strongerthanblood | debut [for ben]

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ben solo

debut [for ben]

There's a moment that Rey realizes that this is the end of her story. She can feel the life draining out of her, but she isn't afraid of death, not anymore. How can she be, when with it comes the hope of new life for generations to come? She had won not just the battle, but the entire war, and her work is done.

Rey has spent her entire life searching for answers, always trying to find them in other people, but as she lays on the cold stone and stares up at the sky, she knows exactly who she is. The answer was inside her all along.

She is Rey, and her choices were all her own. Perhaps her life is ending just at the moment it truly begins, but she is content with that. There a certain amount of peace in knowing that her destiny has been fulfilled, and her friends can go on to live safe, happy lives. Her story may be over, but it will never die. The people she loves will live to tell it, and she will never truly be gone.

It's easy to give herself over to the Force. She fades away into it, and as the last breath leaves her lungs she hopes only to see those she's lost on the other side. Because even in death, she has hope. Be with me.

Then it's all over, and she can rest.

Power surges through Rey's body like a live wire, reawakening every nerve as blood pumps once more through her heart, and her eyes snap open as she sucks in a deep, gasping breath. She had thought her fight was over, her journey complete, but perhaps there is more work to be done.

Once she's on her feet, she holds out her hand and feels Luke's saber-- her saber-- fly into it, but before she can light it she comes to realize that she is no longer on Exegol. It is cold and dark, but this isn't the place she took her last breath.

The place she stands now is a clearing surrounded by trees, green and lush despite the snow falling down onto them, and her. Evergreen, they're called. They refuse to die, even when the world around them is cold and inhospitable. It makes sense that she would be reborn here, among them.

Rey blinks the snow from her eyelashes and reaches out around her, holding one trembling hand out tentatively. The energy that surges up to meet her is entirely unfamiliar and she gasps as it envelopes her. For as cold and dark as her current surroundings are, the place she's in is teeming with life. It's all around her-- joy and sorrow, light and dark. Violence and peace.

And Ben.

She feels it as suddenly as if she had been shocked and she lets the sensation flow through her, letting it warm her from the inside out as she reaches for him. Be with me, she thinks, pushing it through the bond as she looks around with wide eyes.

In all the chaos on Exegol, she thought that he had perished. Maybe he had, and she had too, and this is what comes after. In this precise moment, everything they've been through, everything he's done-- none of it matters. He's familiar to her in a place where nothing else is, and he's the only one that she can feel. More than that, she can feel the light within him.

"Ben," she says, breathing out the name to give it new life in this strange place. "You're here."

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That startled a laugh from him, the short bark of it rusty and unfamiliar. "Some sort of food, probably," he said to her, catching the first glimpse of blue light in the distance as he mounted the stairs of the boardwalk, making his way towards the hulking structure of the ferris wheel.

As his steps slowed, he passed into that disorienting space where her physical proximity seemed to overlap with the presence of her Force projection. Her voice echoed inside his mind, while the glow of her lightsaber grew brighter with each step.

In the distance, now, he could see the shape of her. He could see the tremble of her lightsaber, her eyes wild and frightened but as determined as ever. "Rey," he called, and now that she was there in front of him, he found himself unable to speak beyond that.

This is unlike any place she's ever seen. Even with how rattled she is, she can't help but to look around with a small sense of wonder. Every new place she sees makes her feel like this. After seeing nothing but endless desert for so long, new places are always exciting.

But then she hears a laugh. Ben's laugh. That new sound is more interesting than any place she's seen, and she blinks as a small smile graces her face. He laughs now.

He's close. She can feel him now, and she startles a bit when he says her name. It comes from a place close to her, not just through their projection, and she turns off the saber as she slowly pivots to face him.

"Ben." She stares at him, blinking slowly as she takes a step forward. He looks like he did when he came for her on Exegol, softer than she's used to but still so strong. When he tumbled over that cliff's edge, she had thought he was gone, having been too wrapped up in the fight to reach for him like she had wanted.

But he came for her. Instead of clashing together in a rush of anger, they had fought side by side. And now they're here, in this strange, empty place. Together.

"Ben," she says again, this time feeling her eyes well up with tears as her voice trembles. "Are we dead?"

"No," he breathed, closing the distance between them in few long strides. Shrugging out of his coat, he draped it around her, the motion unusually clumsy, his hands lingering on her shoulders only as long as they needed to. "You're not dead," he answered firmly. "You're not. Palpatine is dead. You're alive."

