"You are not going anywhere without me, Luke," Mother proclaims.
"Is it really such a good idea to have so many Force users in one place?" Luke pleads. "Ben and Rey have to go, I have to go, and Maz—we'll take Chewie and R2—"
"Poe and Finn aren't going to be content to stay here either," Rey points out.
"Thank you, Rey," Finn says.
"You." Maz points at Finn. "It is important that you come."
"Why?" Luke wants to know.
"You'll see." Maz sighs.
"We already have enough pilots then," Luke declares. "Poe, you can—"
"Hell no!" Poe grabs Finn's hand.
"It's not going to be very exciting," Luke insists.
"I'm coming, as well," Lando declares. "Chewie agrees."
The Wookiee roars.
"Why?" Luke pleads.
"Just because you took off there alone before doesn't mean you have to do it again," Mother snaps.
"Don't you owe it to the Resistance to stay here?" Luke tries again.
"You already tried that before the Starkiller," Mother reminds him. "Ackbar can handle it. And they are more than capable of handling our two First Order guests."
"Well, it's settled. The more the merrier." Maz toddles off. "We should leave at dusk!"
"We have to make a quick stop on our way," Maz says as Lando and Chewie pilot the Millennium Falcon, lifting the ship off the ground and soaring it into the air.
"Where?" Luke asks.
'Takodana."
Last time he was there, his father was too, but Ben didn't see him and the Light inside him was secretly glad of it.
Last time he was there, he met Rey. Ben cringes as he remembers the fear in her eyes, and the anger contorting her face. The girl I've heard so much about. She wanted to kill him.
That's what happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask.
Now, she's almost died for him. She loves him.
To be fair, Rey interjects. You were terrifying.
Ben smirks, then chastises himself. He should feel bad. He does.
But something else swims beneath Rey's thoughts. We need to talk. She grabs his hand and pulls him into a hallway.
"What is it?"
"Do you actually believe this?" she whispers. "This prophecy myth?"
"Rey, you can read my mind. I want to, and I don't want to—I do, and I'm afraid of it—it's all there." All in his messed up mind. His mind that will never truly be whole, because he can't resurrect his father, because even though Rey loves him now, he hurt her then.
"Stop," Rey hisses. Her mind fills with images of her running through the forests of D'Qar, her fears that Ben would reject her after the First Order attack.
"I'm sorry." Silence overtakes them. I never would.
"How is it possible?" Rey finally asks. "We've both… we've both gone to the Dark Side. I know only briefly, for me, but…" She gulps, and Ben sees Bazine shrieking in Rey's mind. "How are we supposed to balance the Force if we're still battling ourselves?"
If Anakin did it… "You know what Darth Vader did. What he was. If he could do it…"
Help me, Grandfather.
Show me, Grandfather, and I will finish what you started. We will finish what you started.
"Did he ever listen to you? Respond?" Rey questions.
"No, but I felt… darker just by meditating on it. In front of his helmet," Ben says, recalling all those desperate moments, where Snoke sneered at him, implied Ben was useless after all, those moments that sent a terrified Kylo Ren to his knees.
"Well, if his Force ghost is even still around, we could use him about now," Rey says.
"He died doing it, you know," Ben says. "He died saving Luke."
"I know." Rey swallows, her hazel eyes trekking over every inch of his face.
"We might not make it," he tries again.
"I know." She runs her fingers through his hair and kisses him, desperate to soak up every last second. "And I'm scared," she admits as she pulls away.
"Me too." He kisses her again. We'll have to rely on each other.
I love you.
I know.
Her love spins thread into him, threads from the Light, and somehow, Ben can tell he does the same for her, and it's a contradiction because there's so much Darkness left in him, and embers still smoldering in her, too.
Don't do it. You'll destroy her, forever.
Fear is the path to the Dark Side.
Ben's mind whirls, gathering snippets from Rey's mind and from his own. "What if we got married?"
"What?" She blinks.
"On Takodana. We can ask Luke… we're not guaranteed tomorrow, Rey. Especially not after whatever we uncover on Dagobah. I don't—I mean, I want—"
She's smiling and giggling. "Yes, I'll marry you." She covers his mouth with hers.
"There are other people on this ship, you two," calls Poe as he passes.
"We're going to get married!" Rey exclaims, her arms still wrapped around Ben's neck and her eyes still searching his as if she can't believe it.
He can't believe it. She wants to marry him.
"Wait, what?" Poe yelps.
"We can afford to wait a few hours," Maz says, and her word is authority. When they land on Takodana, she apologizes to Ben and Rey that she can't make their wedding and heads off to peruse what's left of her palace.
Rey feels the compunction Ben feels when he looks at the blasted ruins.
"I hear the cantina's still operating, though," Lando says, glancing at Ben as if he knows. Which he probably does.
This is the same planet where Rey discovered the Force calling to her. Rey… these are your first steps.
Each step she's taking now may be one of her last, but that's okay. She remembers being so afraid, so alone and fearful that she'd miss her family if they came back, that they would think she abandoned them, last time she was here. But when she left, she found her family, she found courage, she found everything she didn't know she was looking for.
"Your father would approve of me," she tells Ben. "I know it."
"I saw that in your head," Ben teases, and she's glad he's joking about it.
