Chapter 15: Fragments From the Past

"Oh, and the song she throws is not one I know

But it knew me.

For an age long lost in time, erased

Days when they called our names

Stories tucked away, you tell it to me."

- Boston, Dermot Kennedy

Previously: 18 yr old Ben has a Force-vision that sends Han to Jakku in search of the Millennium Falcon. Han discovers our favourite scavenger living in the empty cargo-hold of the ship, and ends up bringing her to the Jedi temple on Yavin IV where she meets Ben. Both can immediately sense their connection, which Ben fears because of Snoke's interest in the young girl. He initially gives her the cold-shoulder and attempts to keep his distance, until he is almost killed by the Knights of Ren on a mission to Csilla. There he and Rey experience their first long-distance Force bond, and she witnesses his near-death. Recognizing that they are inexplicably connected, the two forge a close friendship that spans Rey's first several years at the Temple. Ben manages to hide her presence from Snoke, until one evening they get in a fight and Ben reveals her existence (accidentally). Snoke shows Ben visions of Rey as a Sith, and attempts to convince him that he must kill Rey or else watch her fall. Instead, Rey helps Ben overcome Snoke, and together they drive him out of Ben's mind.

Four years (and many adventures) later, Ben and Rey visit Ilum to find a kyber crystal for Rey to construct a lightsaber. She faces many visions in the cyber caves, including her parents, Ben, and a dark side version of herself. She escapes unscathed and together they travel to Chandrila to visit Han and Leia...

29 ABY

Rey slept for fourteen standard hours. When she woke the sun was streaming through a gap in the curtains and slanting across her eyes. She took a moment to get her bearings, absorbing the sight of Ben's neatly ordered desk and the dark, rumpled sheets surrounding her. Memories of a heated argument filtered in next—Rey crossing her arms and demanding that Ben take back his room, while Ben laughed and then scowled when her insistence didn't wane. The disagreement had eventually been settled when Ben stretched himself out on his sleeping roll in the middle of the hallway—the couch was far too short for his legs—and refused to budge. Leia had watched with a softness in her eyes that hid the sharp edges of uncertainty.

Rey crawled out of bed, eased the door open, and padded barefoot towards the kitchen. Ben's force signature was absent. The sound of raised voices stopped her in her tracks.

"No, Han," Leia snapped. "We swore years ago that we would never speak of it—you promised—"

"But things are different now, princess," Han said placatingly, and the sound of the endearment made Rey flush to the tips of her ears. You shouldn't be listening, she scolded herself. "You can't control what he hears from others. Wouldn't it be better if you were the one to—"

"I said no," Leia demanded, and Rey swore she could hear the edge of tears creeping into the ordinarily stern Senator's voice. "That man has done enough damage already. He destroyed it Han—all of it. And I—"

Leia's voice became muffled and Rey couldn't make out the rest of her sentence. She heard a sniff and the soothing hum of Han's baritone, and realized with a deep jolt of shock that Leia was crying, something that she had never imagined possible. With soft footsteps she began her retreat towards Ben's room.

"I know Luke has forgiven him, but I just can't," Leia's voice carried into the hall once more.

Han's indecipherable tones followed.

"Can't I just want to protect him a little longer?" Leia responded.

"Ben is his own person," Han argued gently. Rey froze at the sound of their son's name.

"But don't you see how it could hurt him? He's come so far and I—"

"Shh," Han said suddenly interrupting her. And then, as if he could sense her listening presence—"I should check on Rey. Ben said she would be up soon."

There was a moment of silence and then—"Does it concern you?" in Leia's voice.

"Does what concern me?" Han asked.

"Their…friendship," Leia answered. "How close they've become. I know it scares Luke."

Rey swallowed hard, suddenly feeling too warm.

"Luke is afraid of anything he can't explain with his damn Jedi texts. I think that girl is the best thing that's happened to our son since the day he was born."

"But it's not the Jedi way—Luke has always said that the reason Vader went dark was because my mother—"

"The Jedi way," Han scoffed. "Luke agreed to train you, and you had a husband and a child. Love doesn't make you weak, Leia—"

"But it makes you vulnerable!" she snapped, the bite that had slowly waned from her voice returning full force. "Ben and I are different people, and I'm scared of what he'll become if—"

Her voice was cut off by the sound of a door creaking open, followed by the shuffle of footsteps and Chewie's indignant rumble. He appeared at the end of the hall alongside Ben, whose head immediately swiveled to meet Rey's gaze.

