Chapter Text
They barely have time to disembark the ship on Ajan Kloss before cuffs are slapped on Ben’s wrists.
Two burly looking men Rey doesn’t recognize hold him up as they secure the bindings; his leg is broken and he has hardly enough strength to keep his eyes open, let alone stand.
“He needs to be put into bacta,” Rey barks at them, lifting Ben’s chin as his head lolls forward.
“He’ll go wherever Commander D’Acy orders him to go,” the man on his left replies, staring at Ben’s near-lifeless form with simmering contempt. “Trial, then execution, I’d wager.”
Rey’s jaw flexes. “You won’t get your trial if he dies, and he will die if you don’t get him into bacta.”
“Let’s go, Vinis,” the other man cuts in, securing his grip on Ben’s shoulder with a grunt. “He’s heavy.”
They lead him away without another word. His boots scrape the mossy green forest floor as they drag him toward the Commander’s ship. There’s bound to be a semi-decent bacta tank in it, but Rey can’t help the thrum of anxiety under her skin at the thought of them ignoring her pleas and throwing him straight into a cell.
Only once the hatch has closed and removed him from her line of sight does she notice the crowd that has formed around her ship. Some faces she recognizes, others she’s never seen before, but they all have something in common—they’re staring at her like they’ve just seen a ghost.
Six standard days later, they’ve settled into an old Imperial outpost on Endor. Poe jokes about the irony of it becoming the new home base for the Resistance, how the cronies of yesteryear are probably turning in their graves at the sight of rebel scum getting comfortable in their precious sanctuary. Rey doesn’t think it’s all that funny, especially considering the amount of repairs needed to make the outpost even somewhat livable. It’s moldy from neglect and Endor’s relentless humidity, and there is minimal room for a mess hall or sleeping quarters. She’d tried to adhere to the arrangements—eight to a room—but found very quickly that her bouts of sleep talking and snoring were intolerable to her bunkmates. She'd started sleeping in the Falcon after a week.
“Kalonia says he’s probably going to wake up soon,” Finn calls out from where he sits at the Dejarik table. He’s hardly paying attention to the game he’s playing with Poe, who is leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, deep in concentration. Despite his best efforts, Finn will undoubtedly still win.
“She’s been saying that for the past three days,” Rey replies from the galley. She’s washing a bowl of jinjang berries in the sink, her thumbs rubbing away all of the residual dirt from their indigo skin.
“I overheard her talking to D’Acy at breakfast today and she thinks it could be any minute now,” Finn shouts back.
Rey kinks a skeptical eyebrow as she finishes her task and walks over to the lounge. She settles onto the cushioned seat next to Finn and sets the bowl of berries within reaching distance of all three of them. After a quick survey of the game and finding that Finn is still very much winning, she asks, “Did she say—”
Poe groans. “Will you two stop yelling at the top of your lungs during my turn?”
Finn and Rey both turn to look at Poe, who is staring at them with acute disdain. Dejarik really does bring out the absolute worst in him. “There’s no way you can win, anyway,” Rey teases, popping a berry into her mouth. “Now, did she say if his leg is fully healed?”
Poe rolls his eyes and turns back to the game as Finn shrugs. “I stopped eavesdropping before she could get into the details, but I’d imagine the bacta would take care of that, wouldn’t it?”
In theory, yes. But Ben’s injuries have been stubborn up to this point. She’s learned as much from Kalonia and Maz, who have both tended to him over the past week. They cluck their tongues at the shattered bones in his leg that seem hard pressed to fuse back together, lamenting to Rey about every body healing on its own schedule. “I would imagine he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in years,” Maz had said, standing next to the tank, so small in stature that she had to lift onto her tiptoes to even see Ben’s sleeping face. “His body is taking advantage of this while it can.”
Rey nods toward Finn as she eats another berry, relishing in the way the juice bursts into her mouth. It covers up the sour taste on her tongue which occurs when she thinks about Ben and when…or if he will finally wake up.
Poe falls backward into his chair with another groan, slapping the button on the holotable which immediately shuts down the game. Rey and Finn watch, amused, as he places a hand at his brow and silently admonishes himself for losing. His jaw flexes, and his lip curls, and his other hand balls up into a fist.
“You are such a sore loser,” Finn says, shaking his head.
“Whatever.” Poe stands, stretching out his arms. “The game is rigged.” Rey and Finn both chuckle; it almost feels scripted, for how often Poe says it. “Anyway, I don’t know why you get so worked up about when he’ll wake up,” Poe says, looking at Rey. “As soon as he’s conscious, they’ll throw him into a cell.”
She eyes him, not saying a word. He’s made his feelings about Ben abundantly clear since Rey brought him to Ajan Kloss. If Poe had his way, he would’ve let him die right then and there.
“It’s only fair to put him on trial,” Finn says, ever the diplomat. “We can’t do that until he’s awake.”
“We all know how that’ll end,” Poe replies, fiddling with an errant string on his pants.
“Do we?” Rey asks, leaning into the cushioned back of the lounge.
Poe rears back, indignant, and looks at Rey. “What do you mean, do we? Of course we do.”
Biting the inside of her cheek, Rey considers her next words. They’ve been on the tip of her tongue for the past seventy-two hours, ever since Kalonia noticed that Ben’s fingers and toes had started to occasionally wiggle, signaling that he was near returning to consciousness. She maintains stubborn eye contact with Poe as she says, “I will testify on his behalf. If I’m such a hero to the Resistance, my word has to mean something.” Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Finn’s head swivel to look at her, but she doesn’t budge. She’s deadlocked with Poe’s disbelieving gaze.
“You’d testify to save him? After everything he’s don—”
“You don’t know all that he’s done, Poe,” Rey cuts in. “He’s a different person than he was a year ago. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Without him, we—”
“Yes, yes, I’ve heard it all before.” Poe waves a dismissive hand. “Without him, the galaxy would be in ruins because Palpatine would’ve won.”
