Chapter 14

Finn sat with a pensive expression, and his mouth twisted into a deep frown. He stared at the blinking transceiver, wishing he would get another call saying it was all a joke, yet he knew in his heart he had heard the truth. In fact, he knew weeks ago that something was terribly wrong. He had wanted to talk to Rey about it when they got a quiet moment to chat, but as usual, she was always on the run. He thought back to after Rey had left, and after things had started to settle around the base. He was taking inventory of raw material stocks, when suddenly he was awash with a wave of dread. He had felt it before, whenever he was near. Like hot nails scratching at his spine, the feeling was what he could only describe as "otherworldly". He had felt it up until the Battle of Exegol—the day it stopped was a relief. But now it was back, and Finn knew this call would come eventually.

Reluctantly, he typed a few lines of coordinates into the transceiver key. He leaned back and stared at the letters and numbers. Rey's words swam through his head, speaking truth, but not the truth he wanted. He could not discern his fear from his hate. To him, Kylo Ren's voice was nothing but metal grating against metal. He could not begin to imagine why or how that man was alive, much less why he just had to tempt Rey into finding him. It was sickening, Finn thought, that they had gone through so much to put an end to this war and to the First Order, only to have the head revived.

So, he stared at the monitor, and he frowned, and he closed his eyes as he gave the command to send. And like that, he wondered what hell he would be bringing upon the Resistance, and more importantly, himself.

He stood up from the desk and left the cramped room behind, with its poor lighting and many stacks of unorganized folders. Stepping outside, the bright sunlight stung his eyes as the humid air took his breath away and stuck to his skin. The jungle foliage that surrounded the complex seemed to close in around him, as though the planet itself wanted the inside scoop on his conversation. He took a deep breath and sighed to himself as he ran a heavy hand down his face, unable to hide his displeasure. From somewhere on his right, the familiar form of BB8 raced up to him, stopping at his feet. He looked down at the meek droid, who regarded him with a curious tilt of its head plate.

Finn shook his head.

"Trust me, you don't want to know," he said.

BB8 gave a few questioning beeps, seeming to press the issue further. Finn shook his head again.

"I only got bits of that—look, he has Rey and they're on their way back, alright?"

The droid continued to stare at him, as a brief tension was building. Finn threw up his hands, his shoulders rising to his ears.

"Okay, fine! I'll explain, but you're not going to like it. Where's Rose? We need to get everyone on base in the hangar—time for a group meeting."

"I'd say that went pretty well," Ben chimed, his voice crackling over the headsets.

Rey crossed her arms, leaning back into her chair. Ben's sarcasm seemed to be lost on her.

"What are you talking about? That didn't go well at all; he literally hung up on us!" She whined.

"It could have been worse," Ben said.

"Ben, you don't know Finn like we do—he doesn't act like this. He must be really upset," Rey said, her pitch rising.

"I think you need to relax; it wasn't that—"

"What if he denies us access to the base? Then what are we going to do?"

"Rey—"

"He's probably already speaking to everyone else; what if they turn against us?"

"Hey! No panic attacks on my ship, alright?" Poe interjected, "Besides, guess who just received landing clearance."

"He actually sent coordinates?" Ben asked, genuinely astonished.

"Yep, looks like we're going home," Poe said.

He began inputting the coordinates and gearing the ship up for takeoff, choosing hyperspace lanes and programming the autopilot.

"Home? I didn't realize you regard the Resistance as your home," Ben said.

"I, uh—look, I was speaking to Rey when I said that, interloper," Poe said with a sneer.

Ben smiled to himself.

"I'm beyond thrilled; I'm so happy to be out of that wretched wilderness. I can go back to my books, and clean clothes, and sunlight—oh, how I miss sunlight!" Rey cooed.

She wrapped her arms tightly around her torso, imagining the warm climate of Ajan Kloss. She could nearly feel the radiant touch of the sun's rays on her cheek and loathed the minutes that separated her from the jungle planet.

Ben, on the other hand, was stung by her words. He knew she meant nothing ill by it, but her enthusiasm to leave Vicondor behind did not sit well with him. To him, it felt like she wanted to also leave behind everything that had transpired between them: every challenge they solved, every mystery they uncovered, every lesson they learned. Vicondor was a place they had all to themselves; a little section of the galaxy where the realities of their identities could be forgotten. It was a place they could have started anew, and even if Rey had rejected to that notion multiple times, Ben would not have been distraught if Vicondor was his final destination. But she wanted to leave and leave they did. For Ben, he could only hope that "going home" was a cause for joy, and not a mistake.

"How long after the jump until we reach the base?" Ben asked.

"Uh, we're lookin' at about five hours ship-time, but I can probably cut that down to four," Poe replied.

