"Every time I think of the Starkiller, it reminds me of the Death Star, and Alderaan," Mother says bleakly, her eyes traveling to a world that no longer exists.
Ben swallows as he picks at the clothes Mother's given him. A white shirt, a vest, and dark pants—he looks like his father, and he loves it, but can't plug the shame heating his face. "I never intended—" He stops. What does it matter? Will she even believe him?
She faces him, head tilted.
"I didn't want them to target the Resistance base," Ben admits. "I never meant for that to happen." Even though it wouldn't have happened but for him taking Rey instead of BB-8.
"And the New Republic?" Mother inquires.
Dark creeps up inside of him, sparking. He tries to quench it. Rey. Mother forgiving him. Luke… No, it hadn't been his first choice, but he felt no qualms about destroying the Republic in such a way.
Mother shakes her head. "It will be okay. The Republic will rise again—"
"And so will the First Order, or the Empire, or whatever it decides to call itself," Ben shoots back. "Tell me, Mother, what even is the difference?"
"Decency. Freedom."
"Decenc—" Ben scoffs. He can't help it. Light and Dark twist inside him. He feels Rey's calming presence, but that can't stop the agony from shredding his throat. "Senators who called you a warmonger and would have staged your murder—you call them decent? How are they any different than the First Order?" Senators who hurt children…
"No system of government will ever be perfect, Ben," Mother states, her face stoic even as her voice rises.
He clenches his fists so tightly his knuckles pop. "The New Republic was weak, ignorant, and corrupt, and you know it."
"As opposed to?" she shoots back.
"The First Order wasn't weak." It was ignorant, though, of the Light. Does that make it weak?
Maybe.
"Don't let anyone else hear you saying that," Mother commands, her eyes flashing and her lip curling. Ben can feel the fear and disgust rolling off her. Fear for him, or of him, or both?
"Fine," Ben snaps, storming out the door and back to his own room, where he crawls onto the bed, shaking as his mind flashes with images he doesn't want.
"What are you doing out here, Ben?" Lor San Tekka's voice freezes the child who's been slinking along the walls, trying to find his way back to the chambers he shares with his parents, trying to conceal his sobs.
What if the senator sent Lor San Tekka after him? Ben looks up at his parents' friend in utter terror, and watches as the man's face dissolves from mild disapproval into concern.
"I fell," he says. "I was just—exploring."
"Are you hurt?"
Yes. He shakes his head. "No."
Lor San Tekka reaches for his arm. "You're not far from your rooms. Let me take you back."
"No!" Ben flinches, stumbling over himself and falling as he tries to avoid the man's arm. "Stay away!"
"Don't be ridiculous, Ben." Lor Sak Tekka grabs him, pulling him upright, and Ben has no choice but to let the man lead him along back to his room.
"I won't tell the Princess," Lor San Tekka says, obviously assuming that's what Ben wants to hear, but it's too similar, too close, and Ben can only nod.
When the door closes, he screams and thinks about smashing everything, but he can't or they'll know, and so he smashes his own hand again and again into the side of a bench, and years later, when he sees the old man's face again, he smashes his lightsaber down into him.
"Ben," Rey's voice interrupts him, and Ben realizes he's been slamming his fist repeatedly into the mattress. "Stop!"
"I'm sorry," he croaks.
"Don't be." She grabs his hand, examining it. "The mattress may not be soft, but it doesn't seem like you've broken it."
He tries to laugh, to smile.
"I always disappoint her, Rey," he confesses. "I'll somehow mess up this Starkiller mission—I can't—"
"Bullshit," Rey says. "You do not always disappoint her." She links her fingers with his. "You brought me back." She's desperate. She's scared. Scared he'll turn? Scared she'll turn?
"The same could be said of you, with me," he tries to encourage her, even as he wants to implode, slash his insides with a lightsaber.
"Maybe not quite." Rey clears her throat. "When I—in the woods, with the Dark Side—I couldn't feel you. You couldn't feel me. I think our bond works through the Light, Ben. The Light was always inside you."
Hope glistens, but Ben's afraid to reach for it. Hope calls his name on a bridge, and Ben knows now that he should just walk away, but damn it, he can't.
Ben lays his head on her shoulder. "What happens after we destroy the Starkiller? If a new New Republic rises?"
"It was one senator, Ben."
"No. Others wanted to get rid of my mother. She was inconvenient." He snorts. "And right about everything."
"I don't know," Rey whispers. "Why don't you tell her?"
He shakes his head. She's had enough sorrow in her life. "I can't."
Rey sighs. "We're leaving at dawn."
"I'm ready." He's not, but he will be.
You will be, Rey agrees. And if I let the Dark Side in again, stop me.
"You won't," Ben assures her, because he's afraid that if she does, he will too.
He kisses her, reminding himself that love, that touch, can be good, can be pure.
"You ready, Jedi in training?" jokes Poe, clapping Finn on the shoulder.
"You ready, best pilot in the Resistance?" Finn returns. "I've got the lucky jacket, after all."
Poe laughs so widely he reveals all his teeth, and Finn feels a warm beat in his stomach.
Finn shrugs it off. "See you on the other side."
"Right. No one's allowed to die." Poe winks and saunters over to his X-wing, BB-8 dutifully rolling behind. "Enjoy becoming a hero the second time!"
I'm not a hero, though. A hero wouldn't let his enemy slice him in the spine with a lightsaber. A hero wouldn't get captured.
Poe got captured too, Finn reminds himself. And you rescued him.
"Once we get there," Luke commands as Finn gathers with a determined Rey, a calm Leia, an exhausted-looking Ben, and Chewie, R2, and C-3PO. "We lower the shields together. Ben knows the code."
