Chapter Text
Ben didn't want regret to be the last thing he felt before he died. There were enough regrets already. Enough to fill a thousand lifetimes. Instead, he held onto the memory of Rey. Her smile. The warmth that always seemed to spread through his chest when she looked at him as though there was still something worth saving. He clung to that feeling as everything else faded.
This was the end. He knew it. His body was failing. The cold was spreading through him, pulling him down into darkness.
He didn't regret giving his life for her. Not for a second. What he regretted was waiting so long to give himself to her, to her light.
He should have gone with her aboard the Supremacy.
He should have opened her restraints on Starkiller Base and run when he still had the chance.
Hell, he should have stolen her away from Takodana the moment he laid his eyes on her and fled to the farthest edge of the galaxy.
Away from the war.
Away from Palpatine.
Away from the shadows of their legacies.
A foolish fantasy; that’s all it was. Nobody could run from destiny. Nobody could undo their choices. Especially not him. He had made his. Now he was going to pay for them.
At least Rey would live. At least her light would remain in the galaxy after his was gone. That thought brought him peace.
Then the darkness closed around him. His breathing slowed. The last remnants of the pain of his broken body and soul drifted away. Rey's beautiful face disappeared. He expected to just cease to exist. He wasn’t foolish enough to think he would be joining the Force, not after everything he had done. But when the world didn’t just dissolve into nothingness, Ben opened his eyes once more.
The first thing he saw was the stars. An endless ocean of them. Brighter than anything he had ever seen. They stretched forever in every direction. No horizon. No sky. He felt no true ground beneath his feet either. Just infinite darkness pierced by rivers of light.
Ben frowned.
This didn't feel like death. Surely this wasn't heaven. He didn't deserve heaven. And it felt far too peaceful to be hell.
"Took you long enough, Ben."
The voice hit him like a thermal detonator. Ben jumped to his feet and spun around. His hand instinctively reached for a lightsaber that wasn't there. Standing a few meters away was Luke Skywalker. Exactly as he remembered him. Not the Force projection from Crait but the real man, Jedi master from his youth.
"What are you doing here?" His voice echoed strangely in the endless void. Ben decided not to think about it too hard. "And what is this place anyway?"
Luke folded his arms.
"This is no place at all." Ben hated that answer immediately; it sounded exactly like the nonsense Luke would say when Ben was still a Padawan.
"In case you are wondering there is no time here either," Luke continued. “ Only the Force."
"The Force." Ben laughed bitterly. "Of course. That explains everything then" Ben could not quite hide the sarcasm in his voice.
"Why am I here?" Ben asked. "Is this a punishment?"
Luke's expression softened. "Oh, Force, no. This isn't a punishment, Ben."
"Then what is it?" Ben pressed further.
Luke took a slow breath.
"This is your last chance"
Ben barked out a laugh. "I reckon I'm out of those." His gaze swept across the stars. "If you haven't noticed, I'm dead."
Luke smiled faintly. "You think you're dead?"
Ben narrowed his eyes. “ It seems like a logical conclusion.”
"I'm afraid, Ben, the Force isn't done with you yet."
Immediately, Ben's stomach sank. No. He had done enough. He was tired. So tired.
"What more can the Force want from me?" he demanded. "I gave up everything"
His voice grew harder.
" I fulfilled my destiny. I saved Rey. I died. It's over now."
Luke shook his head.
" You are not entirely wrong. From a certain point of view, it is over. Yet here you still stand, Ben.”
Confusion flashed across Ben's face. More of Luke’s cryptic nonsense.
"What?"
"There is nothing you can change now." Luke stepped forward. "But there is still a time when you could. Time when more than one mistake could be undone,” Luke said quietly. “But now you have to wake up, Ben, before it happens.”
Ben stared.
"I don't understand."
Luke was looking directly at Ben now; his eyes seemed older than he remembered.
"I'm sorry, Ben." Luke swallowed. "That the first sin you'll have to clean is mine."
Before Ben could ask what the hell all of this meant, Luke had vanished. In fact, everything, even the stars, was gone. Darkness slammed into him once more.
____________________________________________________________
The sound came first. Wind against stone. The distant cry of nocturnal creatures. The creaking of old wood.
Ben's eyes snapped open. His heart nearly stopped. He knew this ceiling. He knew these walls. He knew this room. It was his hut at Old Luke’s Academy. It was night outside.
A sick feeling twisted in his stomach. It was the night.
No. No. No.
His gaze drifted toward the doorway.
Green light illuminated the darkness.
A blade hummed softly. Luke stood over him. Exactly as he had that night. Exactly as he remembered. The emerald glow painted shadows across Luke's face, twisting it into something ugly.
For one horrible second, Ben was twenty-two years old again. The terrified boy who had awakened to find his uncle standing above him with an ignited lightsaber. The moment that had shattered his life. The moment that had created Kylo Ren. His breathing quickened. Instinct screamed at him. Reach for the saber! Strike first! Destroy everything! Burn it all! He knew exactly what happened next. He remembered every horrible second of it. And the years of suffering that followed.
