These woods were old, the boles of the trees gnarled and twisted with age and Rey's feet passed softly over the leaf litter leaving no trace. The daily cycle on this planet was ending, light slanting in streamers of gold through the canopy high above, the leaves rustling with a comforting sound as they were caressed by the breeze. It was warm here, although the seasons were turning and from somewhere in the distance the call of a bird rang out, its melody drifting between the trees.

Rey picked her way carefully across the ground following no discernible trail but the one on her scanner, locked on to something that might possibly represent the craft she was looking for, but almost certainly did not. This was the third planet she had visited in the last four days, pursuing the cross quartered grid across the Outer Rim she'd devised eight weeks ago.

She'd waited on Ahch-To until the last shots of the war above Exegol had been fired, and then she'd contacted Supreme Leader Hux. It had taken some time to get his attention, because he had an empire to run, and a set of new allies who insisted on getting involved every time he mentioned his empire, allies who didn't seem to think the empire was his at all, in fact. Rey had to remind him to whom he owed that empire, and heavily imply what she'd done to the previous Supreme Leader before he'd even take her call. When he'd finally found a slot in his busy schedule and she'd demanded the current co-ordinates of Kylo Ren's tracker he'd raised his eyebrows at her.

'But the traitor is dead. I saw the scans of Kef Bir and I had a team down to the wreckage to check for a body not long after you left. There was no trace of him, he must have been washed into the sea.'

'You're probably right, but I just need to make sure. Did you find a Resistance shuttle on the Death Star wreckage by the way?'

There had been a very long silence on the other end of the line. 'There was no shuttle. The tracker was deactivated but I can reactivate it again and send you the co-ordinates. Tell me – if you do find a, a loose end, what will you do?'

'I'll finish what I started,' she grated.

That promise seemed to pacify Hux although Rey was certain he'd have people out following the tracker as well, because the last thing he'd want was the previous Supreme Leader popping back up to challenge his new found power. She was off the minute the command shuttle received the tracker's current location, hoping that she'd get to Ben before Hux did, but she needn't have worried, because the tracker's signal led only to a discarded pair of boots in a dumpster on Naboo. Given the refuse collection schedule, Rey was at least a day behind him.

Her next call was placed to Maz, in search of a code breaker who specialised in financial transactions. It took a while to get in touch with someone with the required level of expertise combined with the requisite lack of morals, and Rey had to trade in the command shuttle for something less expensive in order to scrape together enough credits to pay for the services she wanted. After a tense wait, during which she used the rest of her resources on a couple of kyber crystals, the hacker she'd hired reported that any and all funds which might have been left in the credit accounts of General Organa had been transferred out shortly after her death, and the accounts to which they had been transferred had now also been emptied and closed. No accounts had been opened with any of the major banking institutions in either of the names Ben might have used, although, as the hacker pointed out, no one trying to hide would have been stupid enough to use their own name anyway and there were plenty of less reputable institutions prepared to set up credit facilities without recognised identification.

The only speck of hope came from the records of transactions made around breakfast time from a particular room in a particular hotel on Dorumaa, which could be traced through the establishment's comms system. This led to the call sign and original registration identity of a small freighter, with upgraded engines much too powerful for its size and weapons systems entirely unsuitable for extended conflict, indicating this was a ship built for flight, rather than fight. The sale had been completed and the ship collected four days before Rey traced it, and the recording of the person who had come to pick it up showed a short, heavily muscled man dressed in dark clothing whose face she didn't recognise.

Wherever Ben was now, he didn't want to be found and he'd gone to some trouble to cover his tracks, knowing that she'd be looking for him. This did not make Rey angry, and nor did it discourage her, because the memory of his smile lodged in her thoughts and every time she considered giving up, that smile came back to haunt her. Ben Solo had not been upset by his impending departure into the pit, rather, he had welcomed it and gone smiling to his doom, rather than raging like Kylo Ren would have done. That smile kept her going, kept her checking through each grid square on her map of the Outer Rim, and would keep her going until wild space had been explored and the Unknown Regions charted as well.

The woods opened out into a small clearing, the trees having been recently felled in a ring of sap oozing stumps and in the middle of the space sat a small ship, a modified light freighter from the Corellian YT series, although the 2400 model he had chosen was faster than the Falcon, and much easier to pilot alone. There was no way of knowing whether this vessel still belonged to the man she was seeking or had been sold on quickly to someone else, so after a perfunctory check, which confirmed that the doors were locked and alarmed, she continued towards the next reading on the scanner.

