Chapter 18

Hyperspace

Finn mindlessly sharpened a knife he had found in what was to be the butchering shop of the ship. Knives always fascinated him, though not for the sadistic purpose of killing. They were useful, and could be easily concealed and whipped out when the opportunity should arise.

Rey's musical laugh rang out through the command bridge, drawing his eyes from the whetstone, to the slice of her shoulder draped with hair. She sat with her head pointed downward, possibly because Master Ren rested his head on her lap, or some other -unlikely- innocent purpose.

"Finn," A voice hissed, though it sounded more like a sneeze.

He looked over his shoulder, seeing half of Poe's body leaning out from a broom closet and motioning with his hand for Finn to join him. Finn sheathed the knife, his chin twitching for a second in the direction of Rey, but caught himself. Slowly, he rose and joined him, showing him how to properly shut the door from the inside.

"Alright," Poe asked, turning from the door handle, "What really happened with the second ship?"

Finn inhaled, looking around the spacious broom closet (shoving aside the curiosity for what cleaning equipment would be stored in there) before answering.

"Another knight?" Poe frowned, leaning away.

"Something's not right," Finn told him. "My feelings, they're bugging me about this."

"It's not because of Rey?" Poe asked, lifting a skeptical eyebrow.

Finn hesitated before sighing, "I don't know. I'm so confused right now."

Poe crossed his arms, "What did Rey do?"

Finn looked at him, "Nothing. She did, nothing."

Poe nodded, then swallowed. "Finn, I'm going to ask you to do two things and you're not going to like either one. Just, remember that you're doing this for the Resistance."

Finn leaned away, "Do not, ask me, to spy on Rey."

"I'm asking you to spy on Rey because we think she has been compromised."

"This is Rey we're talking about!" Finn cried, trying not to make his voice sound too desperate. "She's not compromised because she has a boyfriend!"

"No, just when she meets with her boyfriend's buddies then lets said buddy get away with a ship that would have brought valuable resources to the Resistance's allies!"

"You don't know why he did it!" Finn insisted.

"You're right, we don't and no one is telling us. Not even the almighty Rey. In fact, whenever 'Ben' is in the picture, she's dead silent. Siding with him more often than she is with us. Finn, we never asked her to join the Resistance. We never asked her to fight for us, we just gave her a jet and let her fly, lightsaber in hand."

Finn stared at him, realization softening his features. "What are you saying?"

"I'm not saying anything," Poe began, but Finn cut him off.

"You are the Resistance! What are they planning?"

"No, I am not! Listen," He shifted his weight and glanced towards the door, "The Council has no idea what size and model of this ship is, they hardly even know what I'm doing out here. If they heard what Rey did, letting Ren take the Ikher Two, she would not only be out of the Resistance, but she would be put on trial for colluding with a nefarious ally, and Ren himself would be tried with the intent of execution."

Finn stared at him, wide eyed. There was no love lost for Ren as a man, but as a Master he had been pivotal in Finn's training, and for that alone Finn felt some sense of admiration for him. But that paled in comparison to another, more obvious truth.

"Poe, did the council not see Rey rip apart a ship with her bare hands? She did that for us, her family… what is she going to do if she thinks her family is betraying her?" He shivered, then added, "Again?"

"That's why I'm asking, Finn," Poe breathed, almost afraid of his own words himself. "We need to be crystal clear on her actions before we move."

Finn exhaled, feeling the weight of the ship they travelled on grind his shoulders. "What was the second thing?"

Poe inhaled, then swallowed, and closed his eyes for a moment. "If Rey is guilty, the chances of her going peacefully are going to be slim to none… unless she's guided into believing otherwise."

All previous feelings obliterated, and a stiff chill descended in the broom closet.

"Think on it," Poe told him, holding up his hands. "Hard decisions take time. Take yours."

With that, he turned his heel, and left Finn staring wide eyed where he stood.

SWSWSW

Rey watched the spindletop whir on her knee in a perfect wobble, her face looking like it hurt with joy. "This is so much fun!" She cried.

"I know!" Rose told her, her own face almost blindingly pinched with the same childlike joy.

Above them, leaning over the railing that looked directly into the comings and goings of the command bridge, Ben watched, allowing satisfaction to flow through him. Once again, he ran his thumb over his lips, remembering Rey's desperate kiss and the look of grass through the strands of her brown hair. He had never held a woman so closely as a kiss before her, and never thought that tumbling to the ground with one could be so easy! But, it had been, and if he hadn't been so deathly frightened of who could be coming through the turbolift in the next moment, who knew where they could have ended up?

He hid his smile in his crossed arms, resting on the railing as the spindletop wobbled off Rey's leg and onto Rose's open hand. Mindless, his forefinger twitched, stroking the fabric of his sleeve as though soaking up ink to scrawl a word. What word?