But this time, he would make a different choice. Ben closed his eyes. And waited. The green light vanished. Silence followed. Then the unmistakable sound of metal hitting wood. Luke had dropped his lightsaber. Several seconds passed. Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke.
Finally, Luke spoke. His voice was barely above a whisper, "I'm sorry, Ben."
Ben opened his eyes again.
For the first time in many years, he looked directly into his uncle’s eyes.
"You should be," Ben said so calmly he barely recognised his own voice.
Luke flinched. Ben sat up slowly on the cot. This was the moment. Everything depended on what happened next.
He swung his legs onto the floor.
Then looked at the man who had once been his hero again.
"But first," Ben said quietly, "we need to talk."
Six Years Later
Corrusant looked even worse than Ben remembered.
The city-world stretched beneath the shuttle's viewport, an endless ocean of durasteel and transparisteel disappearing into the haze. Towers clawed at the clouds while traffic lanes glowed like rivers of light between them. Most people saw the heart of the New Republic. Ben saw a monument to bad decisions.
The shuttle touched down on the Senate landing platform.
As the ramp lowered, Ben immediately spotted the welcoming committee. Senators. Dozens of them. Smiling.
"Master Solo!" Jessica Pawa reached him before he could escape and leave Luke to deal with all of them.
The young senator was attractive, intelligent, ambitious, and entirely too interested in him.
"Such a shame the Jedi no longer reside at the capital," she said, slipping her arm through his. "It would be a pleasure to see more of you, Ben."
Ben knew exactly what she was implying. Unfortunately for Jessica, Ben’s heart already belonged to another. Gently but firmly, he untangled himself from her grasp.
"Shame indeed"
Before she could continue, he turned and headed for the exit.
Quickly. Very quickly. Behind him, he heard Luke chuckling. Traitor. His uncle caught up surprisingly fast.
"You could at least entertain the poor girl."
Ben only groaned because he really couldn’t. Not that he wished to have this conversation with Luke of all people. When Ben fell and became Kylo Ren, he, to put it mildly, indulged in a plethora of carnal pleasures of the Dark Side. That all, of course, came to an abrupt halt when he met Rey. The bond snapped into place, and from that moment his heart, mind, and body no longer fully belonged to him. He tried to fight it. Force knows, he really tried. Especially in that dreadful year, after Rey rejected him at Supremacy, when the pain of his broken heart could only be rivalled by his wounded pride. He tried to push through and numb the pain with bodies, but his own would not cooperate. In this life and the one before, all of him wanted her and only her.
"Your mother blames me, you know." Luke’s voice brought him back from his ruminations.
"Well, it is your fault."
Luke snorted. " Yes, yes. So you keep saying."
Luke was not wrong. Ben had been saying it for six years. Ever since he woke up on that terrible night and changed history. A lot had happened since then. His knowledge of the future had allowed them to dismantle countless First Order operations before they could grow. Entire fleets had been intercepted. Hidden shipyards destroyed. Recruitment networks exposed. Starkiller Base never even reached construction. The planet had been discovered and stripped of its military infrastructure years ago. Snoke had died screaming beneath crossed lightsabers. That had been a particularly satisfying afternoon. No one except Luke knew the truth, and if anyone questioned the very convenient intel, he could always say something vague about the Force, and most would not question it further.
The galaxy was undoubtedly safer now, and yet Ben still couldn't relax. Because one monster remained.
Palpatine.
The real architect. The shadow behind every shadow. Ben had spent six years hunting him. Six years following rumours, visions, forgotten coordinates, and fragments of old Imperial records.
Nothing.
The Emperor remained hidden. Waiting. And Ben knew better than anyone what happened when people assumed Palpatine was dead.
As Ben and Luke entered Leia’ residence, Ben was once again reminded that changes he made to the past had produced another unexpected consequence.
His mother had returned to politics. Against her will at first, or so she claimed, but Ben knew better. Now she was the Prime Senator. Effectively, the most powerful person in the New Republic. Ben found it endlessly amusing. Everyone worried he had inherited Vader's ambition. In reality, he had inherited it from Leia. Vader was only more dramatic about it.
Ben barely had time to set down his bag before Leia appeared.
"Ben!"
His mother practically launched herself at him. The hug hit harder than most opponents. Ben hugged her back. He always did. Every time. Because in another life, he didn’t. And he would never take her presence for granted again.
"Oh, my dear," Leia said, holding him at arm's length. "Have you gotten taller?"
Ben sighed.
"It’s impossible. I'm twenty-eight, Mother."
Leia ignored him.
"Tell me everything. How have you been? Have you met anyone interesting? Any nice Jedi girl, perhaps?"
"Mother!"
"What?" Leia feigned innocence.
"Please stop." Ben pleaded.
Leia immediately turned toward Luke.
"This is your fault!"
Luke groaned and gave Ben this 'I told you so' look.
"If I had known you were going to turn him into a hermit like you, I never would have sent him away!"
"Mother! No matter how much it pains me to say it, it’s not Luke’s fault. I decided to follow the old ways of the Jedi. No one forced me!"
