Work Text:
Rey stands on the cliff over the sea. This part of Bemiri reminds her of Acht-To, with its restless water, steep rocky shore, and grass and moss a green blanket behind her. A tug from the Force is warning enough and she looks up to see the TIE Silencer dart beneath the cloud layer, sunlight glinting off its canopy. The technical marvel of the ship is second to the sudden presence in the Force, near and strong, glowing like the heart of a furnace.
The ship skims so close to the surface of the water its afterburners leave steam in its wake. The ship heads directly for the cliff beneath her feet, at such a velocity her breath seizes in her chest. There's going to be a fiery crash, he's too fast, the ship won't make it -- but the Force offers no warning of danger, because there is none.
The ship doesn’t touch a stone as it whirls up and over the rim, near enough she could toss a rock and hit it. She’s almost thrown off her feet, but catches herself to turn and keep watching, with a smile spreading across her face at the sight.
In a reckless, heart-stopping move of sheer audacity, the ship flips orientation to point her way again, afterburners straining, and somehow floats to a landing.
She's heard enough stories in the Resistance to know he gets that skill from both sides. With his strength in the Force, he can push his craft even more. Did he do it for her to see, or because he flies so hot all the time? It was impressive, though, so mission accomplished, if that was his goal.
She can see him through the canopy and he's looking back at her. It hits that he's here, in person. This isn't a Force bond meeting, and it isn't a hologram over the comms. He's here, and she's here-- the Supreme Leader of the First Order and the Last Jedi of the Resistance.
What possessed her to think this was a good idea? It's reckless and dangerous, and she's not even sure what to do now.
She kept the bond closed as best she could after Crait. But when she'd heard the news that he was ordering the closure of the Stormtrooper Academy to return the children to their families, the bond had opened.
“You’re trying to do the right thing, aren’t you?” The words had been accusatory, thrown at him, daring him to deny it.
He’d looked at her for a long time before answering, “I’m trying to do what I always wanted to do, and never could.”
That had been the first conversation, but not the last through the Force until, a week ago, they’d decided to meet in person. Unspoken had been the agreement that it wasn’t a trap for either of them; she hadn’t believed it of him, and either he hadn’t believed it of her, or he’d been confident in his own ability to escape it. Either way, he’d agreed to meet her.
Now that he’s in front of her, her heart's pounding and her lips have gone dry, as she wonders what they're doing.
The cockpit opens with a hiss of escaping air. He jumps to the ground, landing easily, and saunters toward her through the grass. At first he looks the same, wearing a snug black flightsuit and that mop of black hair. But closer, in natural light, it’s clear the stress of his position is getting to him. There are new shadows under his eyes and lines graven into his face, aging him already, though it’s not even a year since he took power. Some foreboding seizes her at that moment – This can’t continue. It won’t continue.
But he won’t hear it, she’s sure and she doesn't want an argument. It’s been too long since they met in person already.
His expression gives away nothing, but his voice is much softer than the formal declarations she's heard on the Holonet. "Hello, Rey."
“Was that flying for me?” she asks, teasing. “That’s a great ship. I never realized how maneuverable it is.”
“It seats two,” he offers and doesn’t smile back but he seems more relaxed.
“I’d love to take a flight, but first, can we walk?” she asks, jerking her head toward the cliff.
She forgot how much taller he is, until he's walking beside her. The flight suit is close-fitting from broad shoulders to boots, but moves easily, so he can fight in it. She licks her lips at the thought, wishing she could watch him spar or do forms.
“What did you want to talk about that we had to do it in person?” he asks finally, looking out at the water. Unspoken is the addition: what is worth the risk of us meeting? Both of them had to arrange it in secret, and both of them would pay a price if it were discovered. And yet, they both came.
She doesn't have a good answer, though, and shrugs. “Nothing. I just wanted to see you, and you looked like you needed to get away for a little while.”
He eyes her. “Really? That’s it?”
“Why? Did you have an ulterior motive?” she counters, wondering if she should search the sky for more First Order troops on the way.
His lips turn in a boyish wry smile. “To get away for a little while. But I did want to see you. I --” He stops, jaw clenching around his words, and he looks out to the grey, frothing sea. It reminds her of him, dark and turbulent, dangerous, but full of life. “I know everything’s ruined. But I wanted you to know – “ He stops again, uncertain what to say.
She takes pity on him. “I know you saved us.”
His head jerks up, and she can sense his urge to deny it.
“We were trapped and then, suddenly, the troops were all withdrawn. It had to be you.” It had been another reason she'd known she could meet him. In safety afterward, aboard the Falcon, Leia had whispered his name and her eyes had turned bright with hope. After that last minute rescue, some of Supreme Leader Kylo's acts had seemed more reform-minded, though Rey hadn't been certain until the children had been freed.
