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You are half dragged into base, hands up as far as your screaming body will allow, and yet every single blaster issued to the entire Resistance is pointed on you.
There’s screaming. You aren’t processing any of it past Rey shouting don’t shoot it’s ok don’t shoot, cradling you as much as she can physically bear leading you across the clearing.
You fall to your knees at the altar of your mother, and let out a single guttural sob.
Minutes pass. The blasters are lowered, there is a hand on your shoulder, and then around your waist. You kneel together until the sun fades, kiss your mother’s forehead, and summon the courage to move on.
You can feel her becoming one with the Force as you walk away. You do not look back.
…
You’re both taken from your place of mourning directly to the med bay. Medical attention, it seems, is among the rights of man.
You are still human regardless of how desperately you've tried to be anything but.
They've cleaned you both up and given you something for the pain. you can feel Rey drifting in and out of consciousness in the bed across from you, you don’t know if it’s helping you breathe or keeping you on edge.
Questions are hurled at you rapid-fire that you can only half answer through the haze. Two bones are re-broken and six are reset. There are four noticeable needles in your arm and your mouth floods with a salt like taste when you remember how your father would hold your mother's hand every time she received an immunization.
An incident. during the war, he had told you.
You choke back a sob of clarity.
...
She takes you back to her quarters. She assumes full responsibility for you, in the event that you are, in fact, everything you know yourself to be.
The space is cramped and there are mechanical parts and old books scattered across every surface imaginable, printed holos stuck to the walls of faces that feel like a shot to the gut.
You collapse in on each other. You have never been so tired.
You can feel her breath on your cheek, the warmth in your chest. you cannot remember the last time you were this close to someone.
“What happens next,” you ask.
“Rest,” she replies, groggy and eyes closed.
“After that.”
She inches away just enough to look you in the eye. She doesn’t have to.
“There’s no government in place.“
“And when there is?”
You can feel the sorrow. The uncertainty feeding off each other. She’s quiet.
“Say it, please,” you whisper.
Her eyes flicker before settling back on your face.
“And then you’ll be tried for war crimes.”
…
You’re not allowed off-base, let alone off world. You spend your days deep in the forest, leaving early so you don’t have to see the stares and hands preemptively covering blasters as you pass through.
You meditate for hours, you don’t quite remember what it is you’re searching for.
Answers, maybe. If you’re deserving.
Your prayers are interrupted when one of you opens your bond again, most likely on accident. You’ve spoken about learning to control it, but it’s never gone past a conversation.
You see her at a dining table opposite from her friends, they’re laughing. She turns her head to you, and smiles before it dissipates again.
In the moments in which you are the most connected, you are most aware of how truly alone you are.
You can feel the flames of anger lick the back of your mind. If anything, you’re most angry about the fact they’re still there, angry that they might never leave you.
You let out a scream of frustration and collapse back to the ground. Your throat burns.
…
Nighttime is the safest.
You read a lot. You’ve made a dent in the expansive library your mother left behind and through Rey’s modest collection entirely. You read together, she reads to you and you read to her.
You talk, all the time it seems. She asks you about the most mundane things you’d never even consider mentioning and you think it’s just to keep you saying something. You’ve always been quiet, even before the quiet became a necessity. Until it was all too much and you set the silence on fire. Still, you both could use the practice.
She tells you about when she was fifteen and how she broke her hand punching a boy who tried to kiss her after stealing her rations, you tell her about when you were twelve on your first adventure with Luke to a world you are too scared to check if it still exists.
You teach her to braid your hair, you tell her the stories behind each knot that your mother so desperately tried to pass on to you. She listens, she can feel the anguish stirring when you remember your father doing the same for your mother. A rare exhibition of patience as he held sections in place before a state dinner or bedtime. Rey kisses your temple, she strokes your cheek, you offer to braid her own.
When she touches you it makes you almost feel worthy, she lets you touch her and you are humbled by the act. Something holy settles in your chest, is reflected back and forth between the two of you bright and honest until you positively shake from the nature of its presence.
…
Lando treats you like nothing ever happened, and you don’t quite know how to feel about that.
He’s off base most days, connecting with allies from his days as a politician. He swaggers up to you and ruffles your hair and tells everyone stories about how his name sounded with your toddler-lisp and the week you ran away to Cloud City mostly just to prove that you could.
It’s at least a month before you realize he is attempting to humanise you in the eyes of those who never knew you. Still, you cannot push away the thought that at least nine people on this base had, in whatever capacity, watched you grow up.
It is a rare moment when you and your godfather are in the same room. counting each occasion, he has not made eye contact with you once. Considering your last interaction was isolated to him blasting you in the side in exchange for a blade through his best friend, you don’t blame him.
You sit with two of your mother’s colleagues from the senate at least once a day and commit high treason. You’re questioned on motives, evaluated for risk, and quizzed on intel. They do not mention the gift of a silk blanket that was neatly folded on the rocking chair in your first bedroom.
You make the most fleeting eye-contact across the clearing with your circumstantial childhood playmate and wonder how you ended up on such different paths.
“He says he’d be willing to share a meal with you,” Rey tells you later that afternoon, clearly having felt your upset.