His jaw worked, his throat tight as he looked away from her.

"I don't know why we're here. We aren't the only ones. There are others, pulled here from the far reaches of the universe. They call it Darrow. I thought of it as a prison, but..."

He shook his head, his throat clearing.

"We should find someplace warm."

Rey nods a little as he speaks, distracted slightly by the sudden warmth that envelopes her, and more so by Ben's hands on her shoulders. It's the most he's ever touched her when they weren't fighting each other and she stares up at his face as his giant hands slide away from her.

"But--" She died. She knows that she died. Or-- at least she thought she did. None of this makes any sense, but she finds herself too tired to argue it. She wants to be alive. Of course she does.

"Darrow," she repeats, swallowing hard as she hooks the saber onto her belt and slides her arms into the sleeves of his coat. In any other moment she might find it comical, how much she swims in it, but she can't seem to stop staring at his face.

His scars are gone. During all the chaos on Exegol, she isn't sure if she noticed. She did that. She was also the one to give him the scar in the first place, and her chest tightens as she's nearly overwhelmed by confusion.

She should hate him, shouldn't she? But she doesn't. She can't. She doesn't want to.

Before she even realizes what she's doing, she lifts her arm and tugs the sleeve of the jacket down until she can touch her cold fingertips to his cheek, where the scar once was. At the moment of contact, she feels that same spark from when their fingers touched in the hut, and it makes her breath hitch.

"Yes," she says, blinking as she pulls her hand back and swallows hard, blinking the sting from her eyes as she finally tears her gaze away from his face. "Someplace warm."

It wasn't until he found himself alone in his apartment, staring at his reflection in the mirror, that he'd even noticed that the scar was gone, the skin smooth and unblemished. It startled him now to be reminded of it, as he watched her hand appear from the sleeve of his coat, her fingertips cool to the touch. He flinched, his expression sliding from bemusement to a more neutral mask, but she pulled away and saved them both the embarrassment of acknowledging the moment.

"I arrived two weeks ago. I've found only a handful of people who claim any familiarity with our galaxy," he said, choosing not to mention the presence of Luke Skywalker, just yet. He led her down the boardwalk, toward the lights of the city, here he knew they might find an dining establishment open through the night.

He flinches. The subtle twitch makes her feel a bit foolish, and she turns away from him as she swallows hard. What he's saying makes very little sense, and she shakes her head a little as she follows after him.

"We really can't leave? Wait." He keeps walking, and she lunges forward to grab him by the arm. "Wait, Ben. What do you mean you've been here for two weeks? We were just-- we just--"

Her hand is still on his arm and she jerks it away, brow furrowing as she forces herself to take a steadying breath. "I don't understand any of this."

It's then, once she tries to really reach out into the force, that she realizes how different this place feels, and she knows that he's telling her the truth. She thinks of Resistance, her friends, and she doesn't even know if they all made it out alive.

Edited 2020-01-20 04:09 (UTC)

"On Exegol. I know. I can't explain it. It's unlike anything I've ever experienced. Or even heard of," he admitted, frowning down at her hand on his arm, his spine ramrod stiff as he watched her, once again, pull away.

His jaw worked, molars grinding, and he allowed himself a brief reprieve as he stepped ahead of her, opening the door to a small, empty diner with its Open sign cheerfully lit.

"When I arrived, the city was being invaded by fish monsters. You should count yourself lucky," he said wryly, plucking a pair of plastic menus from a stand by the door, which instructed them to sit wherever they liked.

Passing the exhausted looking waitress at the bar on his way towards the booth in the back, he ordered two coffees, which had already become something like a routine for him. It would be warm, if nothing else.

After everything that happened, she had sort of thought she was done feeling lost. It's only sort of reward she would have wanted for it all-- simple understanding of her place. It was almost in her grasp.

Her brow quirks at the mention of fish monsters, but she's too distracted by the place he's led her into to question it. She has to squint against the light, and she looks around as she follows him.

The smell of food makes her turn, stomach rumbling slightly as she stares at what must be a kitchen. When was the last time she ate something?

When she turns back around, she's struck by the sight of Ben sitting in a booth. He looks so-- casual. His clothes are simple, free of his ornate helmet and cowl, and she blinks a few times before sliding in across from him. When she puts her hands on the table, the sleeves of his coat cover them entirely and the corner of her mouth twitches.