It seemed that after offering her one smile, he was incapable of reverting to his usual stoicism. The grin that lit his face was almost boyish, but it flickered when he took in her troubled countenance and the current of unease in her Force signature. His brow furrowed.

Rey shoved the memory of Han and Leia's conversation out of her mind and smiled, rapidly running a hand over hair that was surely untidy from sleep.

Ben tipped his head slightly to the side, their quiet gesture for everything okay?

Rey nodded once and ducked under his elbow to enter the kitchen before he could pester her with more questions.

Leia was seated at the kitchen table while Han fiddled with the stove. The Senator's face showed no signs of her recent emotion, a fact for which Rey felt oddly grateful as she greeted Chewie and dropped into a chair. Ben entered the room behind her and leaned one shoulder against the doorframe.

"Did you get the parts you need?" Han asked over his shoulder, shuffling to the side as Chewie gently shooed him away from the kitchenware.

"Yes," Ben answered. "And the extra shipment for you as well."

"Good," Han said. "Need to deliver those over in the 10th sector tomorrow—maybe you'll join me? Chewie's busy."

The Wookie barked his agreement.

Ben's eyes narrowed slightly, as if sensing a trap. "Fine," he said slowly. "It will give Rey time to work on her saber."

Rey's head shot up. "Aren't you going to help me?"

Ben chuckled, drawing looks of surprise from both his parents. "Do you really think there's much I can teach you about fiddling with spare parts?" he asked. "I'll explain the basics before we go, but after that it's up to you."

Rey blushed at the subtle praise and looked away. When she finally looked back, she realized that Ben's gaze was still on her. A slight crease had appeared between his eyebrows, which smoothed as he broke eye contact with her.

Han seemed pleased by Ben's easy acceptance and whistled while he puttered around the kitchen, stealing tastes of Chewie's cooking and glancing over Leia's shoulder at the document she was skimming. It seemed their earlier conversation had been abandoned, at least until they regained some privacy.

Ben retreated to his room not long after, apparently disgruntled by the simple domesticity of a crowded kitchen, and Rey was left in silence to ponder what she had heard. Han and Leia's conversation had seemed to revolve around Ben, and at least one he. How the two were related, Rey hadn't a clue, although she had been chilled by the mention of the name Vader. Even six years later, she could still remember the smooth touch of the Sith Lord's weapon in her palm, the metallic crackle of dark lightning, and the moonlit pallor of Ben's scarred face.

That saber was once the weapon of a great Jedi, Maz had told her. You may know him by the name he took later, after he was claimed by the dark side.

Luke always used to say the reason Vader went dark was because my mother—Leia had started. What could Leia's mother—a politician by every account Rey had heard—possibly have had to do with a Jedi turned Sith Lord? Or Ben and Rey, herself? The pieces rattled around her mind like spare parts. The connections were there, but she simply couldn't find them.

Equally disturbing was Leia's apparent disapproval of Rey and Ben's friendship. In all their years of acquaintance, Leia had never indicated that she found their closeness alarming. If anything, she seemed to hold a special soft spot for Rey. Rey quickly skimmed her memories of the previous few days, wondering if she had done something to let slip the Force connection she shared with Leia's son. Nothing immediately came to mind, although as Rey continued to search her thoughts, she was reminded of the previous night—the steady curl of Ben's arm around her shoulders, the brush of his breath against her temple. The heady, stupid realization that the appearance of Ben's dimples had brought her, and the way Colt's words still echoed in her mind. The galaxy in my hands.

Rey felt a hot rush of blood enter her cheeks and spread outwards, all the way to the tips of her ears. What if Leia's unease had nothing to do with the Force? What if she knew?

If little else, it was clear that Leia didn't want Ben privy to the information Rey had overheard. Which left her in the uncomfortable position of deciding whose trust to betray. It felt like her visions all over again—to be silent or to speak? Was her respect for Leia enough to counter the emotional weight of Ben's trust? What if keeping the information from him truly was the only way to keep him safe?

