Holy crap the feedback I've gotten on this story. I'm super happy you guys, thank you so much. For a while the site was being dumb so I had a hard time reading your reviews, but now that I can I'm blown away. I have an idea of where this is going but no longer any real sense of how long it'll be or where I'm going to end it so I appreciate your patience. Also, I polished up the first chapter a little bit (just fixed some minor things) because they were bothering me and I'd written it at some obscene hour of the morning while only partially conscious.
Regardless, I hope you enjoy this next chapter.
She was a hundred yards from the base and still hidden in the trees when she slowed down and realized that this was too difficult a situation to just rush in on. She couldn't just bring Kylo Ren into the middle of their base, especially when his being so close by implied that someone else against them knew where they were and left him for dead on their doorstep. It was too large a chance that luck deposited Kylo so near—in some twisted kind of message this was a warning. If Snoke tried to kill Kylo then Snoke knew where their base was. Why he hadn't attacked yet was beyond Rey, but she knew that if she didn't tread lightly they wouldn't have the slightest chance of finding out.
For her, this was Ben Solo and while that didn't erase her difficulties with him it did give her a reason to hope. She knew the same would stand for Leia, and Poe and Finn would trust them, but beyond that she had no support. Kylo had killed hundreds and terrorized millions, and even though she thought very highly of the resistance fighters she wouldn't put it past a grieving parent or child to slip into the med bay and bump the settings on the bed Kylo would need to recover. It also occurred to Rey that on the very, very, only-Han-Solo-could-ever-pull-this-off chance that Ben's attacker didn't know where they were, bringing him into the base would only give them a beacon to track. If he survived his strength would return and with it his presence in the force. He'd be a way to find them.
She stopped her speeder and adjusted her grip on him, thinking in circles. He needed help. The base could provide that, but how was she going to sneak in a murderer and use their precious resources on him while keeping their location a secret?
She had no idea, until she saw Leia come running across the air field towards her. Tension released in her chest. Leia would know what to do. The older woman was breathless, her eyes brimming with tears as she came to a stop next to Rey's speeder, the shock and wave of mixed emotions clear on her face. She covered her mouth, and Rey could sense worry for her buried in the middle of her shock at seeing Kylo.
"He's alive," Rey said softly as Leia reached up a hand to cup her son's cheek. His head lolled in her hand and Rey eased her grip on him a little. "I just don't know for how long. He's very weak," she added gently.
Leia nodded, her eyes still fixed on Ben's face. She was looking at him like she was seeing Han and her lost child all at once, and Rey had to swallow back her own tears. "I know," she breathed, stroking Ben's cheekbone and pressing a kiss to his forehead. When she let go she was trembling. "I know. Here, let me help you get him down."
Rey worked with Leia to get Ben off of the speeder and onto the mossy forest floor, where Leia cradled him in her arms. Rey wanted to let Leia have time alone with him, but she knew his time was short and if he was going to survive they needed to make a decision—now. She crouched down next to the stricken mother, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Leia," she began carefully, wincing internally at Ben's rasping breaths. They were so, so far apart she'd thought he'd stopped breathing several times. Just when she was sure once more that he'd died he struggled through another. "What do you want to do?"
Leia didn't take her eyes off of Ben's face, seemed incapable of doing anything but hold him and stroke his cheek, but Rey knew her better than that. She knew Leia was listening. She knew Leia had heard the morbid question in her words: Do you want to hold him till he passes, or do you want to try to save him?
"Go and retrieve a medical droid and a stretcher," Leia responded at last. "We'll figure everything else out when he's inside."
Rey squeezed Leia's shoulder and got up, sprinting the rest of the way to base to do as she was told. Leia was fiercely intelligent. She knew that Ben was a liability. She knew what his presence there meant, probably better than Rey did. But she loved him unconditionally and that meant right now they had to save him.
Finn startled as Rey raced past him, but she didn't stop until she reached the med bay. "I need a hover bed and an emergency medical droid, orders from the General," she said, startling the one human medic currently on duty. Thankfully their wounded only consisted of two pilots who were being treated for minor burns after a fuel accident, so she didn't feel so bad about borrowing a droid and a hovering stretcher. Finn had followed her and she nearly ran into him again on her way back out.
"What is going on?" he asked. "Who's injured?"
She looked him in the eye. "Kylo Ren, and right now his mother is in the woods trying to keep him alive so I'm sorry Finn but I have to go."
Finn gaped, and she could feel him at her back as she slipped past him and strode down the hall, droid and bed following her.
"Kylo Ren?" he hissed, falling into step beside her. "Why are we helping him?"
Rey pressed her lips together, understanding fully why Finn would have a difficult time with this. He'd had PTSD nightmares for months after his back finally healed and he'd been under Ren and the rest of the First Order's thumb his entire life. She didn't want to belittle his feelings, but she also didn't have much time either. "Because, despite what he did to you and me and most of the galaxy Leia was right about there still being light in him. I felt it. It's the only thing left keeping him alive right now, so really he's not Kylo Ren he's Ben Solo and it's what Han would have wanted."
"He's a war criminal!" Finn insisted. "And the leader of the most powerful sect of the dark side this galaxy currently has! I'm sorry about Leia and I know you're right about Han but Rey—" he grabbed her arm, slowing her for a moment so she'd look him in the eye. "He's dangerous."
"So am I," she said evenly back. "And a war criminal deserves a trial. He has to be alive for that." She pulled away and kept going, now out on the airfield. "Besides, Finn," she said more gently. "I don't think he is the leader of the Knights of Ren anymore. I'm not sure he ever really was. I'm truly afraid there is more to Snoke that we realized."
Finn had gone quiet, presumably shocked by the scene they approached. Leia was in the exact same position, but her hand was resting gingerly over Ben's heart and her eyes were closed.
