn had tried to sacrifice himself to save the Resistance.

"Thanks, though we didn't single-handedly take out the leader of the First Order," Poe said, raising an eyebrow at her and smiling. "I actually came here to ask if you could provide more details on what happened. What possessed you to even board their ship alone? I can't argue with the results, but it was unspeakably reckless, and trust me, I know reckless."

Rey froze. Even though Poe didn't at all seem upset with her, she hadn't yet thought of a way to explain things which wouldn't open up a lot of conversations she wasn't ready to have.

"Whoah, how do you have Kylo Ren's mask?" Finn asked, holding it up from where she had placed it behind her. Rey gaped like a fish, her mouth slowly opening and closing, as she searched for an explanation that would be neither a lie nor the exact truth.

"She probably picked it off him during her battle with Snoke, right, Rey?" Poe asked.

"Oh, that makes sense. Yea," Finn said.

Rey's face fell. She didn't want to lie to them, but what could she say?

"Though, if she was able to take his mask off, why isn't he dead?" Poe asked, and he narrowed his eyes with suspicion.

Finn glared at Poe. "Well maybe she was too busy fighting off the guard to finish the job! You know, the guard? Eight big guys in red that are trained to eat Jedi for breakfast? She was probably a little busy."

Poe stared at Finn in surprise, and Rey covered her head, unable to watch the conversation anymore. "Wait, you're saying that Rey took out Snoke, eight specialized guards trained to fight jedi, and Kylo Ren?"

"Yes! She's amazing, so don't give her a hard time just because she failed to kill Kylo Ren, who is, as you may remember, the general's son. Maybe she felt bad for him or something. Y'know," Finn said. He wrapped an arm around Rey's shoulders and pulled her to him for a comforting hug. "Come on, Rey. Cheer up. Poe's just been under a lot of stress, you know, having to take on the Resistance and all. He doesn't really mean to give you a hard time for not killing Kylo Ren, does he?" The last question was directed at Poe with the emphasis of a demand.

"He's right to be suspicious though," Rey admitted, rubbing her forehead with the heel of her hand. "Snoke is dead, but I didn't kill him, I didn't face the guards alone, and I didn't fight-" she hesitated on using the name the others knew, but she knew saying his real name would complicate things more. "I didn't fight Kylo Ren at all. I didn't have to."

Both men froze, staring at her with faces painted with a mix of shock, incredulity, and confusion. She sighed. This was not going well.

"What… what are you trying to say, Rey?" Finn said, recovering first.

"The whole thing… my being there, Snoke dying… this mask, even… Kylo Ren did it. He invited me there, he killed Snoke, and we fought the guards back-to-back. The only thing I did was get tortured by Snoke until Ben, I mean Kylo Ren, rescued me, and then there were the guards, and he was asking me to join him, but the war was going on, and I couldn't think of anything other than saving the Resistance, so I tried to grab my lightsaber with the force to leave, and he grabbed it at the same time, and it exploded, and I recovered before he did and escaped."

Rey trembled with the immensity of what she had shared. Course, she hadn't mentioned the force connection yet, and it was probably only a matter of time until it was discovered, but finally, someone knew what happened besides her.

Poe and Finn were still staring at her wide-eyed in silence, though Finn had backed away from her to look at her properly. Rey looked at each in turn and tried not to start crying. What were they thinking? Would they hate her for going to Ben?

Then, like a dam bursting, both men erupted in questions.

"He invited you?!" "You accepted an invitation from Kylo Ren!?" "Kylo Ren killed Snoke?" "Wait, you and Kylo Ren were working together?" "Did you say Kylo Ren saved you?" "What's this about joining him?" "Did you consider joining him?" "Are we talking like a friendship join or a First Order join or some other kind of join?" "How did Kylo Ren even contact you when you were training on Ahch-To?" "Why was he helping you?" "Was he using you to take down Snoke?"