Adore.

Yes, Ben adored Rey. He hadn't felt adoration for some time. It felt good to ooze it from his pores much like a child playing with that spindletop. He wondered if he could make "Adore" spell out "Rey." That had been his particular talent, once upon a time…

He straightened, his feelings cooling. The last time he had practiced his calligraphy, passionately practiced, was at Luke's school. In this moment, as in other moments when he remembered his calligraphy set that his father had brought him from systems unknown, he had wondered what had happened to his book of drawings. His art taken from his mother's passionate speeches, and the definition of feelings thrust upon him at a young age scrawled delicately onto expensive paper. "Alone," he drew that one in the shape of a bird without a flock. "Angry," that one was more splotchy, like his mother after one of her moods when she kicked a basket of rice, sending the thousands of granules towards him. She was sorry for not seeing him there, of course, but her anger didn't go away. It only spread to a different thing.

"Grandfather." He didn't have a particular design for that one, but it came out in the same bright style as "belong."

The girls' laugher hit a climactic falsetto, bringing his focus to the wobbling spindletop that had fallen from Rose's hand and clattered to the glossy, unkept floor. Where had they found that silly thing? He shook his head and sighed, admiring the way Rey laughed with abandon.

"Beautiful," another word he would articulate with "Rey." Someday.

Slowly, his boot sliding loudly in his ears, he took a step back. Then another, until Rey's lovely face faded from view. He turned away, knowing what he needed to do. How far he would need to go.

"Don't do it."

He stopped, halting dead in the corridor at the sound of that voice. He turned his head to the left, feeling his blood congeal at that sight, and immediately turned his entire body before slamming his knee to the ground and dipping his chin in reverence.

"Grandfather!" He gasped, heart roaring in his ears.

Standing before him, cast in a brilliant blue hue and wearing robes befitting a Jedi Master, was a mussed haired man with a scar across his eye. Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader, himself.

"Ben," The voice he issued was kind, knowing, a perfect comfort from when Ben was a frightened teenager to now. "Ben, look at me."

Slowly, Ben lifted his head, peering at his grandfather, his body shaking.

The blue figure shook his head, his face falling from amused to concerned. "Don't run, not this time, Ben."

Ben's lips parted, his bottom lip beginning to wobble with tears. "I have to," He breathed.

"Why?"

Ben closed his eyes and mashed his lips together, savoring the pain for a moment. "Because I love her. And I've hurt every, single, person I've ever loved." He opened his eyes. "I worshipped my father as a boy. I killed him. I wanted to be a Jedi so that I could be like you…" He admired his grandfather for a moment, so striking in his Jedi robes, then swallowed, "I created a new order of the Sith. I can't have Rey. I'll destroy her."

"Clearly you haven't considered what would happen if you left her, now have you?"

Ben leaned back, used to being in such a position of obeisance that the discomfort hardly bothered him. No, he was going to listen to this.

His grandfather leaned against a wall and crossed his arms, narrowing his look slightly. "You never considered what lengths a woman like that would go through to be with the one she loves?"

"I can hide," Ben told him. "I can hide someplace she could never find me. Where no one could."

His grandfather inhaled and looked away for a moment, the small action causing shame to wash over Ben. No, he hadn't considered Rey's determination.

"The Knights of Ren," His grandfather continued, looking at him.

"Rey hates them," Ben told him, confused.

"Like she hated you?" He narrowed his look again, that knowing look of a master whose teaching couldn't be rebuked.

Ben nodded. "They would be perfect servants for her."

"Ben," The tenor of his voice changed, congealing Ben's blood once more. His grandfather continued, "You have been shamed."

He couldn't remember flying to his feet. He only remembered the world shifting around him and reaching out to steady himself against a beam of steel.

"No," Ben breathed. "No, you wouldn't say so!"

"Why wouldn't I?" The blue hue of his body moved as he sauntered towards his grandson. "Now you see, Ben. You cannot go anywhere where you will not be hunted down. One hunter will judge your every action, the other will love you unconditionally even unto her death. This is the path you have before you."

Ben leaned his head back onto the wall, tears threatening to choke him. "I can't have Rey!" He whimpered.

"You want a premonition about her?" His grandfather demanded. "Alright, I'll give you a premonition: you will fail her."

Ben's eyes whipped to him, hanging on to his every word despite his look of exacerbation.

"You will fail her, you will massively screw up. You will apologize without the intent of being forgiven, and guess what? She will forgive you. Each time you do it. And she will fail you. She will come to you with tears in her eyes expecting you to leave her, but you won't. Child, this is called 'marriage.' Two very imperfect people who cannot live without each other making it work. Ben, she won't beat you for making an error like Snoke did."