"Leia?" Rey asked hesitantly, wondering if she was already too late. The droid zipped around her to hover in on its patient. Leia raised her head slowly and blinked, a weary smile on her face. "Is he—" Rey asked, unsure of what Leia's expression really meant.
"He's alive," she said, reluctantly loosing her hold on him so the droid could do its scans and inject him with something that would help stabilize him enough to get him on the hover bed. With care, she and Rey worked together to lay him down, and Rey couldn't help but notice the way Leia held his head until the last second, placing it so gently down she wondered if Leia was having flashbacks to when he was first born.
Rey's eyebrows shot up when the bed detected and began recording a heartbeat and oxygen levels in the blood. The beds were good, but Ben was simply too weak for it to be picking anything up. Or at least he had been—Rey glanced over at Leia, who was moving more stiffly and slowly than usual.
"You gave him some of your life," Rey breathed, astounded. Such a transfer through the force was supposed to be immensely difficult if not impossible—and most often the giving or taking of life energy through the force was a dark power.
"I gave him all his life once, it was no large sacrifice to give him a little more," she said, smiling at Rey and then falling into step by the bed, guiding it and the droid back towards the base. Rey was struck with respect and awe for Leia all at once, but Finn's distressed presence at her side soon drew her attention. He was staring after Leia and Ben with visible tension in his shoulders, his breathing too heavy for having only walked across the airfield. She lay a hand on his tense forearm.
"I'm sorry, Finn. I know this is difficult for you."
Finn pulled away and wouldn't look at her, and even though part of her had expected it it still hurt when he walked away and disappeared into the forest. Rey sniffed and dashed away her tears, wishing Luke was there to help her work through what had just happened. He was back on his island to preserve his presence from Snoke, and even though she could go visit him she felt like she was still too needed here. Leia had Ben and would handle the complex politics around bringing him into the base. For the moment, Rey was free to do as she liked so she went to the only other person she could.
"Rey! I didn't see you at morning ration is everything alright?" Poe asked, his forearms propped on the edge of his cockpit. He had a bulb in one hand and a cloth in the other, clearly in the middle of swapping something out.
She sighed, climbing up to sit on the wing where she folded her legs and held a hand out to him. "Give me something to work on."
He raised an eyebrow but complied, reaching down and coming back with a set of dials that needed recalibrating. He handed them and the needed tool over and Rey accepted them gratefully, turning the pieces in her hand and falling into the soothing act of fixing them.
"I've upset Finn and I'm worried about Leia," she said eventually, and even though her eyes were on her work she knew Poe had paused to listen.
"Okay, what happened?"
"I sensed something this morning, something terrible," she said, pausing in her work and staring at the heavy dials. "I went out to investigate and I found Kylo Ren in the woods. I thought he was dead at first, but when I picked him up to bring his body back I realized he wasn't and now he's in our medbay." She glanced up at Poe to gauge his reaction. He looked shocked but not angry or any other emotion she'd been expecting.
"Okay," he said slowly. "But you wouldn't have brought him here if you didn't think there was a good reason. I know he's Leia's son, but there's more to it, isn't there?"
Rey huffed out a breath and handed back the fixed dials, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. "Yes. There is. Did it ever seem odd to you that he had to fight so hard to use the dark side? He's strong with it, but there was always that conflict." She paused, unsure someone who hadn't used the force would get what she was saying.
Poe nodded though, and seemed to understand. He was ridiculously observant and good at empathy, which was part of the reason he ended up being the one she'd talk to. He was more level than Finn, didn't react as quickly to personal emotions so he was a good listener. Encouraged, Rey continued.
"Even when he killed Han on that bridge, even when he fought me in the woods and every time since, I felt a conflict in him. Like—" she cast around "like someone who's made a mistake and all they want to do is go home but they really do feel like it's too late. I've seen people do it before, not on Ben's scale, but sometimes people make mistakes so bad they just keep digging deeper because it's easier than facing the consequences. Thing is, all the dark side is is consequences. Ben's clearly not afraid of confrontation, so what was so bad that he kept going further into the dark rather than return to the light he so clearly missed?"
Poe shrugged. "I don't know, what?"
"I think his master was forcing him. I think that when Ben first began training something happened that made the dark side more appealing, but once he was there he realized how terrible it really is. The dark is built on fear and pain and a lack of trust, something easy to fall into when you feel like you can't rely on anyone else. Luke hasn't talked about it but I think Ben felt betrayed and resolved to draw his energy from himself and the dark, rather than trust in other people again. That's when he became Kylo Ren. He saw the strength his grandfather wielded and he thought it protected him from having or needing other people, let alone a family."
"Okay, so for a while he goes off on his own and he finds a dark side master," Poe said, nodding and tucking a cloth into his back pocket. He climbed out of the cockpit and settled on the wing next to her, his legs hanging off the edge. "So what changed?"
"I think he knew that it was too late to leave Snoke and do it alive," Rey said, something that had been nagging at her ever since that day on the bridge when Ben hadn't refuted Han's statement about what would happen to him. He knew his master was using him. "Snoke knew Ben's family history and sensed the power he was capable of and he persuaded him that he was better off with a new master. By the time Ben figured out what was really going on it was too late for him to go back. All he could do was grow stronger through the darkness until—"
Poe's brow was furrowed. "Until what, Rey? There's something else to this, isn't there? Why was it too late after he'd started training with Snoke and not before? Shouldn't he stand a better chance at fighting a dark side user after he knew about the dark side and the light?"
"He should have, yes," Rey agreed. "There's piece missing."
"But you have a theory," Poe pressed.
Rey pressed her lips together. "Thank you Poe," she said, hopping off of the wing. She no longer just wanted to see Luke, she needed to see him.