You shouldn't have heard anyways, she admonished herself, speaking over the much softer voice that whispered but you did. She gnawed her lip until she tasted the sharp tang of blood. Leia is wise, she told herself. Wiser than you. And Han can be impulsive—he wants what's best for Ben but he can let his emotions run ahead of him.

The words of the Other-Rey from the kyber caves echoed in Rey's mind. You will kill him.

I won't, she vowed silently, glaring fiercely at the grain of the table. I will not hurt Ben Solo.

"Is everything alright, dear?"

Rey jolted in surprise, looking up guiltily at Leia, who was examining her over the rims of a pair of reading glasses.

"Um, yes," Rey supplied. "Just thinking."

Of whether to tell your son that you're protecting him from secrets I don't understand.

It wasn't until evening that Rey was alone with Ben again. They retreated to his room after dinner where he had laid out the supplies for building her lightsaber on a clean scrap of cloth. Rey knelt opposite him, practically quivering with excitement as she surveyed the fingernail-sized circuit boards, the smooth coils of wire and the glittering metal casings. Her excitement regarding the construction of her saber warred with guilt over her accidental eavesdropping.

"Before you get started, there are a few things you should be aware of," Ben told her. "Be very careful about the orientation of your emitter matrix. Given that you're using two kyber crystals it's even more important that it doesn't end up inverted with respect to one of them. The heat venting system is also important. Since your crystals are stable, it shouldn't be an issue, but the efflux fans must not interfere with the energy gate or the modulation circuit. And you'll have to pack all of this into a relatively narrow hilt." He held out a hand to compare the span of his fingers to Rey's much smaller ones. "It needs to be a comfortable grip."

Rey nodded absently, examining the lines crisscrossing Ben's palm. Ben is his own person, Han's voice echoed in her memory. Luke is afraid of anything he can't explain with his damn Jedi texts.

"The emitter shroud—Rey, are you listening?" The tinge of irritation in Ben's voice snatched her out of her reverie.

"I heard your parents fighting earlier!" she blurted out, and immediately clamped her jaw shut in shame and stared down at her lap. "I'm sorry—I didn't mean to hear I just—I was coming out of your room and I—I—"

"Rey," Ben said gently, drawing her gaze. His dark eyes were remarkably soft, and she was reminded suddenly of the sullen young man he had been when she'd first met him. How he'd changed since then. "I'm sorry you had to hear that. Are you okay?"

Rey stared at him in open-mouthed shock. "Me?" she finally squeaked. "Why would you ask that? It's—I'm—" she spluttered helplessly. "I shouldn't have listened!" she finally exclaimed. "I overheard—I mean—"

"Rey," Ben said again, the corners of his lips tilting up in the beginnings of an exhausted smile. His whole face spoke of tiredness, and she suddenly regretted bringing up the topic at all. "They wouldn't be angry to know that you heard," he said. His voice hardened slightly. "They certainly never used to mind when I did. But I'm sorry you had to hear it. I know you look up to them."

I know you look up to them. As if it was a sentiment they didn't share. Slowly her mind absorbed the rest of his words.

"What do you mean, 'they never used to mind,'" Rey asked slowly, treading the precarious edge of a past that she knew Ben was loathe to discuss.

He was silent for such a long moment that Rey feared she'd overstepped.

"I suppose I always thought you knew," he finally murmured softly, his gaze fixed somewhere over her shoulder. "You have such an instinct for everything else about me." He shrugged, a lazy lift of one shoulder meant to share his disinterest in the topic, but Rey read sorrow in the slight tip of his head and the downward flicker of his lashes. "My childhood isn't a time that I enjoy remembering, and I've always felt that speaking of it to you would be selfish."

"Selfish?" Rey echoed incredulously. "Ben Solo! I've spent the past six years trying to dig for remnants of your past, and you think speaking about it is selfish? I told you about Jakku!"

Ben hmmed, looking mildly chagrined. "You did," he admitted, seeming to roll the words over in his mind, choosing them carefully before speaking. "And a day doesn't go by that I'm not amazed by the fact that an upbringing so desolate could produce someone like you." That time he did meet her eyes, and Rey had to look away from the intensity of his stare. "How was I supposed to explain to you that despite being given everything you had ever dreamed of, I learned bitterness rather than love. How could I justify my anger in the face of your tragedy?"