"Are we eating?" She asks, trying and probably failing not to sound hopeful. The place seems so calm, with everyone minding their own business, and she turns to give the space a lingering look before she feels comfortable enough to turn her back on it and face him.

Edited 2020-01-20 04:41 (UTC)

Watching her peer in the direction of the kitchen, Ben was struck by a memory not his own. It belonged to her, to the child she'd once been, lonely and desperate and hungry, on a planet ill-suited for inhabitants, let alone a little girl. A memory he'd stolen, while searching for a man that he'd once been so convinced he needed to kill.

Her voice brought him back to himself, and patting his pocket to make sure he'd remembered the billfold he'd acquired for Darrow's strange paper and plastic credits, he nodded, pushing one of the menus in her direction. Afterwards, he let his hands rest, folded calmly on the table as he fought the urge to bury his face in his palms and weep.

He'd been alone for so long, and he'd thought it only fitting that he be alone in Darrow, as well.

Edited 2020-01-20 04:52 (UTC)

Brow furrowing slightly, she looks away from him to the thing he's slid toward her. Her eyes widen a little when she realizes that it's a list of food options. The sheer amount of them overwhelm her slightly, especially since she doesn't even really recognize much of anything on offer.

Someone comes over and sets down two cups of steaming, fragrant liquid. She doesn't know what it is, but she tugs her sleeves down so she can cup the mug in her bare hands. Blissful warmth travels up her arms and she sighs softly, taking a brief moment to close her eyes and enjoy the sensation.

When she opens them again, Ben is still sitting there stone-faced, and she isn't sure what it means. She could try to look into his head and find out, but she wouldn't do that to him now.

"Are you unhappy that I'm here?" She finally asks, lifting her chin a little when her voice cracks. It didn't feel that way when they were together in the bond, when he assured her that she was safe, but he's so quiet and the energy coming off of him makes her eyes sting.

She can't even for sure state she's pleased to have found him here, but she can't deny the pull that she feels towards him, whatever it means. There is one thing that she knows for sure. "I'm glad that I am not alone."

Blinking rapidly, the air in his lungs stuttered, his vision blurring for a brief moment. He coughed, shaking his head, a perfunctory, juddering movement, his voice thick with rust as he answered her with a simple, "No."

He knew that she would drink the coffee black without complaint, but he reached for a packet of sugar, tearing it open and dumping its contents into her cup with deceptively steady hands.

Clearing his throat, he said, "You'll have somewhere to live. Credits to buy food. This happens often enough that they have a system in place."

The reaction makes her curious, but he doesn't elaborate. Her gaze strays to his hands and he watches as he pours sugar into her cup. Those hands, which have tried so many times to hurt her. Hands he asked her more than once to take. They, too, are now free of scars.

Her brow lifts slightly as she stares at those hands, and she doesn't look away until he speaks again. Even if they are being held captive here, that all seems a little too good to be true. "And what do I have to do for the credits?"

"The person I spoke with called it an entitlement. Everyone living in his place is given enough to survive. So, in essence, all you have to do is live," he said, turning over his own menu as he pretended to find it more interesting than the way she seemed fixated on his hands.

"If you want more, you get a job. What that might be, you'll have to figure out for yourself."

"All I have to do is live?" Her tone is slightly bitter, but not because of him. For as long as she can remember, she had to fight for scraps. Whether it be scraps of food, family, or victory, she always had to fight.

"I can't imagine just living," she tells him, smiling tightly even as her eyes well up with tears. Few people even know of their universe, he had said. So there is no Resistance, and no First Order. No more waiting for parents that will never come.

No more fighting, even though the person who was once her greatest enemy is sitting right across from her, adding sugar to her drink to make it more palatable. It's a lot to take in.

Her mouth opens but the woman comes back to ask for their order, and Rey gives the menu another look but her vision is too blurred with stubborn tears to read the words. She spots a picture of eggs, which she only had once or twice on Jakku, and points at them. "I'll have this, please."

And then the woman keeps asking her questions. How does she want the eggs cooked? What kind of bread? What kind of juice? Rey swallows hard and looks over at Ben, looking vaguely overwhelmed. "How do you eat your eggs?"

"Neither can I," he admitted. Once, he might have been able to. Once, on Chandrila, when they'd been a family, and his hopes had still been very small in comparison to the life he'd lived. When all he'd wanted was to be like his father, the man who always seemed just slightly out of reach.

