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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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)

"So am I," she replies, letting her eyes catch on that faint uptick of the corner of his mouth. Suddenly, she wants nothing more than to see him smile. Maybe now she'll get a chance.

"Maybe it will be hard, but I happen to be fond of Ben Solo," she admits, with more levity than she feels. Perhaps it's a bold admission, and maybe she's too overwhelmed to sort out her feelings, but she can't deny what's right in front of her. "I'm glad you're alive."

I did want to take your hand. Spoken right after she struck a blow to end his life. There is no such thing as reason, not when it comes to this man. She'll feel everything, all of it, all at once.

Her hand trembles as she tries to hold her fork, so she sets it down to reach for one of the pieces of meat on the plate in front of her. The smell of it is delightful, even to her nervous stomach, and she takes a small bite. It's delicious enough to draw her attention, eyes widening a bit as she chews.

"I am also glad for bacon," she admits, giving him a small smile as she picks up another strip and holds it out to him. "I am too tired to come to any other conclusions at the moment."

Her admission, however innocent, was not something he was prepared to examine. It felt unfair to argue, however skeptical he might have been. It seemed impossible that she might have known Ben Solo, when he hardly knew himself, but from the beginning, she'd seen something in him he thought long buried.

"That is one thing this place has going for it," he agreed wryly, his lips pressed into a thin line, as close to a smile as he was able to give her, as he took her offering.

As he reaches out to take the bacon from her, her gaze drops once more to his hands. She can’t seem to stop herself, and she wonders why. Perhaps it because the only time she ever saw them vulnerably bare brought with it the strongest sense of connection she’s ever felt to another person.

In any case, she decides that she doesn’t have to sort out her feelings for Ben Solo right now. What she is sure of, at least, is that they are no longer a threat to each other. They’ve reached a sort of truce in this strange place, and that will have to do for now.

Now that the intense moment has passed, she allows herself to eat the rest of her food. It is one of the best meals she’s ever had, she thinks. She’s barely eaten in days, but she’s sure that it would be good anyway.

Once she’s had her fill, she wipes her mouth on a napkin and looks over at Ben again. This is the longest they’ve ever been together in one place, and each time she looks up to find him there, it seems a little less shocking.

“You mentioned living quarters,” she says, breaking the quiet that seems to have fallen over them. “How do I find out where I am meant to go?”

"The train station. It's not far from here," he said, laying his own napkin across his empty plate. "I can take you there, if you'd like."

Sliding from the booth, he pulled out his wallet as he made his way to the register near the front. It was a clumsy process, counting out unfamiliar money, but he'd grown more accustomed to it over the last couple of weeks.

Besides, it gave him a much needed reprieve from sitting across from her, having her look at him as if she could see right through him.

"I would," she says simply. For a moment she hates that he already knows so much more than her in this new, strange place, because for once she would like to be on equal footing when it comes to knowledge. But then it passes, and she's just grateful that he's there to show her where to go.

She turns to watch him go, and then faces front to give herself a moment to breathe. It all feels a little like a dream, like she'll wake up and--

And what? Maybe Ben is wrong. For as much as he says that she's alive somewhere, she feels a seed of doubt growing. Maybe she just needs to rest.

After finishing her juice, she slides out of the booth and steps up next to Ben, watching curiously as he counts out unfamiliar currency. A small coin rolls off of the counter and she shoots her hand out to grab it before it falls, leaning in to set it with the rest.

"Thank you," she says, and for a moment she isn't sure why. "For the food."

His expression was clouded as he shuffled aside, allowing her room to set the coin down on the counter.

"You're welcome," he murmured with a faint nod, a twitch of something that might have been the start of a smile gracing his lips.

Pushing open the door, he held it for her without thought, his shoulders hunched against the cold.

"It isn't far."

Ben Solo has good manners. Rey isn't really used to being on the receiving end of good manners, and she looks at his arm holding open the door for a moment before stepping toward it. The motion makes her pass by him, feeling the warmth of his broad chest, and she pauses in front of him for a brief moment before moving out onto the street.

She still has his coat, and she looks over at him once they're outside, surprised all over again at what a presence he is. She had thought that the clothes were a large part of what made Kylo Ren so imposing but here now, without all those layers, he still looms just as large.

But less imposing, now, with his sweater hanging loosely from his shoulders as his hair fluttering in the cool breeze. After a moment she realizes that she's been staring, and she clears her throat as she turns away.

"I would offer you your coat back," she says once they start walking and she sees him shiver, "but something tells me you wouldn't take it."

"You don't know me as well as you think," he countered, though it was without its usual bitterness, and before she could change her offer, he gave her a slight shake of his head, holding up a hand to stop her.

"You'll have to give it back eventually. I'm not walking all the way home without it."

This, at least, is familiar territory.

Rey swallows hard, jaw working as she looks ahead. She shrugs out of the coat and tosses it over his arm, covering the hand that he’s held up to stop her, and lifts her chin as she forbids her body to give a single shiver.

“I’d rather you just take it now then,” she says coolly, walking a few paces ahead of him until she realizes that she has no idea where to go. She stands there, glowering at the snow dusted street, and looks over at him once he catches up.

“If you just point me in the right direction,” she tells him with a slight furrow of her brow, “I can go myself.”

She was angry. Or if not that, she was hurt. He could feel it roiling within her, her feelings a crackling, physical presence looming between them.

It wasn't what he'd intended, but this was new territory. She seemed in need of comfort, or at least reassurance, and he had no idea how to give it to her.

"No, I wanted you to have it," he said, his coat held between both hands, feeling more ridiculous than he had in a long time.

"If you go that direction, you'll hit the tracks, then you can follow them south," he said, with a jerk of his chin ahead of them. "If you prefer to go alone."

Rey gives him a watery glare over her shoulder, because he should know better than anyone that she doesn’t want to be alone. It’s the first thing he ever learned about her.

Surely he has also learned how stubborn she can be, which is why she clenches her jaw and looks away for a long moment. A part of her wants to storm away from him, but she can’t quite seem to get her feet to move.

“Don’t say that I don’t know you. Not now,” she says as she whirls fo face him, staring up at his face without any hint of being intimidated by his size. “I know enough.”

Rey stares up at him, doing her best to look menacing, but her body gives a full shiver and she huffs as she reaches out to pull the coat from his hands. “I suppose you’ll have to come if you want this back.”

And then she does storm off, but it’s lacking some of its vigor as she swirls the coat around her and shoves her arms inside, drowning herself in black fabric.

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