At the sound of that name, Rey flinches. It never gets easier, remembering her lineage. It never hurts any less to think about what he did to her parents, how he let her rot on Jakku for almost two decades. Through gritted teeth, she replies, “That’s not what I was going to say.”
Now standing with his hands on his hips, Poe jerks his chin in her direction. “Please, enlighten me.”
Rey takes a deep breath, pulls her knees to her chest and sighs. “There’s something I haven’t told either of you about what happened on Exegol,” she begins. Her eyes drift down to the floor, because right now, she can’t look at them. Right now, she has to go back to that terrifying moment when she could feel the life draining from her body. When she could feel the last soft, whimpering beat of her heart.
The most vivid part of the memory is always Ben’s eyes. They were the first thing she saw upon waking in the crumbling ruins of the Sith temple, the first thing that anchored her back to the living. Dark, endlessly deep, and so sincere she hardly recognized them. She’d known something had shifted when he showed up in the heat of the battle; she could see it in the looseness of his posture, in the fierce clench of his jaw, in the sparkle in his eyes. It wasn’t Kylo Ren who had come to her aid.
But looking at him through the bond, or as they fought against Palpatine’s army, or as they stood before him, shoulder-to-shoulder—none of those looks compared to this one. They were so close together—close enough that if she wanted to, she could count the moles that dotted his cheeks and forehead.
It occurred to her as they sat there, entangled in each other: he’d brought her back from death.
She’d known she was dying the second the sabers fell from her hands. The energy flowing through her body had begun to dissipate at an alarming rate; it crackled and hiccuped like an engine trying and failing to turn over. An array of feelings warred within her as she fell to the ground—she wanted to fight the impending darkness, but exhaustion was winning out over her will to survive. She wanted to know if Ben was okay, but the bond was eerily silent. When she finally gave in and let the lifeforce from her body drain entirely, it felt a lot like falling into a deep, soothing sleep.
But now she was breathing, and her heart was beating, and sweat was beading on her hairline and she was remarkably, wholly alive. She couldn’t utter a thank you; she managed only a breathless Ben before a smile cracked onto her face that she couldn’t contain even if she wanted to.
It appeared to be all the thanks he needed.
And then she kissed him, because she’d never been looked at the way he was looking at her.
Like she was the beginning and end of everything. Like all of his questions had finally been answered.
Ben wakes up the next morning before the sun rises. Maz sends a med droid to fetch Rey on the Falcon, and the distinct sound of its beeping pulls her out of a dead sleep. She doesn’t bother changing out of her sleep clothes. She throws on her boots, runs a hand through her tangled hair and bolts off the ship toward the medbay.
He’s the first thing she sees as soon as the room comes into view—sprawled out on a bed, legs so long that his feet are sticking out of the blanket that’s draped over him. Maz and Kalonia are hovering around him like mother hens, and the soft, appreciative smile on his face as they fuss over him almost stops Rey in her tracks.
She isn’t sure if she’ll ever get used to how his face transforms like that. She refrains from blinking as she surveys him, hoping it will help burn this moment, and that look, into her memory.
He’s smiling. He’s awake. He’s alive.
When he notices her in the doorway, the grin that erupts onto his face is even more staggering. Maz and Kalonia follow his gaze, pleased but completely unsurprised to see her. Neither of them say a word about the state of her—the wrinkled sleep clothes, the bedhead, the undone bootstraps. They only smirk like the old busybodies they are, murmuring to each other as they exit the room.
Butterflies dance in Rey’s belly as she approaches his bedside. Anxiously, she tucks messy locks of hair behind her ears, unsure of what to do with her hands otherwise.
She isn’t sure what she expected from this—their first real interaction after Exegol. He’d managed, with her carrying most of his weight, to crawl out of the temple and board the TIE Fighter, but by the time she’d strapped him into the co-pilot seat, he was drifting in and out of consciousness and murmuring incoherently under his breath. She’d flown the entire way to Ajan Kloss with her teeth gritted and her heart in her throat, reaching around the seat to check his pulse every few minutes. He’d looked so pale and weak, straddling the line between life and death after using almost his entire self to save her. She’s never flown faster than she did that day.
An awkward smile folds onto her lips as she lowers herself onto the uncomfortable looking chair near his bed. It’s close enough that if she reached out a hand, she’d touch him. Instead, she tucks her hands under her thighs to avoid fidgeting under his gaze.
It’s still intense, still deeper than any ocean. That much hasn’t changed. But there’s no menace in it now, and his eyes, which once were black with rage and fear, are lighter. They’re a swirling mix of green and brown, so bright they almost sparkle under the harsh light of the medbay.
“Hi,” Ben says, his grin softening as Rey settles in.
Rey blinks, slightly jolted at the sound of his voice. It’s different, too, and not solely because it’s no longer warped by the modulator in that wretched mask. It’s warmer, deeper, less tinged with anger. “Hi.”
“How are you?”
At this, she huffs out a soft laugh, relaxing a little.“You’ve just woken up from a week-long coma and you’re asking how I am?”
Ben shrugs one shoulder, his smile continuing to soften until only a smirk remains. Rey finds herself trying not to study every inch of his face, but it’s a difficult feat. It’s hard to reconcile the man sitting across from her—the captivating hazel eyes, the cocksure smirk—with the enemy who’d stood on the other side of the war.
“I’m good,” she replies, then does a quick scan of his body. He’s mostly covered by the scratchy-looking blanket, but his legs are both slightly bent, which she thinks is a good sign. “How are you feeling?”
He nods. “Good.” He reaches up, scratching idly at the five-o-clock shadow on his jaw. “Weird, but good weird. A little hungry.”
As if on instinct, one she didn’t know she possessed, Rey immediately makes to stand. “Oh, the mess will be serving breakfast now. I can go grab you—”
Ben shakes his head, his face shifting quickly into concern. “No, no, you don’t have to.”