He doesn’t admit to the rescue immediately, avoids her gase, and dampens his lips. “I never meant for them to get that close. I only ordered to track the Falcon-- I didn’t even want that, but I had to give them something. Hux wanted you all dead. So when I sensed you--” he hesitates, “and my mother were in danger, I ordered the battalion off Lothal. Hux couldn't admit the Resistance was there, since he was disobeying my orders, so it worked out.” He gives a wry smile, gaze distant, but his dark amusement fades and he clears his throat.
“But no, that's not what I wanted you to know,” he admits. “Just that-- I’m trying to make the New Order better. Luke keeps pestering me to give it up, that it's too dangerous or a fool's quest." If she hadn't already seen Luke's ghost, she'd think Ben's crazy, but she only smiles to hear that Luke is pestering him. Ben continues, "But I think it's better to reform it. If I don't, either Hux or the ones just like him will take it back, or it'll collapses in civil war, and everything will be worse. I know it sounds very self-serving to say that," he adds with a bitter chuckle, "and maybe it is, but I think it's true. So if this all goes… badly…."
She knows what 'badly' means, that someone will assassinate the New Order's Supreme Leader. Fear rises in her throat and tastes like sand as she imagines a storm of blaster fire, too heavy for him to redirect all of it. Droids, perhaps, that would be harder to sense in the Force. Or poison gas. How can he defend himself against that?
He glances at her, a frown knitting his brows in puzzlement. He must sense her sudden anxiety. "Rey?"
"Nothing. I- I don't want anything to go badly."
"I'll be careful," he promises. He clears his throat. "I wanted you to know I mean it. I'm sure your rebel friends think I'm as bad or worse than Snoke, but it’s not true. I hated Snoke; I don’t want to be him.”
She's relieved to hear him say it. She believed it before, but knowing it's a deliberate policy eases her mind. But that raises a question she'd wondered about. “If you hated him, why did you stay?” she asks, looking at his face while he looks out to sea.
He gives a tight shrug. “Go where? He was in my head from when I was small. There was nowhere I could go he couldn’t reach me.”
Her eyes widen and pure horror shivers down her spine. She hadn't imagined it was that bad. To have that foul creature in his head so long? She grabs his hand, pressing it. "Oh Ben, I'm so glad you killed him."
He says it as a jest, but his expression is still dark, and his jaw is clenched, "Me, too."
He lets his hand stay in hers and folds long fingers around hers with a hesitancy, as if he isn't sure what to do or if she'll allow it. So she grips back, tightly, to tell him it's all right.
Thank the Force no one else can see them, right now.
She imagines a universe where Ben killed Snoke years ago, and she and Ben had met when he was free of his master already. After several years of First Order reform, the Resistance wouldn't need to exist and there could be peace. “I wish you did it earlier.”
But he shakes his head and lifts their joined hands to look at them. "We wouldn't be here if I had. Until you," he has to swallow before admitting, "all I wanted, all I thought I wanted, was to be as pure in the Dark Side as possible." He lets out a pained little chuckle. "Now I don’t even have that. I can’t be pure in Light or Dark. Just a muddled mess.”
His despair makes her heart ache and she wants to find words to help. “Isn’t everyone?” Rey asks. “A muddled mess of Light and Dark? Of compassion and selfishness? Of calm and aggression? It seems to me the Sith and Jedi both were mistaken. They tried to purify themselves, but the first Jedi didn’t demand celibacy or lack of emotion, their texts talk about balance, not embracing any extreme.”
“But the Dark Side is evil, Rey. Everyone says that.” He touches his lightsaber hilt, and she sees a flicker in the Force of the lives he’d taken with it. “And they’re right.”
“No,” she insists. "The Dark Side is a part of the Force. We forget, in soft places, that death and destruction are necessary, too. Using it for evil is wrong, but the Dark Side itself is simply part of the universe.”
He shakes his head in denial. “The Jedi taught that once you start down the Dark path, it will dominate your destiny forever.”
It irks to hear him spouting Jedi dogma. Who's the one who needs to let go? “Self-fulfilling prophecy, isn’t it?” she counters. “That’s what you were told, so you believed it. What if no one had told you that and instead told you that no one is ever so lost they can never come home?”
He glances at her, surprised, and his brow creases in loss and pain, and his eyes shine with tears. His lips part, forcing a ragged breath through them, before he murmurs, “I would’ve come home.”
“Ben.” She raises their joined hands to kiss the back of his and hold it against her cheek. The touch isn’t enough for him; he pulls her closer and wraps his arms around her, head resting on hers and his breath stirring her hair. She holds his waist and leans into him. She fits against him, and she's never felt anything more perfect.
They stand together, comforting and comforted, alone in the galaxy.
She murmurs, “You and I, we’re different. We were born after the Jedi and the Sith. Their ways broke the galaxy. We have to do something different.”