A short distance through the trees the sound of the birds became more frequent and the forest thinned out, the mulch underfoot becoming more dispersed as it was mixed with sand. She found herself on the shore of a shallow lake which stretched out into the distance, the single star around which this planet orbited sinking below the horizon far off in the distance. To her right a cabin had been constructed on the edge of the forest, its back protected by the trees but with the wide deck at the front facing out over the lake. The single storey dwelling was constructed entirely of logs, enormous serried trunks hammered onto a sturdy frame, the roof shingles aged and covered in moss, a blackened chimney poking out of the roof. The place itself looked like it had stood for years, its reassuring bulk not noticing the passing of the seasons or the visitors it protected within its timber walls.

Nothing moved behind the small windows. No life signs were present. Passing the two rocking chairs set out on the porch Rey found the front door unlatched, a crude wooden mechanism the only means with which it could be fastened; whoever lived here had no need for security. She pushed it open cautiously, and stepped over the threshold. This was about as far from the stark colours and straight lines of the First Order as it was possible to get – everything inside the cottage was higgledy-piggledy, crooked with age, rough hewn and rustic. The front door gave directly into the living room, which was dominated by a stone built, inglenook fireplace in which lay charred logs, burnt down to ashen shells in a sturdy metal frame. There was a shaggy rug in front of the fire and behind it sat an enormous sofa, heaped with cushions and fleece throws in various shades of white. A couple of books sat on a side table and Rey imagined that it was quite dark in here at night, lit only by the flickering of the fire. She gave the kitchen a cursory glance, opened the wooden cupboards in case any personal effects should have been left lying around. The room was spotlessly clean and apart from a solitary cup on the work surface nothing appeared out of place.

Whoever had built the cabin had invested in the fresher, which was fitted with running water and contained both a shower and large metal bath, glinting copper in the twilight seeping in through the window. The bedroom held a double bed in a wooden frame, the covers neatly made, with another selection of blankets stacked across the end. This place must get cold at night. Although the cottage was clean and tidy it bore no sign of habitation and no clue as to where the owner of the shuttle might have gone, and Rey felt the usual disappointment begin to settle in her bones. This was to be another fruitless mission.

'Whatever you have to say to him, I've already said.'

Rey jumped at these words, not so much with surprise that they had come from nowhere, but because she recognised the speaker, and he was supposed to be dead.

'Master Luke?'

Her reluctant teacher, almost master, the man whose bloody minded refusal to be of any practical assistance whatsoever had driven her to his nephew in the first place had materialised on the opposite side of the bed, dressed in the full Jedi robes she hated to wear, glowing brightly blue in the gloom. He bore the same kind of concerned frown he'd worn most of the brief time in which she'd known him, although death appeared to have smartened up his hair and beard slightly.

'You look…well,' he commented. 'Is that a new lightsaber?'

Rey was all too aware that well was the last thing she looked. She hadn't stopped moving for the last eight weeks, travelling from one planet to the next, crossing targets off her grid in the same way she'd once marked her walls, rarely stopping for sleep or food. She couldn't remember the last time she'd washed and her face felt greasy, her hair hanging limp in its buns.

'I lost yours. I made a new one.' She demonstrated, flicking the switch of her new yellow saberstaff, the beams appearing from both ends and disappearing just as quickly as she clipped it back onto her belt; she hadn't come here to fight. She no longer wore the red blades, but the Sith saber was permanently stored on her shuttle as a reminder, and a warning. 'He's here then?'

Luke let out a heavy sigh. 'Not at the moment. Those people came for him again and I don't know when he's coming back. Or if.' He sounded more like a crotchety grandfather than a Jedi master.

'What people?'

'The Knights of Ren.' He spread his hands in a world weary gesture. 'I've told him that they're not a good influence, and that he should take some time to sit and meditate on what's happened and what he wants to do next but he just shouts at me to shut up. Turning back to the light hasn't improved his temper.'

Rey folded her arms. She'd suspected that Ben's continued disappearance might have required help but she hadn't thought he'd fled back into the arms of Ushar and her cronies quite so quickly. Maybe she had come here to fight after all. 'What's he doing with them?'

'Hunting, apparently. He has them chasing down Sith loyalists, escapees from Exegol, First Order supporters, some man who barged into him in a bar, anyone really. It's just an excuse for a fight. He's looking for a way out.'

'I know exactly what he's looking for,' she answered grimly. 'I'm here to make sure he doesn't find it.'

Luke smiled for the first time, although it was thin and fleeting. 'It's good to see you.'

'Get out.' The order was sharp, the delivery loud and Rey felt her shoulders stiffen instinctively at the anger within it.