“It’s really not a big deal, and it’s usually pretty delicious.” She’s almost completely upright, invigorated by the idea of having something tangible to do for him. “Not that I’m much of a food critic but—”
“I don’t—” Ben cuts in, louder than before. She stops short, staring at him as he swallows roughly and his eyes scan up and down from her tangly hair to her undone boots. “I don’t want you to go.”
Her mouth snaps shut. “Oh.” Slowly, she lowers herself back down into the chair. “Okay. I won’t, then.” When her bottom hits the seat, Ben’s shoulders seem to sag with relief. Rey runs her hands over her legging-clad thighs, silently berating herself for not changing out of the pair riddled with holes. The action has her peeking at Ben’s legs once again, Maz’s voice in the back of her head reminding her to manage her expectations. Bacta is a brilliant substance, but even it can’t mend everything.
When she can no longer fight the curiosity, she asks, “Is your leg fully healed?”
“Yep.” He bends both legs and pulls them toward his chest as if to prove it, then stretches them back out. Fully extended, they nearly hang off the edge of the bed. “And my ribs,” he says, lightly touching the left side of his torso. “And my shoulder, my arm, and three of my fingers, according to Kalonia.”
Rey gulps. She’d known that he was in bad shape, but the extent of the damage—it isn’t easy to hear. The pain he must’ve been in when he held her amidst those crumbling ruins, how he must’ve known that saving her would likely be the last thing he’d ever do—
She clears her throat, eyes falling to the floor so he doesn’t see the way they’re welling with tears. “Good,” she manages. “I’m glad they fixed you up.”
A beat of quiet passes as Rey continues to stare downward, not wanting to say anything else for fear of choking up. It isn’t until he says “Vratixia renanicus” that she finally lifts her chin, her brows tugging together in confusion.
When he doesn’t immediately elaborate, Rey tilts her head. He smiles softly and quirks a playful brow. “It’s the type of barley used to make bacta. Alongside kavam and alazhi bacteria, and ambori fluid.”
A bemused laugh escapes Rey’s lips. “How do you even know that?”
Again, that self-assured shrug. That confident, easy smirk. “I read a lot.”
Rey grins, shaking her head. She had no idea that Ben Solo was a complete nerd.
His smirk transforms into a grin, startling in its sincerity. It’s then that she notices something she hadn’t before—something that nearly knocks the breath out of her. “Your scar,” she says, eyes pinned to the right side of his face where the jagged line used to live. The jagged line that she made. “Did—did the bacta heal that, too?”
Only slightly does Ben’s smile dim, then, and for a brief moment, his eyes fall to his lap. “No,” he replies, as soft as a whisper. “That was you.” He looks up and must see confusion on her face, because he adds, “When you healed me on Kef Bir, it went away. All of my scars did.”
Rey’s heart seizes in her chest, painfully enough that she almost clutches at the material of her tunic. She’d struck him with her saber in that icy forest on Starkiller Base, and then she’d run his own through him in the middle of that raging gray sea in Kef Bir. Twice, she’d marred him, would’ve killed him had she not been overwhelmed with the same unending guilt she feels right now. “I’m sorr—”
“Please don’t, Rey.” His words lay almost on top of hers with their urgency. They’re strained, as if they pain him to utter. “Nothing you did warrants an apology. Not a single thing. It’s me who—”
Her eyes fall shut at the weight of it all. With what she knows of the future, of the thousand apologies that he’ll have to make if the tribunal allows him to live, she can’t bear to hear it now. Not here, in this moment, when he looks so unbearably young and free. She has to stop him, and there’s a million things she wants to say, but all that comes out is a pleading, “Ben.”
Silence settles in the room. Rey’s eyes slide open to see him staring at her, his face like a dagger to her heart for how much it looks like the one from her memory. It’s the same face he made when she said his name in the temple, with their legs and breaths and hearts entangled.
She hadn’t asked then, but she can’t help it now. Her voice is watery, strained. “What?”
Ben swallows hard, the movement visible in his throat. “That name. Hearing it…it’s…”
She fills in the gap with the hope that sparks in her chest. “Good?”
His jaw flexes, and he blinks rapidly for a brief moment before nodding. “When you say it, it’s good.”
The words are earnest and soft and they fall from his lips like he’s been waiting to say them for decades. The butterflies in Rey’s stomach begin to swarm, shifting into something more intense, more urgent.
Ben’s nostrils flare as they hold each other’s eyes. “When you say it, it feels like mine again.”
For the mere hours Ben is given before he is taken into custody, Rey stays by his side. When she’d told him of the tribunal hearing that would occur the following day to decide his fate, there was no shock or fear in his expression. There was only an intense resignation, as if he’d expected nothing less. As if he was surprised they’d let him live even this long.
He goes without a fight when two men show up in the medbay and bind his wrists behind his back, and Rey watches him go with a trembling bottom lip and a thunderous heart.
You can’t die, she thinks, her eyes pinned to his back. I won’t let them kill you.
Ben turns to look at her over his shoulder. His mouth is set in a hard line; his jaw is taut, and the widening of his eyes is evidence enough that she’d unintentionally sent the thought through the bond. He blinks, nearly trips on his feet as he keeps his eyes on hers, and then, a little smile tugs at his lips.
Brave girl, he sends through the bond with a honeyed voice. Your wrath has always been so beautiful.
The mess hall is packed to the gills. Every seat is taken; some people are sitting on laps, others are shoulder-to-shoulder against the wall where there is standing room only. It’s crowded enough that it’s become uncomfortably warm and a bit sticky, and it’s loud. A buzzing murmur echoes through the cramped space, seeming to grow in volume with every second that passes.
