Chapter Text
“These Force visions of yours are very convenient, Rey,” Leia notes as the latest base prepares to evacuate around them. “This is the third time in eight weeks that you’ve been alerted to our discovery.”
“Yeah,” Rey says, trying to will down her blush. “I’ve been – communing a lot with the Force lately and it’s, uh, it’s really helping me out.”
She doesn’t know why she’s lying. She’d already told the General about her bond with Ben, after all. Except that that conversation had happened before Rey had stolen kisses from Leia’s son, before they had promised their futures to each other, before they’d fallen asleep together from halfway across the galaxy.
Leia doesn’t smile, although there’s a knowing light in her eyes.
“The Force seems to be favoring the Light recently,” she says, watching Rey closely.
“The Force has found a balance.” Rey’s unused to this kind of doublespeak, and doesn’t particularly like it. She stumbles over the words that flow from Leia like poetry. “I don’t think it can be Light after… after everything, but it’s trying to make amends the only way it can.”
“I see.” Leia watches the newly-minted Rebellion soldiers haul crates onto one of their few freighters. Her eyes are misty. “And do you think the Force is ready to return?”
Rey follows the General’s gaze, mainly so she does not have to look the woman in the eye and disappoint her. She hasn’t seen Ben in person since he’d dropped her off on a nearby planet with a commlink, credits, and a promise. She’d thrown her arms around his neck and buried her face into his chest. He’d stiffened at first, uncertain, but slowly brought his arms around her waist and held her to him.
“Trust me,” he’d murmured in her ear one last time.
Three months have passed since then, with only the bond bringing Ben temporarily back to Rey’s side. He looks more drawn with each visit, but always greets her with that crooked smile that’s starting to do something strange to Rey’s chest. Treason is exhausting, he’ll say, easing away her worries with a kiss. He’s always gone too soon for her liking.
“He won’t come back yet,” Rey tells Leia quietly. “Give it time.”
Leia takes the news with the grace that comes with decades’ worth of disappointment. She nods once in acceptance and then lifts her chin again, every inch a royal leader.
“Keeping us safe is a start,” she says. Her eyes turn flinty as she looks at Rey. “I’m trusting you to prize the safety of the Rebellion over whatever hopes you have for my son.”
“Of course, General!” The words come out more flustered than Rey intended. She thinks she prefers the doublespeak over this frank almost-admonishment. Leia nods once. Before the older woman can turn to leave, Rey blurts out, “But – there is hope.”
For the first time, Leia’s features soften with a smile. “I know.”
They settle next on another abandoned Rebellion base, this one somehow in even worse condition than the one on Crait. Even Leia had groaned upon seeing it.
“It’s temporary,” she assured the gathered Rebellion, flicking a disparaging gaze around the control room. “Our allies are starting to come out of the woodwork. That means better supplies, more money, and new recruits.”
Rey doesn’t want to attribute that solely to Ben’s hard work, but she knows that the Rebellion would be a smoking crater in the ground if not thanks to him. He passes along intel by Force bond when possible, and over heavily encrypted commlink line when not. One day, the Rebellion will know the danger he’s putting himself in to help them. Rey will make certain of that.
She stands guard outside the hangar on the first night at the new base. Privately, she thinks that an aerial attack might actually improve things, but Leia gave her request and Rey, still not an official member of the Rebellion, decided to grant it. It’s a cold night, made chillier by a brisk wind that howls from the mountains around them.
The air grows denser.
Rey has a second to reflect on how she used to dread this feeling before she’s throwing herself into the empty space Ben will materialize in. Sure enough, he catches her around the waist and brings her close to his chest.
“You’re safe, then?” he asks, the amused words muffled in her hair.
Rey nods. “Thanks to you.” She pulls back and can’t stifle her sharp intake of breath at his appearance. He’s all bloodshot eyes, gray skin, and mussed hair. “You look…”
“Yeah.” Ben detaches himself from her with a groan that doesn’t detract from his wry look. “I don’t know if you know, but the Rebellion managed another miraculous escape. Hux is about to have an aneurism. He’s convinced we have a spy in the ranks. Don’t worry,” he adds quickly as Rey presses her lips together in concern, “he doesn’t know what I’m doing.”