He cracked his knuckles, laying his hand on the accelerator. Ben thought for a moment, deciding he was unable to resist poking at Poe a few more times.

"And you do know how to land this ship, correct?" Ben asked, his voice falsely condescending.

A curt laugh could be heard from Poe's headset as he pushed a few buttons.

"Coming from the guy who crashed his ship into a planet. Speaking of that, I've heard you're a bit of a pilot yourself?" Poe asked.

"I know a thing or two," Ben replied.

"Ah, so should I take the loss of the Falcon to be an accident or intentional?"

"Why would I sink my own ship, Master Dameron?"

"Well, I don't know that you can call it your ship anymore, now can you, Master Ren? I assumed you might have done it out of spite."

"Spite, huh? As far as I'm concerned, that ship is her own captain—never to be tamed. And my name is not Ren, so I'd appreciate if you'd stop calling me that."

"When you're on my ship, on my comms, I'm gonna call you whatever I want, pal."

"Oh, so we're pals now?"

"Will you two shut up!" Rey interjected, "Poe, jump to hyperspace already; the sooner we get going, the sooner we get to base. You two will have all the time in the galaxy to do this back-and-forth nonsense."

The line was silent. Rey tapped her foot. Already strapped in, Ben leaned back and closed his eyes. Poe gave a sigh before pressing two final buttons. Gripping the accelerator, he spoke up.

"Course set. Jumping in 3…2…1…"

A couple of hours passed, and the idle chatter aboard the Pyrrhus had been exhausted. Meaningless bickering, topics of hyperspace lanes, and ship computer schematics, had fallen to the wayside as all three passengers realized they were tired. Tired of arguing, tired of flying, tired of space—the list went on. Unfortunately, the ship was not particularly accommodating to anything but sitting down, so finding a place to rest, let alone a position to rest, was virtually impossible.

Rey flipped on the monitor in front of her and sifted through whatever passed as reading material. Her headset, a little too tight on her sensitive scalp, was forming a headache. Her expression drew into a deep frown, as each passing minute felt slower than a day's worth of waiting. Ben had no luxury of a computer to fiddle with, but instead preoccupied himself with observing the modifications that had been made to the twin blaster canons. They appeared to be outfitted for reaching a farther targeting range, but he had never seen such dubious craftsmanship, and therefore could not be sure.

"Master Dameron?" Ben's voice pierced the silence of the in-flight communication system.

"What do you want? And stop calling me that, it's weird," Poe replied.

"How would you take it if I fired off a few pot-shots with these, uh, scope-canons, if you could even call them that?"

"No."

A pause.

"Is that a 'no' as in 'no', or 'no'?" Ben asked.

"That's a 'no' as in don't touch my fucking ship," Poe replied.

Rey rolled her eyes at their childishness.

"You know these 170s are pretty fun—flew a few old ones back in the day. Surprisingly athletic for only two engines," Ben said.

"Is this supposed to be news to me?" Poe asked with thinly veiled agitation on his tongue.

"Hey, you're a ship-guy, I'm a ship-guy—we can talk. Just tryin' to find common ground."

Poe rolled his eyes and resumed checking the monitors.

"You got to fly one of our SF models. What'd you think?"

"A TIE SF? I don't remember that."

"Really? When you and FN—sorry, General Finn, jumped ship from the Finalizer."

Poe thought for a moment, having compartmentalized so much of the past year. He raised a finger as the memory of their escape came to him.

"Oh, yeah. That seems so long ago. Yeah, that thing was pretty badass, I won't lie—couldn't do shit against those point-defense missiles though, that's for sure," Poe said.

"Well, no ship that size could have survived a shot like that anyway. Did you get a look at the Silencer by chance?"

"You mean during the times you were trying to smoke us? Or in between?"

Ben laughed.

"Alright, alright," he paused, "I was telling Rey, if there's ever a time you guys want to go raid the Order fleet storage, I'd grab that Silencer in a heartbeat. You'd love it; real interesting energy converter on her—let's her burn hotter than most."

"Oh, really? What kind of acceleration are we talking?"

"5000, or close to it."

"Shit—and where is this thing being held?"

"That's a good question. The SJ Fleet wanted it back for modification, but I don't know if it ever made it out of storage. It might be in The Redoubt, or even near Batuu."

"So, you don't even know which part of the galaxy it's in? Talk about a needle in a haystack."

"If I could get access to the fleet records, I'd find it easily."

"Would you really risk getting caught by the First Order just to get a ship?" Rey asked.

There was a pause.

"She's not just a ship, Rey. She was special; I spent a lot of time with that thing," Ben replied.

"I don't usually side with the bad guys, but I can sympathize with him, Rey. The bond between a man and his ship is not to be taken lightly," Poe added.

Rey narrowed her eyes and gave a huff of frustration.