She pivoted slowly, struggling to maintain a neutral expression as relief surged through her stomach, dragging happiness in its wake. The man across the other side of the room looked almost as well as she did. Dark circles rimmed his eyes and he had lost weight, the black trousers and shirt he wore bagging slightly round the waist, the short grey jacket too loose on the shoulders. She blinked at the blaster on his hip.

'No,' she answered and his gaze neatly avoided hers, flicking to the ghost on the other side of the room.

'Not you – him.' He addressed his uncle directly. 'I've told you before, I don't need you interfering in my life. I didn't want to talk to you when you were alive, and I certainly don't want to talk to you now you're dead. Get out.'

Luke shrugged apologetically at Rey. 'Same temper,' he sighed, fading back into the shadows.

Rey faced Ben for the first time in nearly two months, for the first time since he'd smiled at her on his way into the pit. He wasn't smiling now. In fact, he looked more miserable than she'd ever seen him, standing there with his skin smeared and dirty, a defeated cast to his bearing that she didn't recognise.

He wasn't able to meet her gaze but gestured in the direction of the door. 'I wish you hadn't come,' he said.

She followed the unspoken suggestion, retracing her steps across the lounge to the front door and stepping back outside into the gathering darkness. 'But you knew I would,' she said calmly, taking a seat on one of the rocking chairs, waiting for him to do the same. 'That's why you've been hiding.'

The silence grew and lengthened as shadow crept across the deck.

He gave in before she did. 'You're better off without me. Everyone is.'

She waited for more – he would have rehearsed this conversation in the same way she had.

'That time you tried to kill me, when you were holding the Sith saber, I thought you'd remember who you were if I reminded you that you loved me, but it didn't work. Whatever you felt had changed. I took the one person left in the whole galaxy who had any sort of regard for me and made her hate me enough to leave me for dead. But that's not all. I killed my father. I broke my mother's heart. I can't even count the number of other people I hurt one way or another. The galaxy is better off without me, and so are you. I decided that before I went to face the Emperor. I didn't expect to survive, or even particularly want to.'

She cleared her throat noisily and he glanced up, surprised at the interruption. 'You wanted to sacrifice yourself nobly so that your life would mean something, so that when people talked about you they'd say you were just like Darth Vader.'

He frowned at her. 'I wasn't thinking about what people would say, and I wasn't trying to be noble, I was doing the right thing.'

Rey pulled a loose thread on her dirty sleeves. 'It was the right thing to leave me to face the Emperor alone? And then to abandon me afterwards?'

'No,' he held out a placatory hand. 'I hit my head on the way down. When I regained consciousness, the bond was broken and I was back on your shuttle on the forest moon where I'd parked it. I would have come back but the fight was already over.' His expression turned melancholy. 'You were better off without me in the end anyway. You'd have seen that eventually.'

She wasn't letting him off that easily. 'Your father died trying to get you to admit you were wrong. Explain to me how it was the right thing to take the life that he paid for with his own, and throw it away like his death meant nothing.'

Ben's eyes widened as her words hit him but his mouth tightened in anger.

She pressed on regardless. 'And you're right. You broke your mother's heart. So tell me how it was right to play the hero and sacrifice yourself instead of doing one single practical thing to honour her memory? Which do you think she would have preferred – you dead in your moment of glory or you using all that power and skill to rebuild even a fraction of what you destroyed? Do you think she wanted you dead? I don't.'

'It doesn't matter what she wanted,' he shot back bitterly. 'Because she's dead, and my father's dead and my uncle's dead. That's a silver lining at least. My family is all dead and soon I'll be dead too and that will be the end of the whole sorry saga. What did you think was going to happen? After everything I've done you really think I'd be allowed to atone for my sins? Go on trial and spend the rest of my days doing penance? There was never a way out of this that didn't involve me dead and I was stupid to think there might be.'

She crossed her ankles, sat back in her chair. 'So what you're saying, is that you're alone?'

'Of course I'm alone,' he spat. 'You know I'm alone. And if I die fighting on some remote planet no one's going to care, no one's going to be sorry.'

She cut across the self-pity. 'Do you know where you belong?'

He finally saw where she was going and his hands gripped the carved arms of the chair to propel himself forwards and out of her reach, but she'd learned too much from him and she moved faster than he could react.

'This is where you belong.'

For a second his hand was just a hand underneath hers, his skin just skin, and then the connection between them smashed aside the barriers he'd erected against her and roared its power as it joined them both. He pulled a face, feeling the familiarity of the link as she did and he extracted his hand, wiping it on his trousers.

'Irrelevant,' he said, and his voice was cold. 'As you once said to me, the bond is just the Force. It means nothing.'

