Chapter Text
Rey held the two pieces of the broken lightsaber as she looked around at the remaining Resistance fighters aboard the Millennium Falcon. This is all we have left, she thought to herself. Less than fifty Resistance fighters had boarded the ship. She stared absently into space as everyone around her moved about the ship, tending to the wounded and mourning those lost in the battle on Crait.
Her eyes eventually drifted toward Finn and Rose. Rose still lay unconscious, and even though responsibility tried to remove Finn from her side, he would not go. He sat on the bed next to her, his fingers intertwined with hers waiting patiently for her to awaken. A healer stopped by to check her vitals and politely asked him to move aside so she could work. When Finn didn’t hear her, she asked again. After realizing that she had said something to him, he shifted aside to let her work, but his eyes remained fixated on Rose’s face until the healer left. He sat back down beside her.
A pang of emptiness surged through Rey as she watched the couple from across the room. She shuddered. She averted her eyes from the couple and glanced over at Poe and Leia. They were sprawled over a tattered map deep in conversation, intensely discussing where to take the remaining Resistance fighters to regroup and contact whatever Republic still remained for assistance. They had spent over an hour in hyperspace, hoping to evade the First Order’s tracking system but at the cost of wasting precious fuel.
Everyone around her seemed to fit perfectly together; their jobs and personalities coalescing into the heart of the Resistance. Though there was sadness at the losses they had suffered from the First Order, everyone seemed to be in higher spirits. ‘You were great out there;’ ‘Great job;’and other words of encouragement filled the room. The Resistance overcame the biggest battle it had ever faced, so why did she still feel so alone? Even in a room full of people she would call comrades, she felt as lonely as she did as a scavenger on Jakku. Rey’s eyes welled with tears as she fought them away.
Leia looked up from the map and met Rey’s gaze. She quickly turned back to Poe, gave him orders to their next location, and he ran off to the cockpit. She rose from her seat and quietly took a place next to a disheartened Rey. She sat next to Rey for a long while before she spoke, shooing away anyone who came up to her.
“You saw him?” Leia finally said. Rey nodded in silence.
“I tried to bring him back,” she choked out. “When I was aboard the Supremacy on the lift — I felt it... The conflict, the light. Ben Solo is there. I — I just couldn’t reach him.” She cupped her face in her palms in defeat. Leia touched Rey’s shoulder to comfort her.
“I though Han would be able to bring him back to us,” she paused. “Han didn’t always believe in the Force, not for what it truly is. He once believed that it was a power that some had to manipulate the environment around them. Even though he could saw the raw power of the Force in his friends and in his enemies, he didn’t want our son to be a part of that life. He thought that he could shield Ben away from the Force so he would not have to endure the war his parents’ fought.
“Han and I fought for years about his training. I could feel the Force manifesting in Ben while he was still in the womb...” Leia trailed off. She took a moment to collect her thoughts before starting again. “Ben knew he was special, and when his friends went away he begged to go. Han was stubborn in trying to give his son a normal life. Every year when a new class of Jedi would leave, Ben would plead with Han to let him go, and every year he said no.”
Leia sat up straight. She was no longer looking at Rey; she was staring down at her hands clasped in her lap. “It wasn’t until he was thirteen when he began acting out. At the time, Snoke had raised the First Order from the ashes of the Empire. We saw Darkness rising in our son, and we were afraid that, given his bloodline, Snoke was reaching out to him. Han finally agreed to send Ben away to train with Luke, but I think we were already too late.
“I thought that Han would be able to bring him back from the Darkness the day I met you, but the paternal connection was not enough to bring him into the Light. Ben was still angry at his father for not allowing him to train, and then sending him to Luke who had seen the Darkness brewing inside him. But it wasn’t Luke’s fault. He just —”
“I know,” Rey said quietly. “Luke and Ben both told me what happened that night.” Leia looked back up at her. Her deep brown eyes began searching for answers in the young girl’s expression and saw disappointment and defeat. Leia seemed to beyond her eyes and into her very soul, and somehow she understood everything Rey was feeling in that moment.
The Millennium Falcon made a sudden jerk. They had arrived at their destination, breaching the atmosphere of the planet. Leia glanced at the opening door and stood up. Rey wasn’t quite ready to leave, not ready to move onto the next part of their journey. Leia took Rey’s hand.
“There has always been a balance between the Light and the Dark Side, but hardly anyone remembers what is in between,” Leia smiled weakly, dropped Rey’s hand, and walked off the ship.