The onslaught of questions bewildered Rey, and she covered her face with her hands.

"Stand down, Finn," Poe said, and Finn shut up. "Rey, I'm sorry for reacting with… well… shock. I am shocked. You said that Kylo Ren invited you there. When did he invite you?"

Rey inhaled slowly and carefully let it out. "While I was training with Luke on Ahch-To."

Poe narrowed his eyes. "How? Did he discover your location?"

Rey shook her head fiercely. "No, he didn't know where I was."

"A holo device then?" Finn asked. She shook her head again. "Then how? Through Luke Skywalker? Did they do some kind of weird force mind trick?"

"No, no… Not through Luke. Definitely not. They hated each other. A force mind trick isn't a bad way of explaining it though."

Finn stared at her in confusion while Poe inhaled sharply. "You mean through you. You can contact Kylo Ren using the force," Poe said.

Rey nodded, and tears escaped her eyes. The truth was out, and now she would see how they responded to it.

"Well, there is a precedent. It hadn't happened in years, but the general used to contact her son that way before… well, before," Poe said.

"Really!?" Rey said. Relief flooded her. "I meant to ask her about it, you know, before… well. I thought she could give me advice on how to manage it. I mean, it's so strange just minding my own business and suddenly he's there, and we can see each other and talk and touch each other and… what?" she asked, noting that Poe's face was filled with alarm.

"General Organa's contact with her son was through the force, but she described it as hearing his voice in her head. She certainly couldn't see him or… touch him? How did you discover that?"

Rey thought back to the moment Ben had taken her offered hand and the precious seconds they could touch each other before Luke had discovered them.

"Umm, Rey?" Finn said after a few moments. "You're… you're blushing."

The color drained from her face as she looked at Finn and Poe, her best friend and her leader in the Resistance. "I… umm…"

Poe rubbed his head. "Okay, let me get this straight. Somehow you and Kylo Ren have this force connection, right?" Rey nodded. "And I'm guessing you got to know each other somewhat through it while you were away training with Skywalker. It was lonely out there for you, he realized that and took advantage of it-"

"He did not!" Rey said. Whatever else had happened between them, she trusted that Ben was just as shocked by how their relationship evolved as she was.

"Why did he invite you?" Poe asked.

Rey stuttered. "Well, it wasn't really an invitation… We touched hands once through the force connection, and we both saw visions," and her face turned red before continuing, "of us standing together in the future. I saw him turned back to Ben Solo, and I could feel it, that if I went to him then, that my vision would come true. I told Luke about it, and of course he protested, but I went anyway."

She looked from Finn to Poe. They were both listening intently, as if they couldn't believe what they were hearing, but they didn't seem angry at each other. If anything, they seemed cautiously hopeful. "Once I was there, Kylo Ren… you have to understand, Snoke was in his head. Snoke apparently had been in his head this whole time. He had to… act like he tricked me to get Snoke in a vulnerable position. I felt so betrayed, and then Snoke tortured me and Ben just stood there, quietly watching while I was screaming in the air and Snoke bragged about how we would never escape and I would die, and then he ordered Ben to kill me, and… I was certain I was about to die, but Ben tricked Snoke and killed Snoke instead of me."

Tears were streaming freely down Rey's face now, and she wiped one with her hand before reaching in to grab her usual rag… and found the new handkerchief instead. She balled the part with the embroidery in her fist, wiped her face, and blew her nose, hoping they wouldn't notice how nervous she was.

"It is weird hearing you call him Ben," Finn said. Rey smiled and shrugged. "You like him though. Do you know how messed up that is?" Finn said, anger creeping into his voice. The smile dropped from Rey's face. "He murdered an entire-"

"Finn," Poe said, holding up a hand signalling for Finn to stop. "I've worked with General Organa since I was a child myself. The force works in mysterious ways. Maz always said the same too, and that we should trust it. If the force is telling Rey to trust that Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, whatever is going to turn if she's with him, she should. Honestly, having Rey convert the Supreme Leader sounds a lot better than trying to fight the First Order through blunt force with only a few dozen mostly unarmed people on an ancient, beaten-up smuggling ship."