She sighed, as if she were defeated. 'True. But the Force isn't really why you came back to save me after I nearly killed you, is it? It's not why you lied to me in the first place or why you asked me to join you a year ago.'

He stared out over the lake, the last of the sun etching his profile. 'Also irrelevant. You never felt the same.'

'And yet I'm here anyway. Why do you think that is?'

The deck plunged into darkness as the sun dipped below the horizon, the last lingering traces still brightening the sky far out over the water, while Rey sat in the black with only the sound of Ben's despair for company.

'You're here to tell me it's over between us, although I guessed that anyway. Or worse, you're here to forgive me. I don't want your pity.'

'I came to finish what I started.'

There was a rustle as he opened his arms. 'Take your best shot. I'm not going to fight you.'

'I meant, I'm going to save you from yourself.'

'You don't know me, I'm not worth saving. We were never friends. All we've ever done together is fight and argue, you said it yourself. Forget me and move on.'

'I came to remind you who you are, like you reminded me,' she answered patiently.

'I barely know who I am anymore, there's nothing to remember.'

'You are the same as everyone else. You are normal. You are ordinary. You make mistakes and then you make up for them.'

He gave a huff of fake amusement. 'I'm not the same as everyone else, my mistakes are on a galactic scale.'

'Then you'll just have to try harder to make amends. Go on fighting Sith with the Knights of Ren, join the Resistance, train a new generation of Jedi with me but stop feeling sorry for yourself.'

'Fighting is exactly what I've been doing.'

'No, you've been looking for an easy way out. Five minutes of noble self-sacrifice doesn't buy you redemption. You're going to have to get up every day, accept what you've done and try to do better. Who you want to be is a personal choice and you need to carry on making the right decision for the rest of your life. That's making amends.'

There was a heavy sigh. 'And it's that or join the Resistance? I'd rather carry on feeling sorry for myself.'

'Train a new generation of Jedi.'

'There is no new generation of Jedi. I don't think you and I count as an old generation of Jedi either.'

She sat back in her chair, readied herself. 'There will be a new generation of Jedi in about seven months time, give or take.'

There was a pregnant pause while the sound of distant birds sighed on the wind and tiny waves lapped at the lake shore. Then he was on his feet, fumbling for her hand and yanking her after him into the cabin.

'Luke,' he yelled. 'I know you've been eavesdropping.'

The silent blue crackle of a Force ghost materialised in the middle of the living room and opened its mouth to make a comment.

'Stay exactly where you are,' Ben commanded. 'I need the light.'

He strode over to the fireplace, threw a couple of logs into the grate and ignited them with his blaster.

Luke rolled his eyes although he didn't seem too cross at being used as a human torch. 'Congratulations,' he mouthed to Rey, and then vanished.

The yellow glow of the fire softened the angular face in front of her, his eyes huge and abnormally shiny. 'Say that again,' he demanded, both hands coming up to fasten on her upper arms.

She felt the words roll off her tongue for the first time, making them real. 'I'm pregnant.'

He gave her a light shake, although he was so busy trying to absorb the idea she was sure he didn't really know what he was doing. Emotions flashed across his face, signalling the passage of his thoughts.

'You said that to me when you stabbed me, but I thought afterwards you must have been trying to shock me long enough to gain an advantage so I didn't believe it. I didn't believe what Palpatine said either, I assumed he read that conversation in your mind. But it was true? Are you sure?'

She shrugged, trying to get her arms back. 'Reach out.'

He closed his eyes and a frown developed between his brows. 'I feel it,' he breathed. 'Sparks in the Force. Two of them. Oh.'

He snatched her to his chest and she could no longer see his expression but his shoulders were trembling and his body heaved with huge, unsteady breaths. He smelled strongly of metal this evening, she noted, undercut with the pungent aroma of old alcohol leaching through his pores.

He drew a shuddering breath. 'How did this happen?'

She raised her hands to his back tentatively to return the hug, if this was a hug. 'I didn't need contraception before I met you. I wasn't using any.'

'I was. Maybe it failed.'

'Maybe.'

Rey had had several weeks to think about this, since her excuse that the lateness of her cycle was simply stress induced had stopped being convincing, and she had started to lose her breakfast to the fresher on a regular basis. Even when she dragged herself to the rudimentary medical bay on the battered ship she piloted she knew the answer before the scans had stopped running. Maybe she'd always known, right from the moment of conception. Maybe that was why the dark side, always ready to expose the worst in her, had revealed that knowledge as a form of attack. It was possible that she was exceedingly fertile, and it was possible that his method of delivery was supremely effective, but there was also a good chance that the Force didn't really approve of having all its power concentrated in the hands of two people and had decided to give someone else a go.