The crowd has formed a semicircle around a large table, with a wide enough berth on either side for a chair to sit squarely in the middle. At the table, Commander D’Acy sits ramrod straight, her face etched with practiced stoicism. To her left is Commander Sella, looking steely and exhausted. To her right is Poe.
Even though she knew the highest ranking officers would make up the tribunal’s council, Rey’s heart still sinks at the sight of her friend. His shoulders are tense and his brow is furrowed, and underneath the table, she sees his knee frantically bouncing.
It was silly of her to think that telling Finn and Poe the truth of what happened on Exegol would persuade Poe to ease up on his convictions about Ben. It was also silly of her to think they’d choose someone who wasn’t personally tortured by the man less than a year ago to decide whether he should live or die.
Sweat begins to drip down the back of Rey’s neck as the murmuring grows louder, everyone’s heads turning toward the back entrance of the mess hall. And then, suddenly, a silence sweeps through the room as the crowd parts. Rey stands on her tiptoes, trying to see over the swell of people in front of her, but she only catches a glimpse of the top of Ben’s head as he’s escorted to the middle of the room.
They aren’t gentle when they arrive at the designated chair; they practically push him into it, and only by the grace of his long legs does Ben manage to right himself before he smacks his face into the concrete. Rey bites her tongue to stop herself from yelling at them, and she digs half-moon marks into her palms to stop herself from using the Force to whack them swiftly in the balls.
His arms wrap around the back of the chair, hands still bound. He doesn’t look at the crowd, even as they begin to infinitesimally inch forward. Everyone wants to get a look at the infamous Kylo Ren.
Rey wishes they could understand that this man—with his head bowed in defeat, and his messy hair dripping at the ends with sweat, and his soft, hazel eyes—isn’t Kylo Ren at all.
The room fills with susurrations, some quieter than others. Her ears are tuned in, and the Force is heightening her senses, so she can hear the conflicting opinions—the spewing hatred and tentative sympathy.
He doesn’t look like a murderous war lord.
After everything he’s done, he deserves to hang.
Isn’t he Leia’s son? She’d want us to hear him out.
If he’d had his way, we’d all be slaves to the First Order right now.
Rey quickly decides it’s better not to listen. She focuses her energy instead on studying the faces of the council and intuiting their emotions. Commander D’Acy is calm and reserved as she stands, holding up two hands in an effort to quiet the noise. It dies down in ebbing waves until only silence remains.
“Benjamin Organa Solo,” she says, staring at Ben with her chin held high. “This tribunal has gathered to decide the most appropriate punishment for your crimes against the galaxy. You have been given the right to this hearing by the act of surrendering to the Resistance, but it does not in any way guarantee that you will not be sentenced to death by execution for all that you’ve done.”
A voice erupts from the crowd. “Kill him now!”
And just like that, others begin to join in.
“Hang him!”
“Death by firing squad!”
“He’s a murderer!”
D’Acy raises her hands once again. “Enough,” she booms. The cacophony of voices ceases; Rey looks around to see pockets of people with their faces tinted red with rage. They’re shaking their heads and scoffing like they can’t believe the Resistance would even waste its time with something so open-and-shut.
“Two advisors have volunteered to brief the council. Once we have been briefed by the prosecution and the defense, we will convene and decide how best to move forward. Beaumont Kin will preside as the prosecution,” D’Acy continues, gesturing toward Beaumont as he walks to the table with a file tucked under his arm.
Rey wishes she was surprised by his decision to fight for Ben’s punishment, but he isn’t the same man she knew before the war ended. After Snap was killed in action during the final battle, he’s gotten angrier and angrier every day. It makes sense that he would want to unleash his vendetta on the man who used to lead the First Order.
What is surprising, what nearly makes Rey yelp in shock, is what Commander D’Acy says next.
“And for the defense, Finn,” she states as Finn walks up to the opposite side.
Knots begin to tie and tangle in her belly at the sight of her best friend, his shoulders held back and his face resolute. Maybe telling the story of Ben saving her life on Exegol hadn’t penetrated with Poe, but it has clearly changed something for Finn, and Rey wishes she could run across the room right now and throw her arms around him. Ben must also be surprised by this development, because for the first time since he entered the mess hall, he’s picked his head up and turned back to look at the council.
Commander D’Acy nods toward each of them and then sits. “Let’s begin.”
Finn goes first. He walks past Ben and then turns away from the crowd, facing the council. “Commander D’Acy, Commander Sella, Commander Dameron,” he begins, the professionalism in his voice equal to his posture. “I won’t stand here and try to convince you this man has done no wrong.” He points to Ben, but his eyes stay locked on the council. “That would be incredibly stupid of me, and incredibly insulting to you and everyone in this room who has been victimized by the First Order in one way or another.”
He begins to pace in a slow, circular path, alternating between looking at the crowd and back to the council. “I can personally attest to the brutality of the regime, because I used to be one of its soldiers. I was taken from my family as an infant and raised to be a merciless killing machine. I was programmed to follow orders, to murder anyone or anything that stood between the them and their goal: complete and total dominion over the galaxy.”
Rey wonders if he’s rehearsed this. Finn is a smart man, but she’s never heard him quite so…verbose. On top of that, he doesn’t stutter, doesn’t struggle at all with his words. Her eyes drift to Ben, whose head has remained upright. His eyes follow Finn as he walks back and forth in front of the crowd; his mouth slightly agape. There’s a sheen of sweat on his face and wet patches on his tunic spreading from under his arms. A lock of hair has fallen over his forehead, and Rey wishes she could push it out of his eyes.
“For many years,” Finn says, then looks down at the file in his right hand and adds, “Eight, to be exact, this man held an extremely high rank in First Order leadership. He was one of Supreme Leader Snoke’s most trusted commanders, and after his death, he took on the mantle of Supreme Leader himself. The deaths, the destruction, and the devastation wreaked by this man are unquantifiable.”