Rey nods, although she isn’t convinced. “Make sure you keep it that way.”
“I’ll keep him off the scent, but I won’t discourage him from looking.” Ben’s eyes glint in dark amusement. “It stops him from planning the mutiny he thinks I’m not aware of.”
There might have been a time when Rey’s blood wasn’t constantly spiking from stress, but she can’t remember it. She lets out a long sigh, and Ben’s lips quirk in response.
“I’ll be gone before they can try anything,” he promises her, leaning forward to press a kiss to her forehead.
Rey’s about to wave him away, but then she realizes what Ben might mean. She stares up at him and tries to tamper down her hopes.
“You’re leaving the First Order soon?” she asks, more breathlessly than she’d like.
“I can’t destabilize the entire operation by myself,” he admits. Then, with more than a trace of annoyance, “Despite what I might have thought.”
Rey holds back a smile. For all his fraught history with his family, Ben takes after the stubborn Skywalker clan more than he’d care to admit. Who else has that kind of impenetrable resistance to common sense?
“I’m transferring funds to an account the First Order can’t trace,” he continues. “Some of the money can go towards rebuilding the Rebellion.”
Hope rises in Rey, and not just for the possibility of some half-decent ships and weapons.
“You’ll fight with them?” she asks. With us? With me?
“Not to victory.” At Rey’s confused frown, Ben elaborates, “I won’t let the First Order dominate the galaxy, but I still can’t believe in the Rebellion’s ideals. Their version of democracy devastated the galaxy before, and it’ll do it again if we give them the chance.”
“You’ll fight until there’s balance,” Rey translates, trying to keep the disappointment from her words. She still fiercely believes in the vision of ultimate balance the Force had shown them both back on Ahch-To, but time has eased her back into reality. The Rebellion needs her, her friends need her, and she can’t chase after the Force’s will until she’s sure that her friends will be secure in her absence. Besides, she’d hoped Ben would’ve softened to the idea of fighting alongside her and his mother by now. “And then what?”
“Beach vacation?”
Rey folds her arms and glares. Ben sighs and runs a hand through his hair.
“I don’t know, Rey.” His shoulders drop almost imperceptibly as he averts his gaze. “I’m not working from any kind of plan anymore. Every path I’ve ever tried to follow has come to a dead end.”
Rey’s aggravation subsides. She’d prefer Ben’s anger over this frustrated sense of loss. His helplessness muddies the bond, almost suffocating Rey in its despair. Before it can drown them both, Rey grips his hands in hers and tugs on them, demanding his attention.
“This path is different,” she promises. “This path, we walk together.”
Ben lifts his gaze and, as he so often does, traps Rey with its intensity. It should be impossible for any one person to say so much without speaking a word, but Rey understands his doubts, fears, and promises all from one look. Mingled in with What if I’m not strong enough? is the stubborn I will keep you safe and, beneath that, the terrifying depths of his feelings for her. There, Rey fears a different kind of drowning.
“Maybe once the First Order is under new leadership and the Rebellion is in a stronger position, we can broker some kind of truce?” she asks, her mouth dry as she tries to reassure him.
Ben blinks, and his hold over Rey breaks.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, “maybe.”
He leans down. The bond severs them a second before his hovering lips can touch hers.
Rey stares at the place he had stood. Her breaths mist in the cold air. Seeing Ben at all is a gift, but each brief visit only reminds her that it isn’t enough. She wants more.
It’s another four, torturous months before Rey watches Ben Solo stagger down the ramp of a stolen ship, clutching his side and groaning. She rushes forward just in time to support him as he stumbles onto the grassy terrain of the half-forgotten planet she had sent the coordinates for.
“Are you alright?” she asks, hoisting him up. Ben winces again at the rough movement. In turn, Rey grimaces at the hot gush of blood that sticks her shirt to her side. “How bad is it?”