A pause.
“You asked him to.”
“Yes.”
“Persuaded him, even.”
“Yes.”
There is a swirl of emotion, a flash of memory. dolls and figurines, laughter belonging to another life entirely.
“When?”
...
You sit on the too-small bench of a resistance issued cafeteria table across your mother’s chosen son.
He lost his mother in childhood. She lost her son to adulthood. You do not feel jealous so much as you feel like you cheated your entire self.
Nobody says a word despite the fact both of you have worked halfway through your respective trays, flimsy metal forks clink against the plastic cover the silence.
You think about what it could’ve been like to live without the hand you were given. You picture yourself in a garish orange flight suit before you remember had things gone a certain way, there would be no need. You wonder if you’d have followed your mother to the senate.
But you made your choices.
You start to wonder if you’ll make it through the entire sitting without so much as a remark about the weather when Poe asks,
“What did it feel like, when she died?”
You miss a breath.
“Agony,” you answer truthfully. “And a little bit of hope.”
He takes a long sip from his canteen. Your chest tightens.
“I’m traveling to the outer rim next week, meeting with diplomats,” he tells you. “We can do this again when I get back.”
His voice is direct, yet you can feel all his nervousness mixed in with your own. For a moment, you wonder if he’s taking your father’s ship. A flash of jealousy rises in you before it is replaced with humility.
“Thank you,” you tell him. You mean it.
The nervousness dissipates.
…
Nighttime is the hardest.
She almost always falls asleep first. you spend the hours before you succumb to the night trying desperately to quiet the grief long enough to feel the pull of unconsciousness. She sleeps paralyzed through her nightmares. You bolt upright at the mere glance of both your victims and your abusers.
The room is temperature controlled, but you wake up covered in sweat.
You want to run. Away, maybe, but it is no more than an instinct formed from habit. One circumstance and your curfew won’t permit.
You pad over to the adjoining refresher, scrub water into your pores as though it holds the power to cleanse even one sin. you stare at your reflection, illuminated by the blue safety lights embedded in the ceilings. You feel just a little bit lighter.
“You look younger than the last time I saw you.”
You spin around so fast you smack your shin right into the cabinet.
“Mom.”
“Can’t sleep?”
You give the smallest shake of your head.
“Me neither,” she jokes. You smile graciously.
You don’t know what to say, or where to start. “I’m sorry” sounds both too much and not enough.
“I want to go home,” you settle for instead. “But there’s nothing to go home to.”
“There hasn’t been anything for a long time,” she says.
“There could’ve been.”
She shakes her head. “Home disappears the moment we leave for the very first time. What remains may look different based on choice or circumstance, but nothing is ever permanent.”
“This isn’t that.”
You want her to understand that this is the product of your crimes. That you are the one to blame for everything falling apart. You want her to feel your flesh stripped from your bones and the grazing of teeth while the guilt eats you alive.
“Remorse can only get you so far,” she speaks pleadingly, though recognising this doesn't make it sound any less like nagging.
“I know.”
“You have to take action after that or it will stick with you until it solidifies.”
“I’m trying,” you say through gritted teeth. “You watched your home become nothing, I destroyed mine. It’s not the same.”
You know she is showing you compassion, but it is the last thing you want
She doesn’t respond. You stay silent for what seems like hours.
“I just want the dreams to stop,” you confess in almost a whisper. “I’m so tired, everything's tired and I don’t -” you miss a breath, “I don’t want her to see them.”
There’s a pause, the dull humming of the nearest generator keeping time. “Are you certain she does?”
You nod, and your head falls back into your hands. “I can see hers.”
“I caught a glimpse of Luke’s dreams once or twice.”
“This isn’t that,” you say again.
“No,” she concedes. "It isn’t. I imagine it’s more intense.”
You almost scoff.
“At least it’ll end if I’m executed.” You’re not sure if you say it to end the conversation or gage her reaction or both. Leia winces visibly. There’s a sinking feeling in your stomach.
“We tried forty-seven leaders for war crimes or crimes against humanity, three were executed but it was a close vote.” She speaks to you like an adult, and you realize it is your first conversation where she treats you as equal.
You always wanted to be her equal.
You look up at her from your place on the floor, you don’t even have a hand to show. She looks at you with more compassion than you not only deserve, but than you think she showed anyone her entire life.
There are pieces missing, an entire life where you hacked and rubbed at the string holding you together, but it is there and you are here and given one more shot at scraps of life and love.
You settle for the only card you have, the only thing left to give.
“I’m so sorry,” you whisper.
She reaches out to you.
“I know.”
…
“I’m going to Tatooine to bury the sabers,” Rey tells you one morning.
You swallow, pulling on your second boot. “Will you just be gone the afternoon?”
She closes the wardrobe door and sits next to you. “I got permission to take you with me, if you’d like to go.”
There’s a stabbing feeling in your chest. You nod.
You’ve been itching to fly since your second day on Ajan Kloss. Flying your father’s ship especially seemed like a pipe dream lost to time and volition. You suppose you’ll take the opportunity regardless of the circumstance.
