wonder where your heart came from
chapter 03: feel my instincts here
BB-8 can't hear whatever it is that draws Rey's attention as Finn walks away. The little droid isn't completely convinced that she isn't having a bit of breakdown. It hasn't spent that much time with Rey but it's adept at reading human behaviour and it can tell that separation is an issue for it's new favourite human. Poe will always been BB-8's absolute favourite human but Rey is coming in a close third.
Rolling along concernedly behind her as she ventures into the depths of Maz Kanata's labyrinthine castle, BB-8 gets no warning as its second favourite human almost punts it down the corridor. Ben, untangling his legs and regaining his footing in a tricky dance that takes him over BB-8's head and to the bottom of the stairs, looks as distant and distracted as Rey.
"Sorry, BB," he apologises. He peers down the long, dimly lit corridor intently then asks: "Are you hearing anything right now?"
BB-8 beeps in the negative.
Ben frowns, perturbed, then starts stalking away in the direction Rey went. The droid follows, intensely curious about the inaudible mystery noise both Ben and Rey seem to be hearing. As it chases after him, BB-8 notices that Ben's usual practiced laziness of stride has vanished and left in its place a tautness that drags his back and shoulders upward like they're tied in string. His arms are held away from his torso, his posture almost menacing, and his height is somehow more evident than less despite the downward tilt of his head. The effect is entirely awkward on so tall a man—the hunching of shoulders too broad—and it all screams of an unconscious alertness to some unseen danger. BB-8 readies its taser just in case.
At the far end of the corridor, Ben stops walking and turns toward the door to his left. It's open and Rey is standing there, a few streaks of dusty sunlight streaming through a high window casting an angelic glow around her slight frame. She makes a pretty picture, BB-8 decides, like art.
She isn't static though, she alive and moving, slowly kneeling to open the weathered trunk in front of her. There's a collection of nick-nacks stored within but one thing stands out, polished and gleaming brightly. Rey's hand closes around it and Ben sucks in a sharp breath beside the droid.
"Don't—" Ben begins breaking the spell of silence cast over them but stops just as suddenly.
Rey turns toward the sound of Ben's voice, eyes glazed and expression fearful as she stands and faces him, lightsaber still held tightly in one hand. BB-8 watches Ben take a cautious step forward into the light, right hand halfway stretched out in mimicry of the motion used to comfort a scared animal, pressing his lips together as he works to find words.
"Don't be afraid," he whispers and Rey takes a deep, shuddering breath in response. "I feel it too."
Rey gasps as though emerging from underwater. "You're— How are you—? Get out of my head!"
Her expression is fierce. Ben grimaces but moves ever closer.
"I can't. I'm not doing—I'm not doing this." He gestures toward the lightsaber she's clutching. In the tone of an clarification he says, "That lightsaber. It belongs to me."
"What's happening?" Rey asks desperately, voice lost, eyes shifting, body seemingly held in place by some invisible power. Tears trail down her face and though BB-8 beeps in concern the sound goes ignored by the humans. They are too engrossed in whatever is happening between them.
"I think—." Ben offers slowly, "I think you're Force sensitive."
"The Force?" Rey echoes, her voice somewhere between confused and awed.
Ben nods. He swallows, Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he tells her: "You'll need a teacher."
Abruptly she thrusts the lightsaber at Ben. "I don't want anything to do with this," she tells him through her tears. "I'm never touching this thing again."
Ben appears equally reluctant to touch the offensive object but nods solemnly. He reaches for the lightsaber. His hand is big enough to engulf most of the hilt so the tips of his fingers touch Rey's as he encloses the proffered half of the weapon in his grip. BB-8 observes them closely as they make this exchange.
Except that the exchange never actually happens.
The droid watches as the two humans look up simultaneously and freeze in place. They stay there—eyes fixed on each other, hands barely touching, neither really seeming to breathe—until they both let go at exactly the same moment.