"But it's Kylo Ren!" Finn protested.

"I know. Look, I know that as much as anyone. I've faced that monster myself and had my mind pulled apart by him as he searched for information on Skywalker. I know how awful he is! But if Rey's story can be trusted, and I can't imagine why she would make something like that up, he's got a soft spot for her, and madness though it may seem, she seems to be open to it. Why not use it to our advantage? There are worse things in this universe than encouraging two lonely force users fall in love, even if one of them is a monster."

Finn's face fell. "No, Rey… this isn't about me and Rose, is it?"

Rey gave her friend a look of disgust. "No. I didn't even know about her, and even if I did, we weren't like that."

"But just because we weren't like that didn't mean you weren't considering-"

"I wasn't considering it," Rey said, rolling her eyes that Finn would be so obstinate about that angle even after he had Rose. "Look, I went to him, he killed Snoke, we took down the red guard together, he offered to have me rule at his side, and I turned him down. Maybe my vision was wrong."

"Wait, he wanted you to rule at his side? Sounds like he has a lot more than a soft spot for you," Finn said. "You know, for the record, I still think this is absolutely crazy, but maybe Poe's got a point. Maybe you should go back to him. This… force connection thingy, is it still something you two do?"

Rey looked at the helmet, now at Finn's side. "Yea. He left the helmet with me earlier today by accident."

Finn jumped away from the helmet. "WHAT!?"

Even Poe was alarmed, backing away. "You can transfer objects through this connection?" he asked. "That's not good, Rey. That's really, really not good. What if he dropped a detonator through? Or worse?"

"You have to turn the connection off. Can you turn the connection off?" Finn asked.

"I don't know!" Rey said. "That's why I wanted to talk to General Organa about it, but… she's gone, and Luke's gone, and Ben is literally the only other force user I know."

"We could ask Maz," Finn said, glancing at Poe.

"Not a bad idea. I think we should keep Rey in here though… if she can't control when this connection thing happens, there's no guarantee that the rest of us will be safe from Kylo Ren through her. Rey, do you think Kylo Ren is a threat to you too at this point?"

Rey shook her head. "He was angry that I didn't stay with him after Snoke, but I don't think he's given up on me," she said, and she revealed the embroidery she had been hiding. "This was a gift, and he told me to keep the helmet too when I tried to return it."

"Rey Solo," Poe read. "Wow, that's… um… pretty forward."

"He claimed it was because I admired his father so much, but when I protested not having his father's permission, he said it was his name too and he was giving it to me, so it was okay for me to use it. I was pretty shocked. He seemed to be too. I don't think he meant to say that, but..."

"That's his real name too," Poe said, staring at it in wonder. "Rey, you might really have a chance at this. If only the general were alive to know all this… may she rest in peace. I can just imagine her smiling though at the knowledge that her son's still there inside."

Rey nodded, and a part of her wanted to protest pursuing this plan, but she did want another chance to turn Ben.

"Look, Rey, this is a lot to process. I'm going to take Finn and go consult Maz. I'd normally invite you to join us, but I really don't think we can risk providing Kylo Ren access to the rest of the ship and Resistance through you, so please stay in here until we get back to you."

Rey nodded and stood up with them. Finn gave her a fierce hug and patted her on the back a few times as they departed and the door slid shut behind them.

She stared in a daze at the door for a few moments, then started stretching to work out all the kinks in her muscles from having sat so long. She had never thought she might consider going back to Ben after the scene with Snoke, but Poe was right. She had a better chance of winning over Ben Solo than the Resistance had of fighting the First Order with a single piece-of-junk ship.


Whew! Long chapter. I had run out of inspiration for a few days there, and then this happened. Hope you're enjoying it. Please review, etc.