Luke raised both hands. " See? I didn't do anything."
"That's exactly the problem. It’s all Force and meditation and missions with you. Ben needs to live a bit. "
Ben pinched the bridge of his nose. They'd had versions of this argument hundreds of times. Neither side showed any signs of surrendering.
"One day," Leia declared, pointing at her son, "you'll meet a girl who lands you on your stubborn backside, and all this no-attachment nonsense will go straight out the airlock."
Ben looked away. Because he had already met a girl. The girl. The only girl. A long time ago. A scavenger with hazel eyes and a tendency to break every wall he built around himself indeed knocked him on his ass with his grandfather's lightsaber and marked his face for good measure. He still thought about her far more often than was healthy. He knew that but made no moves to stop it.
After returning to the past, he had made a choice. A difficult one. He would leave Rey on Jakku. She was safe there. Hidden from Palpatine. It was the sensible decision. The Jedi decision. But it still pained him every day.
He still visited. Once every year. Just close enough to know she was alive. That she was safe. That she still smiled.
It was torture.
Luke called it the Skywalker curse. Falling for the impossible woman and then bending the whole galaxy to keep them safe. Luke also found it incredibly amusing that in a galaxy filled with billions of women, Ben would fall for Rey Palpatine. The Force truly has a strange sense of humour, Luke would say to Ben’s endless irritation. For a grumpy old man, Luke sure had a lot of opinions on Ben’s love life.
“ If you find me such a bad influence on Ben, perhaps you should have sent him to live with his father. Ben would surely get more liveliness with Han.” Snarkiness in Luke’s voice brought Ben back to reality.
" Perhaps I will. Speaking of Han, he will be here before the end of the day cycle," Leia said. "Dinner’s at 9. Don't be late."
Then she hurried away toward another meeting.
Luke watched her go.
"She won’t let this one go, Ben. Maybe you should just tell her the truth"
“ You know I can’t “ That was not entirely true; he could tell her some of it; he could tell her just enough for her to stop this crusade. He could tell her about Rey…
Luke's expression shifted.
"You've got that look again."
"What look?"
"Like you are thinking about a certain girl from Jakku."
Ben groaned. It felt like a punishment in itself to Luke to be the only person who knew the whole truth. The only person who knew about Rey.
"Go and get her or let her go, Ben. I know you feel like you need to atone for your sins, but suffering is for the dark side, and that’s no longer your side.”
"She deserves better." Better than me went unsaid.
Luke folded his arms.
"If you call living on a sandy junkyard planet better. Speaking from personal experience, the sand really gets everywhere. " And despite himself, Ben smiled.
____________________________________________________
The Millennium Falcon landed shortly before dinner. Han descended the ramp first. Still walking like he owned every landing platform in existence. Seeing his father alive still felt like a miracle.
"Kid!"
Before Ben could react, Han wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
"You look terrible! Jedi life doesn’t seem to agree with you kid; maybe you should spend some time with me and Chewie. We could always use another pair of hands."
"Well, hello to you too, Dad."
Han laughed, and Ben could not help but join him. Then froze. Because someone else was descending the ramp behind the furry rug, he called uncle.
A young woman. Sun-browned skin. Dark hair tied back carelessly in three buns. A familiar face. One he knew better than his own. His entire world stopped.
Rey.
She reached the bottom of the ramp. Looked directly at him. And frowned and Ben's stomach dropped.
No, no, no.
This wasn’t happening. She pointed at him. Her eyes widened.
"You!"
Everyone turned. Han, Chewie, Luke, and Leia were all staring at Ben.
Ben considered several options. None were good.
"I know you! Kylo Ren, right?" Rey shouted with the joyfulness of someone who recognised an old acquaintance.
Ben felt pure terror.
Ben had been very careful until he wasn't. Watching a love of his life grow up into a fierce young woman from afar. No talking, no interaction, no letting her see him. For six years, he kept his distance. But then, on his last visit to Jakku, he slipped. He looked for too long, and she caught him staring. He tried to flee, but his bold little scavenger was faster. When she pressed him for a name, he panicked and just spat the first thing on his mind: Kylo Ren. In this life, there was no Kylo Ren, the Jedi killer, the brutal enforcer of the First Order. Most almost forgot there even was any First Order in the first place. The name of Kylo Ren meant nothing to her.
Slowly, Rey took a step forward.
"You were on Jakku a couple months ago!"
Another step. His heart was hammering in his chest so hard now that he could barely hear what she was saying,
"You must be mistaken, miss. I’ve never been to Jakku."
Ben took one step backwards. Six years of atonement, six years of making things right, and he blew it all up because he was too selfish to stay away.
“ What are you talking about, Ben. Of course, you've been to Jakku; I flew you there myself. That’s how Rey and I got talking. She recognised Falcon. She may have called her piece of junk first, but we set that one straight real quick.”
Ben wanted to flee. But neither Ben Solo nor Kylo Ren would even flee. So Ben did the only reasonable thing available. He turned around and chose tactical retreat.