"We'll have two. Over-easy," he said, his gaze sliding from Rey's stricken face to the waitress, who seemed largely unfazed by Rey's indecision. "Wheat toast. Orange juice. And a side of bacon."

She opened her mouth, prepared to ask yet another question, but the stony expression she was met with had her gathering up their menus and hurrying off to put in their order.

With a sigh, Ben turned to look at the window, as a car drove slowly by.

Relief floods through her when Ben orders for her. This establishment seems nicer than any she's been too, so she isn't worried that she won't like the food. It isn't as if she were ever in a place to be picky about what she ate.

She turns to thank the waitress and when she faces forward once more, Ben is turned away from her, facing toward the glass and not looking at her. Rey sighs and looks down at her drink, carefully raising it to her lips to take a sip.

It's awful and her nose wrinkles as she gives the cup a look, but she swallows and takes another sip just to feel the warmth of it inside of her. Ben's hands are still on the table and she finds herself wanting to reach across and touch him, but he isn't even looking at her.

There are so many things that they could talk about, that perhaps they should talk about, but she doesn't say any of them. Instead she thinks of how his hands felt on her shoulders, and she crosses her arms on the tabletop to drop her face into the soft sleeves of the coat.

It smells like him. She wasn't even aware that she knew what he smelled like.

Edited 2020-01-20 06:06 (UTC)

Rey pillowed her head on her folded arms, her face hidden from view, and Ben's hands tightened into fists, his jaw working anxiously. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to remind himself that she was real. He wanted to hurl something across the room, just to shatter the silence settled heavy between them.

Drawing in a breath, he reached for the small container of creamer cups and slid it towards her. "Try this," he muttered, with a vague gesture to her coffee cup.

He sipped his own coffee. Black.

She’s so tired.

Rey can hear Ben take a breath as she keeps her head pillowed in the sleeves, and she thinks about how, such a short time ago, she would never let her guard down around him like this. The vulnerable nape of her neck is exposed, and even when she hears the scrape of something moving across the table, she doesn’t move.

She isn’t afraid of him. She’s afraid of what she feels for him, but not of him. Not anymore.

At the sound of his voice, she lifts her head and looks down at the little white pods, giving him a skeptical look before she opens one and dumps it into the drink. She watches the color turn lighter, and then picks it up and takes a sip. It’s still bitter, but it does taste better.

Ben is drinking it plain, which doesn’t really surprise her. Of course he isn’t the type to indulge in small comforts. After taking another sip, she reaches for a sugar packet and holds it out for him to take. “It’s okay to have something sweet.”

Ben arched a brow.

Whether it was intentional or not, on either of their parts, it was a metaphor lacking in subtlety. With a sigh, he plucked the sugar from her grasp, careful not to touch her fingers, and dumped its contents into his cup.

"I died on Exegol," he said, matter-of-fact as his spoon clanked gently against the rim of his cup. "This, I assumed, was my punishment."

He set his spoon down, hands folded on the table top.

"Now, I'm not so sure. You're here, and you..." He cleared his throat. "You certainly don't deserve punishment."

Rey watches as he takes the packet, brow furrowing slightly at the way that he is so careful not to touch her. But he does take it, heavy handed metaphor or not, and it pleases her slightly.

She takes another sip of the drink, growing a little fonder if it each time, but when he suddenly speaks she freezes with the cup nearly touching her lips. She blinks rapidly and bites her lip as she sets the cup down, clearing her own throat as she sits up a little straighter.

“I thought you said that we weren’t dead.” Her brow furrows as she sets her hands flat on the table, shaking her head a little as her eyes sting. “I— I remember you falling and I—“ She pauses to take a breath and for one brief flash, she is envious of the way that he can keep himself so composed. “I remember dying, Ben. After it was all over.”

So maybe this is what comes after. But if that’s the case, why is it just her and Ben here? Where is everyone else? She reaches up to quickly swipe her thumb under one eye and then blows out a shaky breath, lips pursed as she steadies herself.

“Ben.” She looks up to meet his eyes, nearly reeling at the pain she sees in them. “I don’t want us to be dead.”

"No. I said you," Ben insisted, forcing himself to meet her gaze, her eyes swimming with tears. "You are not dead, Rey. That much, I know. As for myself."

He lifted his hands in a helpless shrug. The waitress, with perhaps the universe's worst timing, chose that moment to bring them their plates.

"I don't know that it matters," Ben said, offering the waitress a tight-lipped smile, one that communicated quite clearly that he didn't care for her to linger.