Rey begins to squirm a little. As touched as she is that Finn volunteered to speak on Ben’s behalf, this speech doesn’t seem to be geared toward his defense. Just as she’s starting to sweat, he says, “But none of that matters.”
Quiet, barely audible murmurs spread through the crowd. Rey’s eyes go wide.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Finn says, holding out his hands. “How can it not matter? How can it not be the only thing that matters?” A collective agreement circulates around the room, and Finn nods. “I understand. But what I’d like you to keep in mind today is this: I am not defending Ben Solo because I believe he is free of blame, or because I think he should be able to walk away freely from this tribunal with no repercussions for his actions. It would be incomprehensible for the man formerly known as Kylo Ren to go completely unpunished for all the harm he’s done to the galaxy. But I will defend him against execution.”
Rey’s heart is in her throat. When she looks at Ben again, she watches a flicker of awe cross his face.
“The Resistance was built on hope. It was built to counteract an evil dictatorship. It has not survived for decades by taking pages out of its enemies’ books and killing its prisoners. That is not who we are—and that is not the world that we fought for. A fair and adequate punishment should be given, but it would be a gross misuse of power to send a man to his death under the pretense of justice. ” Finn stills then, his eyes scanning the crowd. “If we do that, we are no better than them.”
When Beaumont Kin walks past the council, he makes a stop on his way toward the crowd. He pivots on the ball of his foot and turns toward Ben, and for a long moment, it is completely quiet and still in the mess hall. By the look on Ben’s face—a mix of confusion and contrition—Beaumont must be staring daggers into him right now, but he does not break eye contact. He keeps his chin held high, his mouth set, and allows Beaumont’s gaze to burn through him. Finally, after what feels like whole minutes, Beaumont turns back around, slowly shaking his head and disgust curling his upper lip. He walks toward the edge of the room, facing both the crowd and the council. “Friends, comrades, supporters,” he begins, and with a nod in the direction of the council, he adds, “leaders.”
Nerves bubble up in Rey’s gut; the look on his face is chilling. Gone is the jovial, easygoing man that used to give her half of his granola bars at breakfast and listen to Gonkrock on full blast. In his place stands a man made of vengeance. Unlike Finn, who hardly acknowledged Ben at all during his remarks, Beaumont looks directly at him as he pulls the file from under his arm and opens it.
“I won’t waste time with pretty words or speeches,” he says robotically. “Instead, I will read the contents of this file, which details every recorded murder committed by Kylo Ren. I will let that speak for itself.”
Rey’s stomach sinks. Her eyes dart to Ben and find his nostrils flaring, his shoulders rising with the weight of his heavy breaths. They both knew something like this was coming, but knowing and experiencing are two completely different things. Rey knows he’s killed people, but hearing the names out loud is a completely different thing. And once it begins, it doesn’t stop. She wonders how it’s ordered, because for a long while, she doesn’t recognize a single name. But then—
“Lor San Tekka,” Beaumont says, and it’s like all the air is sucked out of the room.
The names that follow only add to her distress; a throbbing alarm begins to sound between her ears, drowning out Beaumont’s voice until he sounds like he’s shouting underwater. Villagers of Tuanul, the settlement about a day’s walk from the broken down AT-AT she used to call home.
Rey had never been there; she never had enough water to spare for a trip there and back, and she’d heard whisperings at Niima Outpost that they were more of a cult than a religious group. For fourteen years, she never encountered a single soul from the village.
Until Lor San Tekka walked into the outpost one day with a bag full of trinkets and rusted ship parts. Rey remembers the moment vividly—he’d looked haggard, cheeks scraped by sand and lips chapped from the dry, relentless heat. It occurred to her that he’d probably walked there; the villagers took issue with modern technology like speeders. It was a wonder he’d made it alive.
She remembers hearing his name echo through the meager crowd gathered near Plutt’s trading window, scrubbing parts of caked grease and dirt. Lor San Tekka, they’d whispered. That old zealot.
He’d hobbled by where she stood at the water bucket on his way to the window, and had nearly tripped over his threadbare boots. A dusty engine compressor had fallen from his sack, rolling across the sand until it knocked against the side of Rey’s foot. He’d continued walking, not realizing he’d dropped a piece worth at least two portions, and she'd stared down at it with wide eyes and a rumbling belly.
She was no saint; she thought for a long, hard minute about keeping it for herself. It had been days since she had more than a quarter of a portion, and the gnawing hunger pains made it difficult to sleep. But she’d known that if he was there, if he’d walked all that way, Tuanul must’ve been just as hungry as she was.
She’d picked up the part and jogged over to where he was dropping the bag onto the ground with a grunt. “Here,” she’d barked, her voice rough from dehydration and lack of use. The compressor sat in her palm, and up close, she’d noticed it wasn’t even rusted. A little dusting and it would be good as new, probably worth double what she originally thought. Rey’s stomach had ached at the sight. “You dropped this.”
Lor had glanced over to her, then down at the part. He’d studied it for a beat and then looked back up at her as his brows pulled together. “Thank you,” he’d said, a small, weary smile forming on his lips. Slowly, he’d reached for it, then set it on the counter in front of Plutt. Rey had nodded firmly and then walked away.
Some time later, she’d been singularly focused on the task of scrubbing grime from an ancient aux generator ring she’d found buried in the sand in the Graveyard of Giants. With her tongue bitten between her teeth in intense concentration and her eyes narrowed to one specific bit of stubborn dirt, she hadn’t even noticed Lor as he approached her. Only when he slid a stack of whole portions toward her did Rey finally look up to find him standing there, smiling softly. She’d opened her mouth to argue—he would be lucky to find a bounty like that again; Jakku had been picked nearly clean by all of the scavengers—but he’d shaken his head, holding up a hand. “I insist,” he’d said, and then left Niima Outpost with his sack full of rations.