Rey blinked in surprise at the rising vitriol in his tone. "You don't have to justify it," she said gently. "I can feel your pain enough to know it's real."

Ben's head swung away from her, failing to hide the tick of his clenching jaw muscles. He was silent for a handful of seconds, and if Rey hadn't known the patterns of his speech so well, she would've thought he was done. "From the moment you met Han and Leia, you've admired them. Worshipped them practically. And they love you. Obviously. They dropped everything to bring you to Luke because they thought he could help you. Han offered you a position as a mechanic because he thought you were so wonderful." Ben raked his hair out of his eyes, taking a deep breath to release tension and continuing haltingly. "One of his smarter realizations, if you ask me. Did you know that when I was that age—seven or eight, I think—I wanted nothing more than to be a pilot like him?"

He turned back to Rey, and she could see the anxiety in his eyes as he scanned her face for signs of judgement.

"I wanted to fly around the galaxy, see star systems and go on adventures. He was a hero to me, and all I ever wanted was for him to look at me the way he looks at you." Ben swallowed, and Rey nudged at the line of light connecting them. He didn't open his mind to her, but she could practically taste the heavy ache of old sadness and the sharp tang of fresh grief. "But Han Solo never understood me—never understood the Force, or the darkness in me, or—" Ben's voice died in his throat, and Rey sensed the unspoken name hanging in the air between them. Snoke.

"I don't have many memories of Han and Leia from when I was very young," Ben admitted. "They were busy starting a Republic, and there were plenty of other people willing to look after a child. There were no children though, so the only person I have strong memories of is Snoke. By the time my parents realized I was different—that I had this great emptiness and Force powers that I didn't know how to control—I was five or six. And realizing that—seeing the things I could do—it frightened them, I think. My mother feared me, and my father didn't understand me, and they fought because I wasn't what they had expected me to be. They fought because they were good at a great many things, but being parents wasn't one of them. Raising a child isn't something that life as a politician, or a smuggler, or even a war hero prepares you for."

The slight tremor in Ben's voice made Rey's heart clench. She could sense the depth of his betrayal in his Force signature, as if he had never truly forgiven his parents for relegating him to the care of servants and the monstrous presence that plagued his mind. He leaned back against the side of his bed and glared up at the ceiling, and Rey felt a stab of regret for forcing him to recount what was clearly painful tale.

"They were rarely around," he continued, "and when they were, they were fighting. I just wanted them to notice me, and so I acted out. I thought that if I was just loud enough, or got in enough trouble, they would remember that they had a son. Looking back now, I see how good I had it. Sure, they weren't always around, but when they were, they tried. I remember for my tenth birthday, my father told me he'd take me anywhere in the galaxy that I wanted. Those were the good years, when the absence seemed to fade away and everything made sense." He let out a soft laugh. "We ended up cruising the Namadii Corridor for days because I couldn't make up my mind."

Rey shifted closer and laid a hand on Ben's wrist, causing him to look down at her. "Sometimes I feel like they abandoned me," he said quietly. "I didn't leave my room for days when they told me they were sending me to live with Luke. When they brought me to Yavin IV, I begged them not to leave me at the Temple."

Begged, Rey thought, and piercing echo of her own desperate cries rose in her ears: come back! Don't leave me!

"But other times I think of you, growing up all alone in the middle of a wasteland." His volume ratcheted up a notch and his teeth ground together. "Left there all by yourself, and I wish I could go back and trade places with you—do anything to stop it from happening. Because as angry as I am at my parents—as much as I hate the way that they treated me, I can't begrudge the love they've shown you. Even if it scares me sometimes. It scares me so much, Rey, thinking that one day they'll go back to what they were, and it will hurt you, and it will be my fault for letting them near you—"

Rey was alarmed to notice that Ben's eyes were wet with unshed tears. The realization hit her like a kick to the gut, and she rose on her knees to wind her arms around his neck and press her face into his hair. "Shhh," she soothed. "Please Ben, that's enough, you don't have to go on."