A knife slashed through Ben's innards, but he held himself.

"But she won't forgive you for leaving her." His face changed, instead of teaching, Ben felt his grandfather… loving. Imparting love upon his grandson much like a painter would stroke a brush on a wall. "She needs you. She needs to know that in this changing world, there's someone wholly invested in her that can play to her level of understanding. She can only find that with you."

Ben swallowed. "What would happen if I left her?"

Anakin's shoulders dropped and Ben could feel the Force surging around them. So, there is a method to his being here, Ben thought, but pushed that aside for later.

"If you leave Rey, she will search for you." Anakin began, his voice low. "She will search on her own, leaving the Resistance vulnerable. When she has exhausted her own resources, she will call to the Knights of Ren."

At this, Ben turned to the wall in front of him. Instead of a solid metal sheet, he saw some system in the rain, the colors of a city melting together in the wash, though a soaked Rey standing at a quay was in sharp focus. A ship, one he knew Koita Mathe liked to fly, landed before her with said Knight meeting her in his full black garb as the entry ramp lowered. Rey said nothing to him, merely shouldered her bag and boarded his ship.

Through the vision, Ben could still hear Anakin's voice speak: "They will wear down her resolve, until believing that she is helping the Resistance, she accepts the mantle of Mistress of the Knights of Ren and deposes of Supreme Leader Hux."

The vision changed. Now Rey wore jet black robes lined with silver and sported a staff lightsaber of pure crimson. At her feet, the head of Armitage Hux bled, separated from his body by at least two feet. Behind her, Koita Mathe came gripping the standard of the First Order in his fists, a hungered look upon his features as she turned off her staff and turned to him.

"Koita Mathe will convince her to marry him, forsaking love for consolidating power. He will pledge to her his sword, and will defend her from all her enemies. Including those in the Resistance she tried to help."

Ben gripped the steel beams behind him, feeling like he could rip them from their bolts at the sight of Koita Mathe wrapping his arm around Rey's waist and kissing her with their eyes open for a moment, then grabbing the blaster from her belt and shooting the Rebel behind her square in the throat while she rested her head on his chest. That Rebel looked awfully close to Finn…

"Their first child will be called the Pure One, a child with unforeseen abilities and control of the Force that none has ever seen before. The Resistance will lose it's armies, and won't raise a single ship for the cause out of sheer fear the likes of which you nor I could ever achieve in our reigns."

He was a beautiful child. Curled brown hair and piercing blue eyes, and a smile! He had Rey's smile! Why shouldn't he? His father rolled with him through a type of training course before gripping a bona fide red lightsaber of a simple design, lifting it and deflecting a floating droid's blasts to the direction of his father's words and animated arms. After training was complete, the boy hurtled passed his father to his mother's arms. Rey, dressed in a gown of black and red, scooped her son into her arms and nuzzled his hair, smiling as her husband joined them to fill in where the animated boy left out.

So, this is how the real Terror of the Galaxy is made, Ben thought, With permissive love and encouragement.

"The Pure One will reign after his mother for years, until another equal in talent and ability comes to challenge him. One overlooked by the Pure One's parents as insignificant, non-threatening."

The doors of an opulent palace opened, admitting a single figure into Rey's Son's court. A single figure, dressed in light, translucent clothing befitting a desert dweller walked, determined to see their leader. Ben squinted at the figure, straining to see if this person was male or female, young or old, lightsaber or other weapon. None of this was clear, and the vision changed, showing him a metal ribbed corridor wall, and nothing more.

Ben turned to the ghostly figure of his grandfather, and swallowed. "All of this, because I leave?"

"Amazing how one decision can influence an entire generation?"

Ben snorted, his grandfather's eyes alighting with amusement for a second. Then, Ben asked, "And… what about my future with Rey? What would that be like?"

Anakin's smile widened, and his eyes glittered. "That's your decision, Ben. Every decision. Will you be an anxious father and worry about every action? Or will you simply be there for each nightmare? Each picture drawn for you? How will you love Rey? With a kiss, or with a soft assurance that you won't leave her, such as saying you'll build something in a few days and then doing it? These are questions that you must ask yourself that will have the greatest consequences."

Anakin stepped back, taking his time to look over his grandson as he moved. "Don't leave. There comes a time when you become too old to run away. Don't leave this one."

A tear slid down Ben's cheek and he swallowed hard. "I'm scared," He whispered, "I don't know how to love."

"Ask her," Anakin smiled, "Ask her how she wants to be loved. Then follow through. The same for you, Ben. How do you want to be loved?"

Ben blinked, and just like that, his grandfather was gone.

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