That was the one and only time she’d encountered Lor San Tekka, but his kindness had kept her belly full for almost a month. The idea of him being slain, of his entire village being executed for no reason at all—
She runs out of the mess hall then, and as soon as she’s outside, she doubles over and vomits.
She doesn’t go back in, but it’s not for lack of trying. As soon as her stomach is settled and she’s taken a moment to collect herself, she attempts to walk back into the mess hall, but she’s stopped by throngs of people rushing out. They seem unsettled, shaking their heads and cursing, some even look like they might’ve been crying. Rey studies their faces as they pour out through the wide doorway and wonders what must’ve happened for everyone to be dismissed; as far as she knew, the tribunal wasn’t supposed to last more than a day.
Eventually, she spots Rose walking out with Kaydel. Their heads are tilted toward each other and Kaydel appears to be whispering something that Rose agrees with, because she’s fervently nodding. When she sees Rey standing to the side with her arms folded tightly over her chest, she grabs Kaydel’s arm and they make a beeline through the crowd toward her.
“What happened?” Rey asks, lifting up onto her tiptoes to see if she can get a look into the mess hall, but failing to see over everyone’s heads.
Rose glances at Kaydel, then back at Rey. “Beaumont was strategic about that list,” she says, and there’s a flicker of sympathy in her expression as she holds Rey’s eyes. “He saved Han’s name for last.”
At the sound of his name, Rey’s stomach twists again. She feels the urge to vomit rise in her throat once more but she swallows it down, breathing deeply through her nose. Rose must recognize the way she’s affected, because she doesn’t wait for Rey to respond before adding, “He read off the name and everyone went nuts. D’Acy said they’d heard enough for today and need time to deliberate. They’ll reach an official decision tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Rey says dumbly, breaking eye contact with Rose to stare down at her boots.
Kaydel takes a small step toward Rey and rests a hand on her forearm. “You okay?”
Rey nods, but in truth, she’s the furthest thing from okay. It’s as though a veil has been lifted—the veil that separated Ben Solo from Kylo Ren in her mind, that considered them to be two completely different people. It no longer exists, and the merging of the man who comforted her, kissed her, saved her, with the man who murdered hundreds of innocent people—and his father—is almost too much to bear.
The crowd begins to thin, which means the council, and the advisors, and Ben will soon be making their exit. Rey’s heart thumps against her ribs hard enough that she can feel it in her ears. She can’t be here; she can’t wait for him; she can’t even imagine looking at him right now.
Without a word to Kaydel or Rose, she turns away and begins to run.
Toward the verdant, misty forest.
Toward the safety of the Falcon.
Toward any place where she can drown out the blaring sound of the ongoing war between her head and her heart.
Heavy footsteps trudging up the boarding ramp of the Falcon snap Rey out of a fitful sleep. One look at the clock on the wall in the lounge tells her she’s missed dinner, something she never does. As the first person in line for every meal in the mess hall, it’s no wonder someone is coming to check on her.
Finn steps into the lounge with his head on a swivel, and his shoulders sag in relief when he spots her sprawled out on the couch, tucked awkwardly under the Dejarik table. He used to give her a hard time for sleeping there, or in the cockpit, pretzeled uncomfortably in the captain’s chair, but he stopped when she admitted that it was harder for her to sleep in a bed. The mattress in the captain’s quarters is too soft, the bunk too spacious. After eighteen years of sleeping in the fetal position with her legs tucked into her chest to contain as much warmth as possible, it’s a hard habit to break.
He says nothing as he walks toward her, tilting his head slightly to get a better view of her face. The closer he gets, the more evident it becomes that he’s completely exhausted; dark circles frame his eyes and his feet drag slightly against the floor with every step. “You missed dinner,” he states, then crouches down until they’re at eye level. “I thought maybe you’d been kidnapped.”
A smile tugs at the corners of Rey’s mouth. It’s small and hesitant, but it’s there. It’s no surprise that even in the darkest of moments, Finn can coax it out of her. “I wasn’t hungry.”
He kinks an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, what?”
Rey turns away from him and stares up at the ceiling. Her next words are hushed, and they feel wrong, coming out of her mouth. She shouldn’t want to know the answer, but she asks anyway. “Can I see him?”
A beat passes. She wonders if Finn is judging her, if he’s appalled by her request, her sympathy. She wonders if, after this awful day has passed, he will regret volunteering to defend Ben.
Eventually, he says, “I can ask.”
Rey turns back to him as tears begin to well in her eyes. There should be awards given to friends as good as Finn. “Thank you,” she whispers.
Finn nods, then stands up and walks out the way he came.
It’s hardly an official holding cell. They’ve cordoned off an area in a large supply closet toward the back of the outpost and hammered hooks into the concrete floor to secure the chains hanging from Ben’s handcuffs. Surrounding him are massive wooden crates, all of which were pilfered through when the Resistance came upon the base. Some had been full of weapons, others with rations that were far past their expiration date.
He sits against the far wall with his legs tucked into his chest, and his forehead resting atop his kneecaps. Nothing but a canteen and a bucket are within arm’s reach.
She wonders if the Resistance—the tribunal council, specifically—understands he could break the cuffs and the chains that bind him to this space with the amount of effort it takes him to blink. She hopes by understanding he can but doesn’t use the Force to his advantage, they will recognize his desire to be fully compliant.
If he hears her approaching, he doesn’t acknowledge it. Rey stops about six feet from him and slides down the side of a crate until she hits the ground. The floor is hard and unforgiving against her bottom, as is the crate against her back.
He’s so still that she’s starting to think he may actually be asleep when he finally leans back, his head knocking softly against the wall. His eyes are rimmed red and his cheeks are splotchy, and when their gazes meet, his mouth parts slightly, as if words are on the tip of his tongue but refuse to come out.
Rey saves him the trouble. “I didn’t know about Tuanul. Or Lor San Tekka.”
