Chapter 34
"Got you," Ben said softly, gazing at the amazing woman in his arms. Rey was flushed from their game of force chase in the room. Ben expected his own cheeks were similarly red. Sweat was dripping down his face, after all, and he couldn't stop smiling at her. He had not had such fun since he was a little boy.
Rey smiled back at him and leaned into his embrace, and they silently lowered themselves to the floor.
"Am I allowed to kiss you now?" Ben asked her.
Rey laughed and pulled him down for a quick kiss. "Yes," she said.
Ben bent down to return the kiss when the com beeped for the room's entry door. Ben froze, his smile disappearing in an instant, and sighed before throwing the door a disdainful glare for interrupting them.
"You could ignore it," Rey suggested.
Ben pursed his lips, considering it, but he did not want to risk anything that might delay their plans to leave the First Order. He released her and opened the door.
"Supreme Leader, the parts you requested, Sir," said the stormtrooper waiting outside. He had a box in his hands, which Ben took from him.
"You've done well," Ben said and shut the door.
"Your lightsaber?"
Ben set the box down on his bed and opened it. Everything looked to be in order for a second lightsaber, but he still examined each part carefully as he removed the pieces from the box. Growlie jumped onto the bed to help investigate and generally get in the way.
"Should I leave?" Rey asked.
"No, no. Stay, please," he said, though he was quickly becoming absorbed in the task before him. He summoned the yellow kyber crystal from where he left it on his desk, amazed yet again at how it sang to him, and meditated on it, beginning the assembly of his new lightsaber.
The force flowed through him, and he lost himself to time as the parts floated in the air before him. He felt, rather than saw, how they should fit together. This crystal had no crack, and so the crossguard modification he made on his old one was unnecessary. This new lightsaber was a simple, yet elegant, tool, perhaps reflecting the simplicity of his values now. He felt responsible for the First Order, but once that was managed, he looked forward to a quiet life in obscurity at Rey's side.
Visions flowed through him of the future as he thought of her… quiet mornings curled up together in bed on a planet with a cool morning damp. Rey giggling as he wrapped a hand around her waist and pulled her closer for warmth. Flying through space together with Growlie on his shoulder, Chewbacca in the copilot seat, and Rey leaning over him with arms wrapped around his shoulders. Rey's face straining with labor. An academy where Rey held his hand as he lectured to a new generation of force users and Nighwitch juggled their children in the background. Holding Rey. Kissing Rey even as her hair grew silver with age and wrinkles lined her face.
Rey.
He opened his eyes to see her sitting across from him on the bed. The completed lightsaber was in his hands.
"Turn it on," she said.
Ben held the lightsaber away from them and Growlie and ignited it. A smooth, balanced yellow beam came out.
"You did it," Rey said.
He gazed at the beam, turned it off, went to attach it to his belt and realized he only had one slot. "I'll need to get a second holster," he realized out loud. He set the lightsaber down on the bed and looked to Rey. "I love you."
Rey smirked. "I love you too, What are you thinking about?"
"You," he said, still working out how to put his vision into words. He cleared the space between them with a gentle sweep of the force, sending spare parts, the box, and Growlie to the floor. "We're going to have children."
Rey's eyes grew large. "A vision?"
He nodded. "Many visions. You never stop being beautiful," he said. He kissed her gently, relishing how soft and warm her lips were against his own. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers, feeling her eyelashes flutter against his eyelids. "I love you."
"I love you too," Rey said. "I'll really have children? I used to watch families in Jakku… not the scavengers, we couldn't afford to take such a risk, but traders would sometimes come with their children. Sometimes I dreamed I was the child with the loving mother… but other times... I'll really have children?"
Ben pulled back far enough to look her in the eyes. "You'll really have children, and Nighwitch helps us raise them at the Academy."
Rey's mouth dropped in shock. "You're pulling my leg."
"I'm not," he insisted.
"We're starting the Academy again? But Ben, what if we repeat Luke's mistakes?"
He gazed at her. He had shared her fear many times over, especially as Snoke had charged him with leading the knights, and so he had more time to process how he would be different from his own teacher. "We won't. If our children, or other children, have darkness within them, we will embrace it alongside the light, and we will guide them, whatever they decide. We may make other mistakes, but not that one. We will accept them for themselves, just as you accepted me, and I accepted you."
Rey leaned in and kissed him, slowly and passionately. "Nothing seems impossible for you."
He nodded, though he swallowed hard. He still needed to select the next Supreme Leader and arrange the peace treaty with the Resistance. "Has Poe contacted you?"
Rey shook her head. "No. He hasn't contacted you?"
"No, though he should be able to find us since I left him the tracer that matches the signal on my backup helmets." Ben frowned. "We don't have a way to reach out to him, do we?"
Rey shook her head. "We could try using the force."
"Does it even work that way?"
Rey shrugged. "No harm in trying, right? We found Rose with the force."
"She was a few blocks away, not across the galaxy," Ben protested.
"Does it matter?"
Ben gazed at her. Once again, Rey was throwing his reality on its head by asking simple questions for which he had always assumed the answer. "Let's find out," he said, finally buying into her proposal.
They faced each other, cross-legged on the bed with knees touching. Rey took each hand in her own and rested the joined hands over their knees. "I'm going to search for Finn, since he's more familiar to both of us and should be with Poe."
Ben nodded and pictured Finn in his mind. The force signature he had felt when FN-2187 had refused to participate in the slaughter on Jakku. The battle in the woods. The argument in Rey's room on Coruscant, and all the other times since. He could feel Rey searching her own memories of Finn as her mental shield lapsed to let Ben join efforts. They reached into the force, merging their thoughts of Finn until the intensity was as rich and powerful as a lightsaber's humming.
The force led them.
Their focus went past the ships in the fleet, past the planet system, past several suns and kept going until they reached a yellow star with a number of planets covered in life, including a pair of twin planets. "Corel," Ben said out loud, breaking the vision. "They're in the Corellian system. It's where my father was from."
"I'll go to them. Let them know we're ready to form a truce," Rey said.
Ben gazed at her. "You're sure?"
"You can't leave, and they wouldn't trust anyone else. The force will connect us," Rey said. "Besides, your vision promises we will be together again."
Ben frowned. He had always been told that visions were not guaranteed to come true, but he relented. "Let's find a ship for you. We can still bond, right? It's been several days since we tried."
He immediately felt Rey open a bond between them, and he felt like he was seeing double as he saw her in his reality and again through the bond. She turned it off quickly, visibly alarmed, and he suspected she saw the same as he did.
"Nothing to worry about, then," he said, hoping it was true. "Come on, let's go to the hangar. The ship we arrived on should still be available."
Fluff! Lightsaber! Visions! Plans! And no villain stuff. Whew. I really don't like writing villains. I had planned for Banto to be in this chapter, but my characters had other ideas. That's the best part of writing for me. I really don't know what they're going to do until I'm actually writing them out. It's fun. :D
Anyway, hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know what you think!