Rey stumbles backward until her legs connect with another closed trunk and she falls to sit on it, face tear streaked and eyes wide. Ben staggers backward in the opposite direction until he's braced against the wall. Light glints on the trail of a single tear down his left cheek. He raises a trembling hand and runs it through his hair.
The lightsaber rolls unminded to a stop at the base of the open trunk.
"You," Ben breathes.
The sound of his voice makes Rey blink and rapidly reanimate. She shoots to her feet, hand over her mouth as she shakes her head and stares with what looks like panic at Ben. Then she breaks into a run out of the room, past Ben's unmoving form, and into the hallway. BB-8 wants to follow her but Ben moves first.
Maz remembers the last time she saw Luke Skywalker. The last Jedi had looked worn and old. She'd met him as a hale and hearty young man when he crisscrossed the galaxy in his efforts to help his sister restore political order to the systems. The day he'd arrived to entrust the Skywalker legacy to her keeping, Luke Skywalker had become an old man.
Though he gave no reasons for his decision, Maz had heard the rumours about what happened to his temple. More telling even than those, however, was the heavy weight of guilt he wore like a cloak around his shoulders. It took almost another year before Ben Solo followed his father into Maz's castle for the first time in nearly two decades and suddenly Maz understood more. Not all of it, but more.
The picture these two disparate pieces painted was a miserable one indeed. If Maz were a more emotional creature, she might have been inclined to weep for the quiet horror that hid in the great void of Ben Solo's absence from the Force.
She can hear them talking as she totters down the stairs; sees the light streaming out of exactly the door she expected. There's a hesitance in their speech, as though each is afraid of the other, and Maz has lived quite long enough to understand that for what it is. When everything goes silent, Maz feels a pulse in the Force—feels a flash of Ben's Force signature suddenly bright and hot and crackling before it disappears again—and speeds up her gait.
Rey—lost, strong, brittle thing that she is—is crying when they collide.
"I shouldn't have gone in there," she confesses immediately. Behind her, Ben comes to a halt and watches them with narrowed eyes. Maz knows he thinks this hides his vulnerability but the boy's face has ever been an open book. His features betray his fear.
"That lightsaber was Luke's," Maz reveals, "and his father's before him. And now, it calls to you."
"No," the girl replies. In the background, Ben flinches. "No, I have to get back to Jakku."
As kindly as she can manage, Maz extends her hand to take Rey's. She looks deep into the girl's eyes and see, behind all the confusion and terror, the truth of the child's sad, solitary life.
"Dear child, I see your eyes. You already know the truth." Ben bites his lip, eyes closing as though he knows what Maz is about to say and knows how much it will hurt. "Whoever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back. But…"
Now she has both their attention. Good. "There's someone who still could."
Unprompted, Rey instantaneously glances over her shoulder to Ben. Maz levels a significant look at the young man too, but he's not paying any mind to the wizened little humanoid. He bites his bottom lip, eyes shifting from Rey to the stairs behind her then back again. Finally he makes his move with a resigned shake of his head. He doesn't look back as he takes the stairs up to the dining hall two at a time.
Gently so that she doesn't startle, Maz touches Rey's shoulder to regain her focus.
"The belonging you seek is not behind you," Maz advises kindly, "It is ahead. I am no Jedi, but I know the Force. It moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes. Feel it: the light. It's always been there. It will guide you. The saber. Take it."
There's a moment of hesitation and Maz can tell how conflicted Rey is before that entrenched sense of self-preservation wins out. Stepping around the bespectacled proprietress, Rey declares: "I don't want any part of this."
Sighing deeply, Maz makes her way to the open door and picks the discarded lightsaber up off the floor. If only it were as simple as wanting to partake or not.
Upstairs, Ben almost bowls over Han as he heads for the door. Apart from the obvious distraction, he's got an inscrutable look on his face that announces—to Han at least—that there's a real problem. Where's Leia when you need her?