Ben’s mouth snaps shut. “That was only the beginning of the list,” he replies with a raspy, strained voice. “You ran out before he’d even gotten to the Hosnian Cataclysm, and the Resistance fighters on Takodana.” He shakes his head, looking away from her. “And my father.”
The logical part of Rey’s brain decides to focus on the facts. “You weren’t responsible for the destruction of Hosnian Prime,” she states, pulling her own knees toward her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “It happened when you were on route to Takodana.” Where we first met, the emotional part of her brain supplies. “Even you can’t be in two places at once. And it seems odd to say you’re responsible for the death of every single Resistance fighter that day—you weren’t even on the battlefield. You were— we were in the forest.”
“I gave the order, Rey,” Ben counters.
“Yes, but Snoke—”
“Stop,” he cuts in, louder now. “Please stop defending me. Tell Finn he doesn’t have to, either. I tried to tell him myself but they dragged me away before I got the chance. I deserve whatever punishment they give.”
“Stating the facts isn’t me defending you,” Rey argues, her cheeks starting to flush. “But if you think I’m going to stand by and let them execute without knowing everything that happened, you’re wrong.”
“Why?” he asks with a mirthless laugh. “Why wouldn’t you just let them get it over with? Nobody here wants me to walk away from this. They want me to hang for everything I’ve done, and I don’t blame them.”
Rey sits up straighter. “Because what does that prove? You heard Finn. If they execute you…” Even the thought—the vision of his feet dangling, makes her feel sick. “It does nothing but snuff out a person who wants to make up for his crimes by outdoing the bad with the good. You can’t do that if you’re dead.”
“What if the galaxy is a better place without me in it?” The sadness in Ben’s tone is palpable. “What if I’m not capable of good?”
The bond vibrates with the weight of his self-loathing. Like a hungry black hole, it threatens to encompass all hope, all light. If Rey sits with him any longer, she fears it may consume her, too. So she stands and places her hands on her hips, resolve hardening her mouth and eyes. “I wouldn’t be alive if that were true,” she says.
Ben drags his gaze away from his boots to look up at her. He says nothing, but it’s clear from his face that her words haven’t convinced him. From this angle, under the harsh overhead light of the supply room, he looks bone tired.
And though it’s probably a futile suggestion, she says, “Get some rest,” before turning and walking out of the room. The bond buzzes louder, almost painfully, the further she gets away from him, but she presses forward. Only once she’s outside does it feel like she can actually breathe, and she swallows lungfuls of air and ignores the Force’s protestations. With every step she takes in the opposite direction of Ben, it grows more irritating, like an itch she can’t quite reach. Rey ignores it as best she can, and heads for the Falcon to try and sleep.
It should’ve occurred to her much earlier that the more she tried to press against the Force in an effort to keep the bond shut, the stronger the tide would become.
After boarding the Falcon, a burgeoning tick in her neck had her trudging toward the captain’s quarters to sleep, knowing if she attempted to curl up on the couch in the lounge again, she’d wake up tomorrow and not be able to turn her head.
Despite the extra space in the bunk, she still sleeps curled up in a little ball. Even if she falls asleep with her legs and arms stretched out, she ends up in that position at some point in the night, her arms wrapped around her shins as if they’re a shield protecting her from the outside world.
It’s been mostly quiet in her head since she lay down, but this late at night, thrum of energy that enters her subconscious is undeniable. As loud as an alarm, it wakes her instantly, eyes snapping open to see that she is no longer alone in the bed.
At first, she’s certain it’s a dream. She’s still hovering between the sleeping and waking world, and he’s facing away from her, his broad back only inches from her face. Only when she catches a whiff of his scent—a mix of sweat and the sharpness of the Endor forest, and a hint of something else, something uniquely him— that she realizes this isn't a dream at all. The Force is a fickle thing, and it appears to have grown tired of their avoidance.
Rey doesn’t reach out to touch him; she doesn’t move a muscle for several seconds. She can’t tell if he’s awake, if he knows this is happening and is purposefully staying quiet and still, facing away from her.
But then his shoulders begin to shake.
Just as she could feel the hatred he held toward himself earlier, she can feel his devastation now. She can feel his hopelessness, can see with vivid clarity that he’s convinced there’s no way out of this.
He sniffles, and when the sound of his soft sob hits her ears, Rey finally moves. Extending her legs, she scoots closer to him and then lays her forehead against his back, right between his shoulder blades. The only indication that he feels her there is a stutter in his breath, and then he begins to sob in earnest.
Eventually, he cries himself to sleep, and the sound of his rhythmic breathing pulls Rey under, too.
She dreams of a lavender sunset on a planet she’s never seen but somehow knows to be Chandrila. She dreams of Leia’s smile, bright and true, as she lifts a raven-haired boy into her arms. She dreams of a shadow, growing larger with every passing second, ready and hungry to swallow the boy whole.
The tribunal reconvenes the next morning after breakfast. Tensions in the mess hall are high; everyone seems riled still by the events laid out the previous day, and as Rey shoulders through the crowd, the anger and unease on their faces is evident. It takes literal shoving to get to a place where she can actually see Ben—somehow, it’s even more crowded today, and everyone wants a front row seat. One look at her, though, and they begrudgingly stand by to let her pass until she’s standing at the edge of the crowd and the council, Finn, Beaumont, and Ben are all in clear view.
Having experienced firsthand the fitful sleep Ben fell into the night before, it doesn’t surprise Rey that he looks about two seconds from nodding off. She’s no stranger to nightmares, but if his sleep is regularly plagued by the kinds of visions she saw through the bond, it’s a wonder he gets any rest at all.
That shadow and its malicious, all-consuming energy still hovers in the back of her mind, and since she opened her eyes this morning, it’s felt as though it’s lingering right over her shoulder, cataloging her every move.
