Keep Him There

Like Us

"Truth is, I don't know what we are."

The words hit Ben like a kick in the gut. She didn't believe him. He had suspected it, sure, but he thought Rey had at least some faith.

He backed away from the cockpit door, retreating into the Captain's cabin. His thoughts were racing and he fell onto the bunk.

She didn't know. He thought admitting his feelings was enough. Apparently not.

Growing up (and frankly leading the First Order), Ben hadn't been exposed to a successful relationship. His mother and father had always fought, either saying too much or too little.

Ben thought his error was probably on the latter side. But he wasn't sure how to amend it.

He said he loved her. He did.

Ben loved her more than anything in his mundane existence. Being apart from her wasn't an option anymore, without her he wasn't whole. Without his parents, she was his family. He wanted to be beside her for the rest of his life. Too much of it had been wasted already.

But he hadn't said that.

Determined to rectify the situation, Ben rose from the bunk and opened the door to leave. Outside of it stood Rey, hand raised as if to knock.

"There you are! Finn and I just found an old Imperial library that might have some information on our dyad!"

"Rey,"

"Of course," the woman continued on, hardly pausing enough to breathe, "it is highly secured. What else could we expect?"

"Rey,"

"All we need is a plan to infiltrate it, so we need you and Chewbacca. We're waiting, come on." Rey called, jogging back to meet the others.

Running a hand through his hair, Ben reluctantly followed. He wasn't going to get anywhere with her now, might as well go along with it.

The three were totally immersed in conversation when he joined them, quietly taking a seat behind Rey.

"So now that we're all here," Rey smiled at him, "Is there anything you know about this library?"

Ben remained quiet for a minute, eyes studying the readout that they had on a holopad.

"Not much, unfortunately," he muttered finally, "Snoke never let me near it. Too afraid of me turning back, I guess."

Finn's eyes widened in surprise, "I thought you knew everything."

"No, not really." replied Ben, "Only what they told me."

"Of course. But you did kill people, right? That seemed like it was your thing."

"Not anymore."

Finn leaned back, skepticism all over his face, "Oh yeah, where you at these days?"

Ben smirked evilly, "It varies from moment to moment."

The ex-trooper paled.

"Ben!" Rey scolded him. He saw past her angry pretense though, the corners of her mouth were turned upwards.

"So anyways," Rey began again, "I was thinking that Ben and I could infiltrate the facility and Chewie and Finn could be the distraction."

Finn put a hand to his chin, "Shouldn't we have a Jedi on each team?"

A Jedi on each team?

Ben wasn't in the cockpit anymore, he was standing in front of the burning Jedi temple with the torch in his hand. None of the others seemed to notice his absence.