"Whoa there, kid!" Han exclaims as he throws his hands up to prevent an inevitable collision. They land on Ben's biceps and it occurs to Han once more that his son is taller than him. That fact always hits him at the oddest of times and he thinks it has to do with the fact that he missed the majority of Ben's physical growth. Being fair and honest, he can only attribute half of that to Ben's time with Luke. This is exactly why Han doesn't like being fair and honest; the truth is like a punch in the gut he would rather avoid.
"What's wrong?"
Ben blinks as though waking from a stupor. It's not an uncommon look on him—Han had grown accustomed to the way Ben's attention would fade from the immediate and focus on something only he could see. When Ben had been younger, these episodes could last anywhere from a few seconds to whole hours. And nothing good ever came of it—Ben was always worse for the wear afterward and far angrier. Luke had once told Han he sensed the darkness in Ben peaking during these times.
What worries Han now is the fact that Ben hadn't had an episode like this since returning from Luke's temple. Not since he'd turned away from the Light and the Dark equally. He'd cut himself off from the Force entirely and Leia said it had been like watching someone cut off their own limbs. All Han had seen was the shadow of his son in a man shuddering for breath and clinging to Leia like a lifeline.
"Ben?" Han tries again, "Ben, answer me!"
"Air," Ben rasps out, "I need air."
"Ok," Han acknowledges as he starts toward the door. "Ok, let's get you outside."
Under the clear blue of Takodana's sky, Han settles Ben on a parapet and waits for his breathing to calm. The terrace they've found is blessedly unoccupied—just the two of them, fresh air, and the horizon. Han considers radioing Chewie on the Falcon but decides against it. As he leans against the stone beside Ben, Han catches a glimpse of a slim figure in pale clothes dart into the woods below, BB-8 hot on her tail.
Ben has his face in his hands, elbows on his knees, hair falling forward over his fingers and forehead. After a long silence, he drags his palms down over his mouth then admits, "It's Rey."
Could've told you that, Han thinks.
"She's strong with the Force. Untrained, but stronger than she knows." Ok, didn't see that one coming.
"She cut through all of my barriers like butter," Ben tells him. "I don't know how she did it but she just reached out and...grabbed me."
His son makes a gesture above his heart like yanking on a chain. Han can't begin to make sense of it because he's never been able to comprehend this Force mumbo-jumbo even at his most open-minded. He's not beyond admitting he's clueless about how the Force works. But whatever Rey's done to his son, it's unsettled Ben deeply.
"I thought you cut yourself off from all that," Han ventures tentatively, "I watched you do it."
Head bowed, Ben keeps his gaze on his hands as they clench to fists and then open again, back and forth with no discernible rhythm. It looks like he's feeling for something that isn't there.
"I did." Ben says. He tracks a rough hand through his hair and swallows before repeating, "I did."
"So then how—?"
"I don't know!" Ben shouts. He seems to jar even himself with the violence and volume of his frustration. For an instant Han sees beyond the shaking young man sitting in front of him to a little boy no higher than his hip on the verge of tears, cheeks reddened, lips quivering.
"I don't how she's doing any of this," Ben continues, "Snoke can't get through to me but this...scavenger just—I don't understand. She shouldn't be able to do this. No one should be able to do this."
And there is the fear. Fear in this man's eyes as there had been in that little boy's. Han had failed his only child once; he will not do so again.
A deep breath is all the fortification Han's going to get out of the universe right now so he takes it then says, "Alright, kid, listen up."
He waits until Ben looks up at him before insisting as much to himself as to his son, "Whatever this is, we'll figure it out, okay? Rey—she isn't a bad kid. I already like her and I've barely known her an hour. And you said she's untrained. Maker knows nothing and nobody pays attention to Jakku, even the Jedi and definitely not the First Order. She's probably been sitting in that junkyard wasting away. So let's go see your mother and she can help make sense of whatever this is."
