Force Destiny

Moving Forward

Rey's eyes fluttered open to the jarring intensity of artificial lights and the comforting hum of an engine. Finn's concerned face was haloed in the beautiful light, but she knew she couldn't be dead. She felt pain, a deep ache in her body and her soul. She recognized the room as it came into focus. She was still on the Millennium Falcon, in the room she had collapsed in, the room where she had tried to save Ben.

"Finn?" she asked sleepily, closing her eyes to shut out the harsh light.

"I'm right here, Rey," he said softly. "I'll always be right here. That was so stupid; you nearly died. But you'll be okay. You have to be. You're the strongest person I know. You have to wake up now and show them all how strong you are." It had felt like an instant and an eternity since she had last seen him.

"Okay." His hand grasped hers, and she lifted herself slowly to a seated position. "Where's Ben?" she asked with hope, believing that she had been destined to save him. She had seen thousands of lives, after all; this one was different.

It has to be different; he has to be okay.

It was the little tells that gave Finn away. The slight tremble of his lip, the bob of the apple of his throat, the glistening in his eyes. He grasped her hands in his, as much a comfort to himself as it was to her. With a long exhale and a shake of his head, he said the words that would change the rest of her life:

"I'm sorry, Rey."

His eyes shifted behind her, and she didn't need to turn to know she would see Ben's body lying there under the grey blanket. She could feel his absence like a wound in the Force. "Ben needs you to be strong now. Fight through this for him."

There was not a doubt in her mind that she would remember this day for the rest of her life. She wished she could fall back into the tranquil energy and detached acceptance of the Force. Even if she knew they would live a thousand more lifetimes, even if she believed Ben was safe in the Force, this was the path she had to follow for the foreseeable future. She could suffer here—grief, loneliness, remorse, misery—they were all integral parts of the human condition, and she was tormented by every single one to the depths of her being.

Mortality was too painful. She understood the hell that Leia had suffered at the loss of a soul mate when Han was murdered. His life had been taken by the boy he had tried desperately to save, whom they all had tried to save. Rey was thankful Leia did not live to see the loss of her son, just when she had come so close to saving him. Ben may have been saved in the way that counted, but it was not enough. What did it matter if he turned, if he was never able to live the life of his choosing, free of the whispers and the darkness that tormented him? He never got to experience a simple life of love, support, belonging, and happiness. He never knew what could be. All he knew in his short life was loneliness and pain.

Not quite, nearly, almost—that should be my epitaph, he had once told her. Ben had believed his life was a "compilation of almost." It had angered her then, when he held the galaxy in his grasp, but it acquired a different meaning after he died. His entire life had been reduced to one word—almost. Almost different than his grandfather. Almost unburdened by his past. Almost free. Almost happy. Almost together. Almost saved. It hurt, because almost had given her heart hope. But that was all it could have been—hope—because almost would never be enough. It was just a cruel depiction of what could have been.

Ben had fought valiantly against the darkness for her, had sacrificed everything, had endured the pain of a broken soul to come back to her. Rey remembered every moment from their first together to their last. There had been pivotal moments, but, just like his fall, there was no singular moment that led to his turn. He had fought through hell to claw his way back...and paid for it with his life. He had been tormented and tortured from the moment he was born, and it seemed almost like mercy that his suffering had ended.