The Art of Broken Pieces

43 Porgs (In Poe's Estate)

Affairs settled and contacts made, Ben returned to the Betrayal as dark night began to fall over the city. Not that there was ever truly darkness on Aurelia, between the natural theatre of the sky and the brilliant nightlife of the elite. All that was left to do was wait, wait and see if the bait that he had cast out across the city bore results.

Despite the wide variety of luxurious accommodation Aurelia had to offer, Ben preferred the solitary comfort of his ship. Somehow the desire he had felt for soft beds and petty comforts seemed irrelevant now, perhaps it had been more born from wanting to show Rey something beyond her meagre upbringing.

Settling into the tiny bunk that folded down in the cockpit of the Betrayal, Ben darkened the transparisteel of the windows, blocking out the brilliance of the world beyond. Tiredness seeped into his bones, deeper than just a natural need for sleep. He was tired of fighting his own demons and though for some time they had felt almost distant, they now pressed around him with silent accusation. The voices of the dead whispered in his mind, accusing, judging him. He wanted to throw their accusations back at them, to insist that it was they who had done the betraying, thrown him into the dark. But there was no one left alive to accuse. Turning to his side, Ben tucked his face into his arms, trying to close them out, lock them away again as he drifted off into restless sleep.

The dreams came again, but this time they crept slowly, taking over his sleeping mind. He was standing again in the throne room, seeing Rey's weapon fall away, watching her step closer. There were tears in her eyes, and the look of trust and regret on her face was all too similar to another's. He wavered, battle turning inward as every part of his mind screamed at him to kill her and be done with the torture he felt in her presence. Again and again he thought that he had killed off the last remnants of the light in him, needed it to be true. With the death of Han, with the death of Leia, with the destruction he had caused.

But there she stood, and his body would not listen and his heart was tearing apart in his chest. His hands were shaking on his lightsaber, and her hands were lifting to touch his face.

Then she was no longer alone. Luke and Leia stood at her shoulders, spirits moving through the force to stand united with the last Jedi. He knew they were there for him, to watch him fail and fall, to ensure that the cycle ended with him. He wanted to scream his accusations at them, to blame them for the years of loneliness, of betrayal and abandonment. They should have been his shelter, but instead they had cast him out and judged him harshly. In that moment, if they had offered him forgiveness, he would have burned the world down. But instead they took the words from him, apologized... and asked for his instead.

In the dreams the locks he had so carefully put in place came apart in a thousand pieces, flooding him with memories more intense than he could face. He struggled from sleep, trying to fight them back, to hold them at bay with the solid reality of the world around him. The dark still air of the ship, the low hum of the spaceport around him. But it was too late, and his breath tore raggedly from him as all he had avoided crashed into his mind.

Han and Leia, holding his hands and laughing at some joke he didn't understand as they walked through the streets of the republic...

Chewie's broad shoulders warm beneath his legs as he both reached for the sky and clung to the Wookie's fur for balance...

Han's hand over his, carefully showing him the Falcon's finicky controls, letting go and allowing him to fly for the first time...

Leia's warm embrace, gentle hands stroking his hair as he cried...

Luke's quiet voice, trying to explain something that he didn't want to hear...

A lightsaber in the night, fear and panic and heartbreak.

Ben surged to his feet, desperate to stop the flood. She had done this, she had broken him open and left him alone again in the dark.

Rey! He broke down the walls between them, reaching desperately out into the Force to find her.

Ben thundered into her mind, followed by the shards of memory that haunted him.

Rey ripped herself upright, displacing the heavy, sleepy arms that had been holding her, and found Ben there, panicked, in the room. He shuddered, enormous hands clenched in his hair, pacing like a caged animal. The turmoil in him was intense, tearing through him—and now her—like the gravity in a black hole. Grief, and sorrow—the cracks had broken open, and now he needed her. He needed her to hold him together.