"So, you're stupid First Order ship takes priority over the Millennium Falcon, huh? The ship you grew up with isn't important enough to get back, but this one is special somehow?" She asked.

"The Falcon was never my ship," Ben said.

A hint of sorrow sat upon his words that caused him to look down at the floor.

"I mean, maybe not in title, but by birthright? Even sentimentally, it doesn't count for anything?" She asked, prying further than Ben wanted at this time.

He sighed and scratched his head.

"You don't get it; it's…just not the same," he said.

"Explain it to me then," Rey said.

"I'd rather not."

"I don't care. You promised when we got off Vicondor that you would be willing to talk about anything."

There was a tense silence. With each creeping second, Poe wished he could excuse himself from the imminent, obviously personal argument, yet was unable. The best he could do was to stop the issue before it got started.

"Uh, hey, could you two do me a favor and save the fighting for when we land? I don't want to be involved in any of this," Poe said, his tone uncharacteristically awkward.

"We're not fighting and I'm not getting involved in this either. I'm going below deck," Ben said.

"What? I didn't say you could move decks," Poe interjected.

His warning fell upon deaf ears as Ben detached himself from the gunner seat and made way for the hatch.

"Hey! You can't just walk away from me," Rey cried, also ignoring Poe.

Poe threw his hands up as he saw both of their headsets go offline.

What have I gotten myself into? Poe thought.

Rey dropped down from the hatch into the cargo hold. She saw Ben crouched beside the unconscious First Order captain, as he checked her wrist to confirm a steady pulse. He did not look at her, instead observing the captain as if she was not there. Rey crossed her arms.

"So, is she still alive?" Rey asked, her voice still full of irritation.

Part of her wanted to drop the earlier topic, yet there was some unspoken principle she needed to uphold; she could hardly put a name to it.

"Yes," Ben replied.

The air was thick between them. Rey sighed, giving up the former conversation, so much as her pride felt she was conceding.

"What are we going to do with her once we get there?" She asked.

Ben gave Rey a disconcerting look. It was a steady gaze she had not seen in months, and it made her uneasy. His tone, on the other hand, did not fit. It was lighter than his eyes, even if it dripped with a kind of cynical obviousness. Rey at once knew it was time to back down.

"I don't know, Rey, what do you think we do with prisoners?" He asked.

She kept eye contact.

"What do we do? Or what does the First Order do?" She rebutted.

Ben gave an imperceptible smile.

"You know I went easy on you, right? On the Starkiller," Ben said as he stood up.

Rey took an unconscious step backwards. She was suddenly aware of how icy the air was, and how it made her body hair stand on end. Or was it Ben giving her this feeling of a creeping coldness?

"What are you getting at?" Rey asked.

"If I wanted to hurt you then, I could have. You should ask Poe—we didn't have nearly as nice a conversation," he said.

His words seemed to hunt her, yet he stayed put. Rey furrowed her brow as she looked at him. The subtlety of the darkness was pooling around him, either intentional or just barely below the subconscious. Rey became suddenly skeptical, as images of the interrogation room came back to her.

"Why are you telling me this?" She asked, her voice coming out shakier than she expected.

Something told her this had nothing to do with their earlier discussion. Ben took one step towards her.

"Because, Rey, information is a two-way road. There's information you want to know, and information you don't want to know, but that's not how truth works; you either get everything or you get nothing," he said, his voice approaching a whisper.

Rey slowly shook her head.

"I-I'm not understanding."

"Tell me, Rey, in a functioning government or political organization, what must be done with prisoners to protect the people of said organization?"

Her eyes looked away from him, unsure how to answer.

"You need to get information, right? And how do you think you get information from an unwilling party?" Ben asked.

"Are you going to torture her?" Rey asked.

"Of course, you don't start with torture, Rey, be a little reasonable. But it's okay, you're learning."

"You're going to interrogate her then? Like you did to me and Poe?"

"Oh, I won't be doing anything. I have no authority in the Resistance. These are decisions that will be left up to you and your colleagues."

"W-what? No, I—I can't hurt people like that."

"What's more important to you? Your friends and your group, or a poor traitor like this?" He gestured to the body, "How do you think the Resistance has made it as long as it has, Rey? All that information you had stored on the First Order, how do you think you all got that level of intelligence? You can't possibly believe the Resistance is some beacon of goodness with nothing but divine luck on its side? You're in a war, Rey, grow up a little."

Rey was taken back, not in full understanding of the situation. She rubbed her arm.

"Ben, where is this coming from? I shouldn't have badgered you about the Falcon, but this feels like it's coming out of nowhere," she said, her voice low.

At her apologetic tone, the darkness seemed to peel away from Ben; such tools could be set aside, for he had gotten his way. He ran his fingers through his hair.