Rey doesn't have any fancy clothes to wear, and neither does Ben. But they've got Ben's mother and uncle, Finn and Poe, Lando and Chewie, and BB-8, R2, and even a blubbering C-3PO. Or the droid would be blubbering, if droids could cry.
"Oh, I never thought I'd see the day," ekes out 3PO.
Chewie moans and pushes Ben gently. Ben looks up at him sheepishly, almost as in the same fashion Rey imagines Ben would look up at Chewie during his childhood, happy and excited about life and its possibilities.
BB-8 hums a song Rey doesn't recognize, rolling back and forth to the robotic melody.
"Here, Rey," says Leia, reaching and plucking a blue flower from a bush in the forest. She reaches out and tucks the flower behind Rey's ear, like she's Rey's own mother. Which, Rey supposes, in a few minutes she might as well be.
They stand under a tree, facing each other, and Luke asks them to clasp hands. Their friends form a semi-circle around them, and the sun's shining and everything around them is so, so majestically green and alive, and Rey's beaming, and she sees the way Ben looks at her, sees his love in his eyes and in his tender smile. She doesn't know how many more days she'll be able to see it, but for today, it's enough.
Ben kisses her, and Luke declares them married.
"Well, come on, won't you?" Lando says as Ben wraps an arm around Rey, pulling her close. "We've got time for a drink."
Poe gyrates back and forth to the music. He winks at Finn and nods to the side, where Ben pulls Rey out of the room, no doubt looking for a place more private. "I really hope none of us have to track them down and tell them when it's time to go."
"I never want a repeat of Yavin 4," Finn agrees, chugging more ale.
"Neither, I'm betting, does Leia or Luke," Poe chuckles.
"We could join them," Finn suggests.
"What?"
"Not like that." Finn drops his voice. "We could… find our own room."
Butterflies explode in Poe's stomach. "You sure?"
"If you want to." Finn bites his lip.
"No, no—I do." Poe takes Finn's hand and leads him down a hallway, talks to a few patrons.
"Last time we were here, I remember seeing you flying overhead," Finn tells Poe. "I didn't know it was you, but I was impressed." He grins as they enter a room flooded with light.
Poe winks as his face floods with color. "And Ben kidnapped Rey here. Fitting for their wedding."
"Eh, if you want to be poetic, he met her here," Finn corrects.
"Does that mean if we were ever to get married, it would have to be on the Finalizer?" Poe questions. "Because, to be honest, Finn—"
Finn kisses him, hands reaching under Poe's shirt and lifting it off.
Leia watches Finn and Poe go, shaking her head and smiling.
"Reminds me of your wedding," Lando comments, leaning across the table.
"It was a little like this, wasn't it." At least, a cantina had played a role in her wedding.
She smiles to herself, reminiscing about the complete joy on Han's face when he said his vows, when he kissed her, and knows she saw the exact same look on Ben's face.
She can only hope that more happiness lies in store for Ben and Rey than it had for her and Han.
No matter how much we fought, I always hated watching you leave.
That's why I did it. So you'd miss me.
I did miss you.
She still does.
It wasn't all bad, was it? Some of it was… good.
Pretty good.
It was more than pretty good, Leia realizes. She wishes she'd grabbed every bit of happiness while she had it, but some moments she didn't realized were good until they were gone, and if she'd realized it at the moment it happened, she's not sure it would have been as good as it was.
If only she hadn't sent Ben away...
"Don't do that to yourself, Leia," Luke warns. "Trust me. I spent fifteen years beating myself up, isolating myself because I believed that's all I deserved."
"Running away is not in my nature," Leia retorts. Chewie sniggers as both men lower their heads. "Don't you laugh, Chewie. You left with him, life debt or not."
Chewie shrugs.
I love you.
I know.
She'd watched Han sink into carbonite, watched him stagger out of the deep freeze and kissed him. She assured him of her love on Endor, shot from behind him, married him and given birth to Ben with help from a healer because Ben was breach and the healer said there was a good chance neither of them would survive, but she heard her baby screaming and knew that she had to live and did. She watched as her husband cried the only tears Leia would ever see when he held Ben, slick with blood after birth, watched as Han traced his son's face and later pranced all over Cloud City showing Ben off to everyone who came within earshot.
And she'd watched as Han left after years of fighting and her becoming more consumed with her political duties, her Resistance, and Han went back to smuggling and she hated it, but the reality is that when they screamed at each other, they screamed because they were terrified for their son, the son they sent away, the son they missed with each throbbing beat of their hearts. And when they heard what Ben had done, when the news shattered everything Leia held dear, every confidence in herself, Han walked out the door and she couldn't blame him.
Seeing him on Takodana with Finn was like a jolt of new life, new hope for herself, for Ben.
We lost our son… forever.
She knew Han well enough to know it was his worst fears speaking, not his heart. It was the numbing solution he used to dull the searing agony that Leia bore each and every hour.
If you see our son, bring him home.
You did it, Han, Leia thinks, holding out her drink as if in a toast.
Lando looks at her with his eyebrows raised.
"To Han," Leia says, and drinks.
"To Han," they echo, even 3PO, who doesn't even have a drink.
"Maz!" Luke gasps, standing as the orange creature emerges from a hallway. "Are you ready?"
"We can give the kids a little more time," Maz says.
"What were you getting anyways?" Lando inquires.
Maz holds out a small, silver box and opens the latch. A kyber crystal. "There's one Jedi in training who might need a lightsaber."