Han has moved from where he was standing and now crouches before his son. He extends his hand and covers Ben's clasped hands with his own. He can feels the tremors Ben is trying to hide by interlocking his fingers.
"I'm here for you, son."
"Dad—"
Whatever Ben was going to say is interrupted by the shrill beeping of comms on both their belts. It's a warning from the Resistance, only for use in the direst emergencies, and both of them scramble for the message. It's just two words in Aurebesh: LOOK UP.
Look up? Han shakes his comm to see if it's broken. What kind of ridiculous—?
"No," Ben breathes and there's such horror in his voice that Han's head jerks up immediately. Ben is looking up.
In the clear blue sky above, five points of red light collide with planets unseen. The explosions—bursts of angry orange-red—mar the bright sky like imitations of bloodstains.
Finn barrels through the door behind them along with half the crowd from inside the bar. He comes to a stop between father and son.
"It was the Republic," he exclaims. "The First Order—they've done it."
"Done that? How?"
"The weapon," Ben murmurs quietly, mostly talking to himself. "I sent Mom some intel from a spy in the Outer Rim a little while ago. They finished building it?"
"Mostly," Finn confirms. "It's functional now even if it isn't complete."
"That was the Hosnian system then," Ben concludes. "You said they were targeting the Republic."
"Yeah, it's that and then wherever the Resistance is headquartered."
"They can't know that," Han interjects. It's irrational but Leia is in danger so Han doesn't really care if he's being too hostile—he grabs Finn by his jacket collar and hauls him close. "They don't know that. Right?"
"I—I don't think so," Finn stutters. "I—I think we have bigger problems."
Finn starts jerking his chin at something over Han's shoulder. Han drops the younger man and, indeed, First Order TIE fighters are approaching rapidly across the bay.
This day just keeps getting better.
Then it occurs to Finn to ask, "Where's Rey?"
The first shot blows out the foundations of a tower on the opposite end of the castle but the resulting debris rains down over them in dangerous chunks. Everyone scatters and the three men find themselves in a rush toward the ground level.
"Solo!" Finn hollers even as they press out onto the flagstones where Stormtroopers are disembarking to engage. Han doesn't know if he's talking to him or Ben. "Solo! Where's Rey?"
Ben has his blaster out already, back against a wall, and Han sees Chewie coming from the edge of the woods toward them, bowcaster firing. They can survive this. Han ducks for cover and readies his own blaster. He can see Ben and Finn from here, can hear them in snippets over the explosions.
"She's in the woods!" Han screams at them. "Ran in there with BB-8!"
Ben acknowledges this with a nod of his head.
"I'll go!" he shouts at Finn. Ben spins, shoots an oncoming Stormtrooper in the chest, and sprints toward the cover of the trees.
Finn looks lost, torn between following Ben or hiding. Han makes a break for Ben's vacated cover. He throws himself into place just as a blaster bolt whizzes by and takes out a good chunk of rock a few feet behind where his head had just been.
"You gotta fight if you wanna live, kiddo," Han points out, trying and failing to measure his sarcasm. "Where's that blaster of yours?"
Finn looks around confused. The battle rages around them and Han isn't surprised the kid is a mess. "Inside, I think."
"Kriff."
"Here!" Maz shouts, pushing a familiar lightsaber hilt at Finn's face. "Take it!"
"Where'd you get that?" Han shouts over the din.
"A good question for another time!" Maz retorts. "Now, fight these beasts! Your son can look after himself and the girl!"
She disappears into the fray and Finn, emboldened by the glowing blue of the Skywalker saber, stands to face the enemy. Chewie arrives at Han's side a moment after.
"Long time no see," Han quips as he takes out a trooper. Chewie roars a sarcastic response and takes out three in one shot.
"Yeah, yeah. He just—" The sentence dies on Han's tongue. There in the sky descends a black Upsilon class shuttle, distinct for the damage it leaves in its wake.
The Knights of Ren.