"Rey, I promised you I'd tell you everything once we got off that planet, but everything is not conditional. There are things you want to know about me, and that's fine, but there is a lot you'll wish you did not know, and those two things go hand-in-hand. You have been a good listener so far, and I appreciate all that you've seen me through, I really do, but the truth comes out in time, and when you're impatient you might find something you didn't want to."

Rey looked to the floor, uncomfortable, but understanding. For the first time in what felt like forever, she felt submissive, like the tables had been turned on her. She had a sudden, anxious realization that she had become a bit too comfortable with the "new" version of the man she met a year ago. She had forgotten the shadows underneath, both present and faded; she had forgotten what once was, and what could be. Poe's urgent words came through from earlier.

He's a villain, Rey, stop pretending otherwise!

She swallowed hard, looking up at Ben. The engines drummed to the seconds that came between them and their arrival at Ajan Kloss. She hoped she had not made a blind mistake, like Poe and Finn had suggested. She rubbed her arm again.

"You're probably feeling a lot of emotions right now. I shouldn't have pressured you like that, and in front of someone you don't know. I'll, um, try to be more patient," she said.

Ben stared at her, wanting to grin at how difficult it was for her to simply say the words I'm sorry. Instead, he simply nodded and gave her an affirming look. She nodded too, and turned, climbing back up to the deck.

Ben gave a deep sigh. He was starting to understand her, just as she was starting to understand him. Her pride and sense of self was priority, and it showed. He wanted to change that. It was not his goal to intimidate her, but only to fire a warning shot—just enough to make her stay on her toes, instead of getting lost in her emotions. He was a forest person, but she often only saw the trees. The moment they would land, there would be much work to do. Now was not the time to be swapping sentimentality about days long since passed, but instead look towards a steep road ahead. He knew he was in for a grueling and frightful homecoming, but he had been preparing for it for years. For Rey, he could only hope she was prepared to walk the path she so dutifully chose.

And yet…something felt wrong.

Ben looked around as though unsure of how he got into the cargo hold. His eyes drew wide as something slithered from his mind and disappeared into the obscurity. He slowly reached his hand up to the back of his neck, impressed at how sensitive his skin was. His hair was standing on end, as if he had been assaulted by an unseeable force. But he was alone in the cargo bay. The familiar crushing weight of the darkness slipped away from him, fading into the walls—he had barely noticed it.

What am I doing?

Had he tapped into the dark side unintentionally? He then realized the source of the sickening feeling: it was not his own fear, but Rey's fear that plagued his skin and psyche. Had he startled her? He furrowed his brow as he struggled to piece together the conversation they had minutes ago. He came into the cargo hold to check on the captain—right? Rey was upset about something, or was she? They talked about the Resistance, no, the captain—no, both.

He scratched his neck before running his fingers through his hair. This sensation was unnerving and confusing. How had he forgotten a conversation that happened minutes ago? How had he pulled at the strings of the dark side without intention? And to direct its influence at Rey, nonetheless?

The dark side corrupts, Ben, Rey's voice from days ago, full of concern and anger.

Ben shook his head at the memory of her expression. He had been using this power for years and with no ill effects. He lied to himself. He had to.

You're fine, you're just stressed. Rey's right, there's a lot going on, Ben thought.

He took a deep breath and looked up at the hatch. He wondered if he should go talk to Rey about what just happened, and if he should ask her what exactly he said. He frowned at the thought.

No, he thought, there's no need to worry her.

Despite the gnawing curiosity at what had overcome him, he decided he could not trouble her in that way. She would think he was losing it. She would worry, and then he would worry, but he needed her calm, if only to ground him during the events to come. So, he shook away the thoughts and buried the feelings deep down where they would not be seen. It felt natural for him to do that—safe even. His cool exterior was rattled, but he reassured himself with denial. That conversation was a mere slip-up. A fluke. Rey would forget about it as soon as they landed on Ajan Kloss. He was just overwhelmed, yes, overwhelmed indeed. The things he told himself, the way it settled his mind, was much easier than debating difficult truths.

Truths…, Ben thought.

The short conversation was right there on the tip of his tongue.

Something about truths.

"Attention!" Poe's voice from above.

"We're approaching thirty minutes to landing, if all personnel could, oh, I don't know, take your damn seats! This is not a commercial transport, guys, let's be a little professional."

Ben sighed as a new wave of dread washed over him. Until now, he had not noticed how unprepared he felt for this moment, despite how many years he spent telling himself he was prepared. Although, to be fair, he always imagined he'd show up to Ajan Kloss with an army instead of a death wish. He took one more look at the First Order captain, whose finger twitched. He breathed, combed through his hair, and straightened his cloak. He began climbing up the hatch to the deck, where each rung of the ladder felt like an admission of guilt.