Star Wars: Edge of Hope

Chapter Two: Our Bond & The Balance

Rey reached out into the Force. The sounds of the jungle fading to the background as she searched for him. She could sense it all. The wind and the sunlight on her skin, the way the shifting center of the planet rotated on its axis, everything the Force is, was, or would be...they all spoke to her. The only thing she couldn't hear was his voice. The farther she reached the farther away he felt to her. But she still tried...she wouldn't give up on Ben Solo...she knew there as a reason for everything.

"There are no coincidences...Only the Will of the Force."

She felt...she knew deep down inside...that there was a reason they had found each other. She knew there was...there had to be a way to bring him back. To bring him home where he belonged, with her...and with his family. Rey had shied away from speaking about what happened on Snokes ship. And for the most part no one had tried to push her for the details. Well, no one aside from Poe...and while that trust was something she wore like a badge of honor. There was a very real part of her that needed to talk about it. That needed someone else to explain what she'd done wrong, where she could have done something different, or even done something right. She had felt a part of her go cold and begin to fade away after that day. And for just the briefest of moments she thought perhaps it would be better that way. She'd survived without the voice of the Force whispering in her head. Long before she had anyone make the connections for her...before he showed her who she really was inside. But the bridge had already been crossed...there was no going back now. She knew without a doubt in the truth of who she was and what she was meant to be. But the idea of all those things coming to pass without Ben Solo beside her made them feel hollow and incomplete. They were two halves of the same soul, the same Will, and the same FORCE. Whether he wanted to believe it or deny it, Ben had made a choice too.

He had chosen her.
He had chosen them.

"Be with me...Be with me...Be with me..."

There was nothing. Not even the slightest tug on the end of the last thread that bound Ben and her to each other. She reached farther...deeper...

"Be with me...Be with me..."

"I can't...I...I can't...I'm sorry..."

"Ben?"

She felt a flicker of similarity, it began to slip away, but Rey focused in on the core of it. She wasn't going to let go...

"Ben...Come back..."

The thread changed...it wrapped itself around her binding her will to its, and before she realized it had pulled her out of the light. She struggled against it, she whirled around shaking off more and more of the infectious webs fighting to crawl under her skin and into her head. The jungle became alive with rumbles of thunder and the blasts of furious winds, breaking bough and branch as they barreled out from the epicenter of where Rey floated. The constellation of rocks floating synchronous orbit froze in their paths and then flew across, smashing violently into one another. The larger boulders began to crack and crumble as Rey fought harder to hold on, and not be pulled into the undertow.

"Rey...Rey, Let Go! Rey!"

"No...No, I have to...I won't let him go...No!!!"

The sound of her cries rang through the hurricane pouring out away from her and into the Resistance base command center. The birds abandoned their perches taking flight before they were overcome by the blast. Rey bore down on her grip, her brow furrowing as she used every ounce of her strength to hold fast to the thread, to hold onto Ben...if only for a moment longer.

"Ben? Ben, please...Can you hear me? Ben?!"

"Rey! Let go...let him go!"

"No, I can do this...I can save him...I just have to...I have to save him."