Commander D’Acy’s loud, authoritative voice cuts through the static of the room. “Good morning, everyone.” She’s standing behind the table in the same spot as yesterday, but her palms are pressed into the worn wooden surface, as though she needs assistance in keeping herself upright. Rey wonders how much they deliberated in the past eighteen hours for her to look so dead on her feet. “As I’m sure you all remember, we left off yesterday with Mr. Kin's remarks.” Scattered affirmatives rise from the crowd, and Commander D’Acy nods. “Commander Sella, Commander Dameron and I spoke at length last night and this morning, and we have come to a tentative decision.”
Anxiety instantly seizes Rey’s stomach. This is happening too fast. They haven’t heard everything—
“However,” Commander D’Acy adds, holding up a hand. “We will offer the floor to anyone else who would like to speak on behalf of Benjamin Solo. Commander Dameron has advised us that some of you may have known him in earlier years and might want to speak to his character.”
The silence that settles over the room is louder than all the uproar from the previous day. A stillness halts the crowd entirely, as though the moment has been frozen in time. Not a single finger is lifted in defense of Ben.
Rey looks around, the swivel of her head the only movement in the crowd. No one looks at her as she scans for something, anything, to indicate that someone will come forward. They stare straight ahead with hard set mouths and steely eyes set on Ben and Ben alone.
Part of her knew this moment would come. She’s been dreading it; she’s a terrible public speaker who sweats bullets the second she has to deliver any sort of message to more than two people. It’s one of the things she despises most about being the face of the Resistance; it’s difficult to inspire awe in a crowd when you can’t make it through a single sentence without stuttering.
But if the only thing standing between Ben and certain death is her words, her story—she can muster the courage to step forward and speak. If the Resistance is as loyal, as indebted to her as they claim to be, they deserve to know the only reason she’s standing here right now is because of him.
With a deep breath, she takes her first step toward the council. A sharp, collective inhale sounds from the crowd but she ignores it entirely, her focus set on the three discerning sets of eyes staring at her from behind the table. Poe leans back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest. His jaw tenses as she approaches, but he doesn’t seem all that surprised.
The heels of her boots press firmly into the unforgiving concrete, grounding her, keeping her steady. She clears her throat, weaves her fingers together to stop them from shaking, and says, “I will speak for him.”
Ben picks up his head to look at her, his brows pulling together. No, he says through the bond. Don’t do this.
She doesn’t look at him as she responds, I have to.
His lips fold into a hard line. They will hate you for trying to protect me.
Rey shakes her head, mentally batting away his protestations like an errant fly buzzing in her ear. Let them, then. The only people who need to be convinced are the council.
Rey, the Resistance is your family. Your home. They need you. He swallows thickly as he pins her with a devastating look. She can see it with perfect clarity—in his mind, he’s already dead. Nobody needs me, he says with an almost imperceptible shrug. Let this end.
“I do,” Rey says aloud. Both of their eyes go wide when the words slip through her lips instead of through the bond, but Rey doesn’t back down. “I do,” she says again, more firmly this time.
With the distance between them shorter now, she can see his eyes begin to shine. Rey takes a deep breath and walks past him, stopping only a few feet away from the council. “I’d like to tell you what happened on Exegol. The whole story.”
She does not parse words, and she only stutters a handful of times as she tells them everything. From the beginning. She recounts her wretched lineage, the rain soaked battle on Kef Bir, her tearful encounter with Luke’s ghost, and the Sith temple.
“I grew up on a remote planet and raised myself for fourteen years, sleeping in an abandoned AT-AT and living off of dehydrated portions,” she explains, fighting to maintain eye contact with D’Acy, Sella, and Poe. “But I’ve never felt more alone than I did standing in that temple. My friends were above me, fighting for their lives, and I was given an impossible choice by a ma—” Her breath catches in her throat as she thinks about his pallid, horrible face. “By a creature that convinced me the only way to save all of you was to give up my soul. To turn to the dark and never look back.”
The quiet in the mess hall is tense; one quick glance to the crowd and Rey sees they’re all listening intently. Knots twist and tighten in her stomach, but she presses on. “I would’ve done it, too,” she states matter-of-factly, “because he’d made me believe that I was predestined from birth to be evil. Being his heir meant I had no true capacity for goodness, not in the long run. So, I figured if I had no choice but to become this monster, I could at least save my friends in the process.”
She takes a tentative step backward toward Ben, but her eyes remain on the council. “But then Ben found me. He found me and he saved me through our bond—a bridge between our minds created by the Force. Without him, I wouldn’t be standing here right now. Frankly, none of us would. Palpatine was an evil, manipulative bastard who would’ve said anything to get me to fulfill his twisted prophecy. He set his sights on me, preyed on my weaknesses for minutes in that temple and I was ready to give it all up.” Rey looks over to Ben. “He latched onto Ben and started poisoning his mind before he was even out of the womb.”
She holds his eyes as she goes on, emotion swelling in her gut. “There’s not a single person in this room who would’ve been able to fight that kind of power. None of you will ever understand the pull of the dark side, how seductive it is. None of you will ever know how much strength it takes to claw your way back to the light.”
A tear slips down Ben’s cheek and his eyes drop to the ground. Rey wants nothing more than to walk over and wipe it away with her thumb, but she stays rooted to where she stands. She has to finish this.
“Ben Solo saved my life,” she says, volume increasing. “He fought his way back to the light, he stood by my side against our enemy, and then he climbed up from the bottom of a pit with three broken ribs and a broken leg to find me when he couldn’t feel my life force through our bond. Defeating Palpatine—saving the galaxy—had drained me completely, and I was dead. He held me in his arms and he poured every ounce of strength he could muster into me.” Rey looks back to the council, her own tears clouding her vision. “I need him,” she says, growing desperate. “I need him.”
She takes a deep, shaky breath, then squares her jaw. “I saved the galaxy,” she says, pointing to her chest. “But he—” She points to Ben. “He saved me.”