Hope Remains - A Reylo Story

⭐Seven⭐

Authors Note: Firstly, thank you to all my readers who chose to read Hope Remains and for sticking through it. Second of all, this note was meant to go at the end of Chapter 6 as I swapped midway through the chapter using Kylo to start with and then switched to Ben. This was to show his acceptance of he truly is: Ben Solo. In my opinion, he will never be able to fully endorse the light side and he will never be completely dark as there is always this inner conflict in him, it's just one of the reasons Kylo Ren/Ben Solo is an amazing character and Adam Driver plays him brilliantly. Thanks guys for reading!!!! Enjoy.

Poe stood wearily in the command centre, it had been several hours since either Rey or Naara had reported in. They would've been on Lothal a few hours now and the commanding officers and generals were demanding to know what had happened. He walked into his office to get some quiet when Connix busted into Poe's office holding a com link. "General, it's Rey!" Poe jumped from where he was and snatched the com from Connix.

"Rey!" Poe said frantically into the com.

"Poe, I need you to send a fleet of ships down to Lothal. There isn't enough room for all the rioters." Rey told Poe. He noticed the edge of apprehension in her voice as she sent him her commands.

"I can do that. What can you report?" Poe changed the subject to receive a verbal report. They needed as much information as they could possibly gather about the rioters.

"The rioters had help from troopers on the inside. The Elders of the farming village said this had been the same across all systems where the riots have occurred." Rey announced in a hurried tone - something was definitely going on but Poe wouldn't question it now.

"Anything else?" Poe asked.

Silence ensued on the other end for a moment as if Rey was contemplating something, he heard Rey sigh and could visualise her in that exact moment. "There is something going on within the First Order and it's going unnoticed."

Poe sighed and scrunched his brows. What stability had been created was clearly a ruse by members of the First Order but the question was how high up this went in the chain of command. "He was there, Poe. I don't know why yet but he was there." Rey added after Poe failed to provide an answer to her.

He thought about this for a moment. If Kylo Ren was on Lothal it could mean that he didn't know about the insurgents working with the rioters. "Did... Did you talk to him?"

"There's nothing more to report. Commander Rey over and out." And like that the connection was cut. Weird. Rey completely avoided his question. Poe knew that Kylo Ren was a soft topic for her but that was abnormal even for her. Something didn't feel right. Poe didn't have the Force but he knew enough to trust his instincts and right at that moment, they were signalling alarm bells.

He left his office and met Finn outside. "Buddy. How's Rose?" Finn's hair had grown out a bit more since the last trip to in the Outer Rim. Poe trusted no one more than Finn to do the round trips gathering small pieces of intel or bringing in rogue officers from random attacks.

"Fine. Working on the ship. How's Rey? When is she coming back?" Finn enquired enthusiastically. It was part of a usual routine and Poe hated deceiving his friend like this and he knew it tore Rey apart to even keep Finn in the dark. Poe knew that Rey had contacted him at times but she never told him where he was or about Lira.

"She should be coming back from Lothal with Naara and the refugee rioters."

"Do we have enough room here?" Finn countered. It was a true enough statement. There was barely enough room at the Resistance base on Pillio, the smaller outposts centred on other more remote planets would be of better use to the rioters as asylum. "I mean, could Max not take some to Bespin?" Finn added. Poe considered this: Max Calrissian was indeed a great friend to the Resistance. Such friendship had heralded from his father's, Lando Calrissian's history with General Organa and working inside the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire. Lando's health had declined more recently but when Leia had begged for help, he had sent Max as an emissary to further the efforts of the dying Resistance.