"But you need to know," Ben told her, his voice cracking over the a sense of impending horror, she understood that her flippant treatment of Ben's attitude towards his parents—her lack of sympathy, her frustration with his inability to reconcile with them—all stemmed from her own myopic tendencies. For a child who had raised herself, the thought of parents, any parents, was a reality worth fighting for. But for a hurting boy who had suffered the indifference of his own guardians for fifteen years before being thrown away—like garbage, Rey thought furiously—her obsession with reconciliation must have felt like the worst kind of ignorance.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into his hair. "I'm so sorry, Ben, I didn't know." She noticed that she was crying, but couldn't seem to stop the flow of tears. "All these years, I never tried to understand," she gasped, as his arm slipped around her ribs and squeezed gently. "I knew they'd hurt you, but I pushed you towards them anyways without ever hearing your side of the story. I assumed they were good because the way they treated me was—was—"

"It's okay, Rey," Ben said, and Rey was relieved to find that his voice was under control once more. "I wouldn't have told you before anyways—not until I was ready to. Not until I knew I could trust you. Besides, you were right that I could've tried harder—I can't help thinking that there's something more I should've done—"

"No!" Rey snapped, pulling away enough to see his face. She was sure her own cheeks were splotchy with tears. "No," she repeated fiercely. "They hurt you Ben," she said, her hazel eyes clashing with his dark ones. "No one is allowed to hurt you. I hate them!"

"Rey, no," Ben whispered, pulling her into his side. "You don't hate them, and I'm not asking you to."

"But they treated me like their child more than they did you," Rey protested. "How do you not hate me?"

"Because I couldn't," Ben admitted. "I tried to, but I couldn't. It always made sense to me, why they'd love you. You're impossible not to love."

Rey's heart thumped in her ears.

"In some ways, it brought me closer to them," he murmured against her hair. "We have something in common, now. Caring about you. I don't know if I'll ever be able to see them as proper parents, but I'm grateful that there are two other people in this galaxy who would step in front of blasterfire for you. Well, three probably. I suppose you've grown on Chewie, as well."

"But they abandoned you," Rey croaked. "They left you like my parents left me."

"It wasn't the same," he reminded her, brushing moisture from her cheeks with his thumb. "I was fifteen, not five. And they left me with my uncle, not a junk trader in the middle of the Jakku desert."

"Doesn't mean it doesn't feel the same," Rey argued.

That coaxed a smile out of Ben, and for a moment he was silent, his thumb stroking her shoulder gently. "It was hard," he said. "And for a long time, I thought I hated them. But these last few years have made it easier to bear. I remind myself of what I wouldn't have had if I'd stayed here on Chandrila—and it's worth that pain."

"We would never have met if you'd stayed here," Rey realized suddenly. "Just like we wouldn't have met if my parents hadn't left me on Jakku."

Ben chuckled. "I don't believe that for a minute," he answered. "I don't know what this is—" he twisted his hand in an inchoate movement meant to encompass the space between them, "—but I think you and I were always meant to find each other, somehow."

"But would you have understood me if your childhood had been different?" Rey pressed. "Would I have understood you? Would we have been friends if we didn't know what it felt like to be alone?"

"You're not alone," his deep baritone rasped.

"Neither are you."

They sat in silence until the light waned and the stars began to peer through Ben's window. Finally, he stood, helped Rey to her feet, and pulled her into a hug that warmed her to the tips of her toes.

"Don't let it worry you," he said gently. And he pressed a careful kiss to the crown of Rey's head—a kiss that left her so out of sorts that it wasn't until later, when she was curled up in bed watching the stars spin across the narrow slice of transparisteel above her, that she realized she had completely forgotten to tell Ben the cause of his parents' argument.

A/N: Hello? *echoes* anyone there?

I apologize profusely for my ~2 year absence. I have no excuse other than being very busy! For a while I wasn't certain that I'd ever finish this story, but the other day I returned and was reading some of the exceedingly kind comments that you all left for me. I realized that many of you really want to know how the story ends, which was super heartwarming and inspired me to continue writing!

Two years having passed, I had to reread the entire story to make sure I wasn't forgetting any important details. I must say, there are parts of the early/middle story that I think could be a lot better, in retrospect. Not with regards to major plot points, but moreso related to my characterization of certain relationships. I'd considered doing an overhaul to fix these issues before continuing the story, but given my overall busy-ness and desire to present you with some version of a completed story, I have decided to forge on to the conclusion and hopefully return later to make edits!