Poe Dameron sends you off, tells Rey to keep in touch and something about how pissed off his boyfriend is that he ever agreed to you co-piloting in the first place.
“I bet Ben could outfly you in a heartbeat,” she teases.
Poe laughs and turns his attention on you. “Tell you what - if they ever let you in the captains seat again I’ll race you.”
You can’t help but laugh too.
The ship is exactly how you remember it. The dirt-stained corridors and way the metal grates feel under the soles of your shoes. Dust rises off the holochess table, and it smells exactly as it did when you were ten years old.
You feel a hand reaching for yours, you meet it in the middle, clasping.
“Do you need a minute?” Rey asks softly.
You lean down to kiss her, to reassure her.
She smiles. So do you. The days feel lighter when you’re loved.
You settle in the co-pilot’s seat. You wonder if an apology will ever suffice for it’s rightful owner. You wonder how many apologies you have in you.
You feel badly you got Poe in trouble. You feel badly that you however indirectly caused the direct upheaval and omnipresent suffering of someone loved by those you love. You feel badly that the things you see under glorified and gracious house arrest are only a small sample of the suffering left scattered around solar systems.
“Finn will come around eventually,” she says, preparing for take off.
You start flipping switches too, repressing the emotions that come along with it being second nature.
“You don’t believe that,” you finally say.
“No, I don’t,” she responds, succinctly, “But I hope.”
“Hoping isn’t enough.”
She turns to look at you. “It’s all we’ve got.”
You don’t know whether your refusal to lie to each other is an indication of trust or simply the fact you live in each other’s heads.
“Why can’t it be both?”
…
You do not eulogise, you do not sob into each other on the desert flat. You don hooded cloaks and go for drinks.
Glances are thrown in your direction as you cross from the bar to a booth in the corner. You catch hushed conversations, but nobody rises and no blasters are fixed on you. Your hand reaches for the small of her back before you sit down, a wave of calm rushes over you.
“Thank you,” you murmur.
“I’m nervous too,” Rey confesses.
You raise glasses.
“To our family?” she asks, claiming them for both of you.
Your chest swells, you clink your glass of Corellian whiskey against hers. “Our family.”
You take liberal sips in silence. You feel a buzz in your head and in your seat, an ancient nagging feeling.
“This is where my father met my uncle,” you tell her.
Her eyes widened, almost in excitement. “Really?”
You nod. “And my namesake. They hired him for a job to rescue my mother, it’s how they all met.”
Rey lets out a low whistle. “Wow.”
It’s nice to pass these stories on to someone who wants them more than you did. You find more spilling out of you with each drink and with them a weight leaving your shoulders.
You retreat to your father’s (her's? your?) captains quarters, absolutely refusing to think about the last time you were in this bed.
…
There are talks of dismantling the base. It happens slowly, but one by one people leave for their promised futures. You know you do not have the right to restlessness, but that’s exactly how you feel.
You can’t stand to feel the excitement buzzing off everyone else. You want so desperately to atone for your sins, but not forever. Suffering has to end like anything else. You want to hope it is on your terms, but instead you take off hiking to a clearing settling down with one of your mother’s historical texts.
“I don’t know how you can get through those things kid, they’re dryer than my uncles farm after a bad harvest.”
You slam the book shut, scuffling to stand upright. “Luke.”
He stands across from you, so much smaller than you remember him. You can’t help but note he looks so much sadder than your mother did.
“How are you?” he asks, slowly and with concern.
“Fine.”
“Ben.”
“I’m about as fine as I was when I got here eight months ago, nice for you to finally drop by.”
It took Luke four months longer to reach out to you than your mother and you remind yourself he only ever loved you for her sake. The flames in the back of your head burn.
“I didn’t know how,” he says, earnest.
“I thought you knew everything,” you spit. It’s not even facetious.
“Ben, I’m sorry.”
You choke back the rage boiling in your throat and stop yourself from replying exactly as you did the last time he confessed himself to you.
“I know,” you settle for instead.
“Truly, I am.”
“I believe you that you’re sorry.” You believe that he regrets all that has transpired between you, the collapse of the galaxy, of his family. It just doesn’t change much.
You can feel a pull at a string somewhere behind your ribs.
“Tell me this, did you even want to be a Jedi?” Luke asks.
You blink. “I was ten.”
There’s another pull. You almost want to roll your eyes at how much Rey wants this to work.
“Ten year olds can want things.”
A third pull, you push the feeling of an adolescent pressure you know she has no touchstone for and the way your mother looked with pride that you know she does. The tension loosens. You feel a nudge of guilt.
“It was what I was supposed to do,” you say finally. “It’s just what was done.”
“Your father was the one who told us to keep you home, he wanted you to make the choice when you were older.”
“Nobody listened to him before why start trying,” you’re almost joking.
“He may have been right,” Luke says. “We were just so scared, all the time. You were suffering and we wanted to make it better.”
“You couldn’t. You can’t.”
Luke gives a small smile. He places a phantom hand on your own. You don’t pull it away.
…
“They’re talking about exile,” Poe tells you one afternoon after a disappointing resistance issued lunchtime.
“Is that better or worse than death,” you ask.
Rey looks you in the eyes.
“You tell me.”