“Sore but not too deep. The getaway wasn’t as smooth as I’d hoped,” he says, collapsing onto a nearby rock. “I’d say you should see the other guys, but I blew them up.”
Rey laughs more than the quip calls for, her heart giddy as she falls to her knees before him. She can’t believe he’s really here, that their chances of turning the tides of war is within such close range. A small part of her, the thoughts bred from a lifetime of hardship on Jakku, had kept her awake at night with fears that this was all some elaborate trap, and that Kylo Ren would drag her away in cuffs the moment he laid eyes on her. That feral, snarling creature that Jakku created grows smaller with each person Rey lets in to her heart; one day, she hopes it will disappear forever.
She silences it for now by surging forwards and kissing Ben with such enthusiasm that he almost falls backwards over the rock. His lips lift against hers, and Rey kisses him all the more for it. His smiles are rare, treasured things, and she rewards them handsomely for their appearances.
Ben steadies himself by gripping her waist. The strength in his fingers sends a jolt of heat through Rey, and she is oh so tempted to deepen the kiss and fulfil the promise they’ve only ever hinted at before. But then Ben pulls away, and Rey has to resign herself to duty.
“There are some codes I should bring to the General before the First Order changes them,” Ben says, looking behind Rey at his ship.
Rey doesn’t call him out on refusing to grant Leia the title of mother. He’s already made impossible strides away from Kylo Ren, and if he isn’t ready to fully inhabit Ben Solo yet, then Rey won’t hurry him.
“We need to treat your injury first,” she says, leaning back and eyeing his side critically.
Ben shakes his head. “On the ship.”
“Do you have a medkit?”
“Don’t need one.” Ben gets to his feet with another wince. “Have you healed through the Force before?”
Rey’s mouth drops open before she can stop it. “That’s possible?”
She sounds naïve even to her own ears. For a moment, she expects the eye-rolling condescension of Luke Skywalker. But his nephew is unexpectedly kinder, and only nods.
“It was never one of my strengths,” he admits, “but I can try to teach you.”
Rey helps him limp back to the ship. She’s quiet and contemplative as she guides Ben into the cockpit. She has more power than she could have ever dreamed, and yet there’s still so much she doesn’t know. It seems like it would take a lifetime just to learn all the possibilities, let alone master them.
Ben waits until they’ve taken off to address the fact that he’s bleeding over the upholstery. Beneath Rey’s exasperation at his nonchalance is a small, sad thought that he must have been in this situation many times before, injured but too focused on the task at hand to allow his pain to ease. At least he isn’t alone this time.
As though in tandem with her thoughts, Ben stands and raises the edge of his shirt. He takes Rey’s hand and presses it to his wound. His breath hitches in pain as Rey applies pressure, but there’s no apprehension in his gaze as he looks down at her. He trusts her, Rey realizes.
“Close your eyes,” Ben murmurs. “Feel the Force. We’re just vessels for it. Manifestations. We’re its servants, but it needs us, too. Harness it to your will.”
Rey’s breath steadies as her eyes slide closed. The Force pulses around her, weaving through the ship, twining around her fingers, sliding against Ben’s skin.
Heal.
She envisions a crisscrossing web of light where his skin is split open. The strings pull steadily tighter until his skin has knitted back together without so much as a scar. Rey lets out a shuddering breath as she stares down at her hand. The injury had been comparatively small, likely non-lethal if not painful, but if she could develop the skill… Would there any limits to her power?
“You always amaze me,” Ben murmurs. He lifts her chin so she can see the unhidden awe shining in his eyes. “That’s not a technique most people just pick up. I expected it to take a few tries.”
“I’m not most people,” Rey says, earning a quiet laugh.
“You’re a wonder.” Ben rests his forehead against hers and closes his eyes. “You’re my wonder.”
Rey feels his slow, contented breaths, and marvels at the fact that he’s truly here. She doesn’t have to worry about the bond snatching him away. He is here, and he is hers. The Force laces a home around them, promising power and safety and hope.
Ben cups her cheeks in the palm of his hands. Rey closes her eyes and basks in it all.