“Let go of the past?” He lifts his head to look at her, with that endearing faint smile on his lips.
“Not by destroying who you are,” she corrects, but has to smile back, “But give up old traditions that cause things to fall apart. It’s time we become who we’re meant to be,” she finishes, looking up at him and meaning every word. “Let's become something new.”
His gaze flicks back to sea while he thinks. The wind gusts and swirls, blowing his hair in his face, and he lifts his free hand to push it back. When his eyes meet hers again, he swallows hard. “I don’t have to go back,” he offers. “My ship seats two. We can go … anywhere.”
She stares, so caught by surprise that she can’t think to form words. “Are you- are you sure? You would give it up?”
“If there was somewhere else to go. Someone else,” his warm eyes meet hers making it clear who he means, “to share it with.”
She starts to nod. She wants nothing more in that moment than to climb in his Silencer and go. She’s a scavenger and a Jedi, and she can survive. She can be with Ben, and they’ll be safe and together. She would be happy.
But, as if the truth is whispered in her ear, she knows--
Ben will hate it. He means it; he would give it all up for her, as he won't for Luke's pestering, but he’ll be unhappy the rest of his days that he abandoned what he felt was his responsibility. Because as much as he hates the weight of the legacies on his shoulders, he still carries them.
“I want that,” she whispers and doesn’t let go of him, so he doesn’t believe she’s rejecting him again. “I want us to be together, and leave all this behind. But that’s not who you are.”
He stiffens, thinking she’s saying that because of his Darkness, and she adds quickly, laying a hand on his chest, “Your heart wants to be a Solo, flying into an adventure on the Falcon. So do I, Ben. But not yet. Because you’re also your mother’s son. If you walked away, you’d always wonder if you could’ve done more. And if it does collapse, you'll blame yourself. And me," she murmurs, and while he jerks his head in instinctive denial, she knows that's the sad truth of it. If they leave right now and the galaxy falls into even more violence and death behind them, they'll grow to hate each other for leaving it.
But she can't leave it there; there's still hope. She lifts her head, "So, here’s my proposal: we work together and we make this dream of peace real. We defeat the Dark, you heal the mistakes the First Order made, and when you and I have done all we can, we’ll leave."
He stills, considering the idea, and his voice is low, his jaw tight enough to make the thin scar on his face slant. “Do you promise?”
“I promise,” she whispers. "We'll go find all the green places in the galaxy."
His arms come around her again, pulling her into him, body to body. He’s big and warm and she can hear the steady thump of his heart when she puts her head down. She feels safe, sheltered in his arms, and the bond tightens between them, until it’s hard to know where she ends and he begins. There’s dark and light all mixed up, fear and love, and hope holding it all together.
His cheek is against her hair and he kisses her head. It’s not enough. He feels it, too, because of course he does, and their mouths come together, hot and heavy and desperate. When else are they going to be able to share this?
He tears himself away, panting for breath. “Rey--”
She feels it, a new conflict rising within him. He wants to go with her, but he wants to finish what he’s started. It will pull him apart again, and that's the last thing she wants.
Her hand lays on his cheek with infinite gentleness, pulling the despair and the anger from him. “It’s only for a little while,” she promises. “You be the Supreme Leader, I’ll be the Jedi – we’ll be what our people need us to be. And then, we can be ourselves. Together.”
He embraces her again, holding on as if he’ll never let her go. Pressing kisses into her hair and the side of her face, he finds her lips again. “Together,” he echoes.
His comm chirps and he lifts his wrist to bark into it, “What?”
“Supreme Leader, we are in orbit, as you commanded. Shall I send escort?”
“No, Captain. I’m returning,” Ben answers. His eyes meet hers as he adds, “I have work to do.”
His touch drops away from her, and he's already thinking about what he needs to do. He shuts off the comm and stares at her, not speaking, memorizing her face
"Promise me you'll be careful," she blurts out. "Come back to me."
He bends to brush his lips with hers. “I will," he breathes against her skin and she shivers.
She blinks back the wet heat in her eyes as she watches him settle himself back in the pilot’s seat. When the cockpit seals and he's leaving, a great wave of emotion bursts out of her, a fire in her heart that explodes: longing, desire, fear, hope, love, all of it.
He's startled as it crashes into him through the Force, and his brow knits with adorable confusion as he lifts a gloved hand in farewell, and the engines ignite. His eyes meet hers, and she feels his response as a warm stone in her chest, glowing with the strength of his love. Everything else about him is tempestuous, but that feels solid. He knows the truth now, and he'll hold onto it.
She will, too.
The Silencer lifts off and away, disappearing into atmosphere with the grace of a giant bird of prey. Her eyes follow as long as she can. Someday, they’ll go together.
Someday, he’ll dock his beautiful ship with the Falcon, and they’ll go explore the galaxy together.
But not today. Not yet.
end.