"It seems that we can be in two places at once. The way I understand it, whatever is happening in our world continues on without us," he said, pushing the plate of bacon towards her.

He felt perched on the edge of a knife.

"We're stuck here, for now. Neither of us want to be, but I... I have to believe that the choices we made... I have to believe that those last few moments weren't for nothing. Otherwise, it all comes crashing down and I—"

His jaw clenched. Their eggs were getting cold.

"I'm trying very hard to keep that from happening."

The fact that she is so awash in confusion in a time where she should finally be able to have just a little bit of peace frustrates her greatly. Of course she did not think that when it was all over she would spend the rest of her days lounging, but she thought that there would at least be a small sense of clarity.

But there isn’t any. Ben is telling her the truth, at least what he believes it to be. That much she knows. He’s dead and she’s alive but somehow they are both here, and they are both there. It doesn’t make any sense, but he’s telling her the truth.

Their food arrives and for a moment she is nearly distracted by it all, eyes widening slightly at what she considers to be a grand feast, but Ben draws her attention back. This time she cannot help herself. She leans over and takes his hands, curling her fingers around his wide palms.

“They were not for nothing,” she says, voice quiet but full of conviction. “No matter what happens here, it wasn’t for nothing.”

Suddenly, she remembers the moment of serenity she felt on Exegol when she first saw Ben in the dyad, and realized what he had done. It felt like pieces clicking into place, like relief and joy and pride all at once. The feeling couldn’t linger, not with the matter at hand, but she still felt it. She pushes that feeling out towards Ben through their bond, smiling a little as she squeezes his hands and nods.

“I’m proud of you,” she breathes out. “Ben.”

For a too long of a moment, Ben allowed himself that comfort, her hand warm atop his, the essence of her a warm, comforting surge of energy tangling with his own shattered light, shot through with darkness. His thumbs overlapped the back of her hands, as much of an acknowledgement of that comfort as he could manage.

"You shouldn't be," he said flatly, and while it might have sounded a self-pitying, it was more an admission of truth.

"I can't take much of the credit for those choices. I think my mother might've had a hand in it," he said, and his own eyes were red-rimmed, and when he sniffed quietly, it wasn't quite as discrete as he'd hoped. "And you."

He took in a breath and reached again for his silverware.

"Your food's getting cold."

For a moment she’s worried that he will pull away, but he doesn’t. His thumbs slide along the backs of her hands and for a moment she feels settled. It’s best not to examine it too closely, she thinks.

The mention of Leia makes her blink, sniffling quietly as a tear rolls down her cheek. Ben pulls away and Rey blinks a few more times, wiping her face before reaching for her own fork. She takes a few bites of her eggs, mostly to give herself a few moments to think.

“I can be proud of a choice you made without forgetting everything that came before it,” she finally says, lifting her gaze to his face. As Kylo Ren, he did despicable things. Terrible, awful things. And that is what has her so conflicted. How can she feel such a longing for someone who was once such a monster?

But she understands him better now. She knows the kinds of voices that were in his head, and while that doesn’t excuse the things he did, it does make her feel for him. She knows for herself how compelling the darkness can be, and how even she was nearly seduced by it.

“I saw a vision of us on the throne, ruling the Sith together,” she admits quietly, swallowing hard as she picks at her eggs. “It was one choice away from being a reality.”

She thinks of Kylo offering his hand that final time, and how she had been frozen with indecision for longer than she would care to admit. “We both went the right way, in the end. I couldn’t have had the strength to do what I did, to kill Palpatine and end it all, if you hadn’t been there.”

Another tear falls and she rolls her lips into her mouth for a moment before reaching up to wipe it away. “If you did die, as you say you did, then you died as Ben Solo. And I am proud to know him.”

His head bobbed in a stiff nod, picking at his own eggs, the yolks spilling out a rich yellow across his plate.

"I'm glad it wasn't," he admitted, one corner of his mouth twitching into a very faint smile. He had thought of it so often. Dreamed about it. Fantasized. The two of them, ruling side by side, bringing about a new order to the galaxy. Lies fed to him by Snoke, by Palpatine, all thoughts which he'd foolishly tricked himself into believing were his own. He'd lapped them up eagerly, ever the obedient attack dog.

"And now, it seems, I have to live as him. That's the hard part, isn't it?"

Edited 2020-01-21 03:37 (UTC)

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