Ben nods. "It's too much work for them to change them."
"That is stupid," Rey tells him, and Ben smirks.
"It might be a good idea to have R2 plug into the system, if we can," Ben says.
"Why?" Leia crosses her eyes, regarding her son.
"Because all the Empire's old files are kept on that base. If we get access to them, we might be able to learn more about Snoke, things I don't even know—"
"This isn't about your personal vendetta against Snoke," Leia informs him. Gently, but even Finn feels the sting.
"That's not what I meant. I—if we don't get those files, Snoke has a significant advantage."
"Why do you think this?" Luke probes.
"Because he wouldn't even allow me access to all of them, except for ones related to Darth Vader." Ben's hand latches with Rey's. "If we let him go free, he'll find another Force user, reform the Knights of Ren, something."
"What happened to the Knights of Ren?" Finn questions.
"The Resistance killed them," Ben says at the same time Leia says, "Snoke killed them when they disappointed him."
"Well, these are the kinds of things we can find out!" Rey says. "If we use R2—"
Chewie roars.
"Thank you, Chewie," Ben says.
"I must say, Princess," says C-3PO tentatively. "I quite agree. But R2, you have to make certain not to get destroyed—oh, I hate waiting—"
"Fine," Leia agrees.
"Where are you from, anyways?" grumbles Hux as he scans innumerable files. Snoke's directives are giving him the most colossal headache he's had since Ren left.
"It doesn't matter," returns Phasma. "I belong to the First Order."
Hux rubs his temples. "Your loyalty is commendable."
"Thank you."
Pain doesn't usually derail Hux, but this oppressive, cloudy headache beats him down. "Why are you so devoted to the First Order?"
"Why are you?" Phasma shoots back.
"My father trained at the Imperial Academy. He started the Commander's Cadets."
"I know all this," she snips.
Hux punches in more code. His fingers throb.
"What happened to your mother?" Phasma asks.
Hux's shoulders stiffen. "She committed suicide." He tries not to picture her swinging from that stupid, twisted tree, but he sees it anyways.
And then he sees another face, the face of the cadet he murdered and hung from a tree.
You have to make it look like an accident! they were told.
Hux will never forget his father's face when Brendol Hux saw the cadet swinging.
"How old were you?" Phasma inquires. Her tone is still detached, but there's a softness to it that Hux isn't used to.
"Five."
"Brendol, darling, you've got to promise me you won't let him be killed!"
"That's years away, and if he's going to be strong like me, he's got to face what everyone else has to face, and then some!" Father rages.
The creak of a rope echoes in Hux's ears, back and forth…
"Your family?" Hux demands, pushing the sounds, the sight, out of his mind.
"My family is the First Order."
"I know you weren't raised from birth, Captain. Or I could just go through and find your file." He needs to have her information. He needs to have something on her, a blaster of emotion that he can fire at her should she ever choose to fire his at him.
"They died. The New Republic sat on their asses while our planet warred against our neighboring planet. Eventually, they bombed us all. The First Order took me then." Phasma continues reading as if it doesn't bother her, but he knows it does, because thinking about his mother still bothers him.
And the cadet.
Fuck! Hux can't let this happen. Not if he's to rule the First Order. If sentiment infects him, travels through his bloodstream, the entire galaxy will be doomed.
A blast echoes above them.
"Shields are down!" Rey crows. Her voice crackles from the radio Finn grips as he and R2 rush through the corridors of the wannabe Starkiller. Unfinished though it is, the metal corridors and dark shadows taunt Finn with their eerie familiarity.
"All right!" Finn cheers.
"How long will it take you, Finn?" Luke demands.
"Not long. Five minutes or so." Finn wheels down a hallway on his left, R2 following. If the base is designed the same as the old one…
"Hit it with all you got!" Poe hollers, and Finn's heart swells with pride in his friend. He's a true hero.
An explosion roars through the hallways of the bunker, and Finn's stomach rollicks. "This way!"
He sees it, the distinct metal doors authorizing only top personnel. "Ben, I need the code!"
Ben relays it to him, and Finn punches it in. "Thanks."
"One move, one sound out of your traitorous mouth, FN-2187, and you're dead," snarls the voice of someone who never acknowledged him until he fled. Hux.
"My name's Finn now," he retorts.
Poe doesn't see or hear the cannon shot before it slams into his X-wing, smashing through the side. "Shit!"
BB-8 bleeps and bleeps.
"We'll be okay, BB-8!" he shouts, even as the starfighter flips and spirals, hurtling towards the frozen ground. Come on—pull up, pull up, dammit, pull up!
Yes! The X-wing soars out of the spiral, still rushing towards the ground but in a far more manageable position. "Hold on, BB-8!"
The droid's tethers shoot out to keep Poe in place as they slam into the ground. The impact sends Poe's teeth crashing into each other, cutting through his tongue. He spits out blood, gasping in air as his lung struggle to work.
"Poe! Are you all right?" shouts Jessika from the radio.
"I'm alive," Poe croaks out. BB-8 squeaks.
"Can you get back in the air?" demands Leia.
BB-8 retracts its tethers, allowing Poe to climb out and inspect the engine. His knees and elbows, his neck, all throb. "Don't think so."
"We're coming for you," Rey says immediately. "Ben and I will find you. Leia, you and Luke get back to Chewie."
"You're not exactly in a position to give orders," Poe scolds her.
"We're following them anyways," Leia says.
Poe reaches for his blaster, readying it even though he doesn't see any stormtroopers around. "See, Finn?" he says. "No one's allowed to die."
No response.
"Finn?"