It felt good to have someone to tell though, it was such a relief to be able to say the words, although she was terrified of what they meant.

'I'm pregnant,' she whispered to herself, finding that she was sitting on the sofa with him kneeling on the floor in front of her. She wiped her eyes furiously but he didn't seem to notice, running his fingers through his hair, his attention darting in any direction but hers.

Eventually he steeled himself enough to speak. 'If I make you feel under pressure, it isn't intentional.'

She had never seen him look so young, or so vulnerable, on his knees at her feet, gazing up at her with those haunted eyes.

'This is your decision and I'll support you whatever you choose. What we have, this relationship, isn't exactly stable and I'm… struggling at the moment so the timing's not ideal. I'd understand if you decided not to go ahead. Children need security, and love, and parents who aren't actually trying to kill each other so if that's your decision then I won't fight you. Or if you do want to go ahead but you don't want me around then I can support that too. I'd like to visit them sometimes, or maybe they could stay with me for holidays, I don't know, we could work it out.'

He paused, and his face had become a white blur in the darkness because an ocean of tears was trying to pour its way through her eyes and no matter how frequently she wiped the water away, it kept on coming. She hadn't sat still like this since the battle on Exegol, she'd been too busy trying to save him and she'd pushed everything else to the back of her mind, or tried to. Now it was all coming out.

'There's a third option, of course,' he offered, in a diffident tone. 'You could always fall hopelessly in love with me, we could get married and live happily ever after. No pressure.'

She put her hands over her face and sobbed harder. The sofa dipped as it took his weight and he patted her awkwardly on the back.

'Uncontrollable crying. That's the reaction I always get when I ask people to marry me. Actually, it's probably better than last time. Last time you broke my lightsaber in half and ran away.'

She smiled, and snuffled and tried for control, grinding the heels of her palms into her eyeballs.

'It will be alright,' he said softly. 'We can get to know each other better and see what happens. This can't be what you wanted for your life – pregnant by a galactic war criminal in a hovel on the Outer Rim – but we'll make it work. And if it doesn't, that's alright too. It's not as if our children will grow up to be Supreme Leader of the First Order or Empress of the Sith or anything.'

She gave him a wan smile, still wiping her eyes, although the flow was lessening. 'Aren't you scared?'

He picked up her hand and held it. 'It's alright to be afraid. I'm terrified of what you just asked me to do – take responsibility for all the awful things I've done. Face other people, face myself when I feel so guilty I'd rather put on a mask and hide. I'm not sure I have the courage to do that.' He kissed the back of her hand. 'Loving you is the one thing I'm not afraid of.'

Tears came again but she let them fall and straightened her back. 'How do we begin?'

He grinned, a pure, uncomplicated grin. 'Same as always. Breakfast.'

'It's time for dinner.' She glanced at the kitchen dubiously. 'Are you cooking? Do you know how to cook?'

He shucked off his coat and flung it over the back of the chair, rolling up his sleeves. 'I've been teaching myself. Luke keeps popping by to offer advice but he seems to have some strange ideas about what's edible so I try to ignore him.'

She followed him over to the kitchen and leant against the doorway, watching him assemble a collection of bowls, pans and tools before grabbing eggs and a selection of eclectic ingredients from the cupboards and beginning to whisk something enthusiastically.

'Don't you need an apron? Or a hat?'

'No.'

'Can I record this and send it to Hux? He loves a recording.'

'No.'

'If I'm sick after I've eaten will you take it personally?'

'No.' He attempted to frown but she could tell he was faking. 'I'm going out with the Knights again tomorrow. Do you want to come? Apparently one of the cloning supervisors from Exegol escaped and there's a rumour that he's planning to resurrect Palpatine. Again. How many times can one man die?'

This was going to be normal, she decided. This was how they were going to define ordinary, just a chat over breakfast and a plan for the day. He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, frowning in concentration as he tipped the concoction into a pan and something opened up inside her, some kind of soft and comfortable place that reminded her of warm arms and gentle words and the joy of simple things. It had the familiarity and security of the Force bond but the power it held was different, all encompassing, enduring, the sort of power that could suffuse a hovel and make it a home. She welcomed the feeling, let it surround and support her as naturally as if it had always been there, waiting for her to find it.

She had been silent too long. He glanced over at her quickly and it was there in the air between them, in the space before a smile, the connection forged by giant cosmic forces of light and dark burning brightly in a kitchen on a distant planet amidst the smell of burning eggs. The corner of his mouth turned up as he felt it too and her lips lifted in response. She no longer needed to touch him for the love between them to wake, it was simply alive inside her and all around, all the time, for as long as she wanted it.

'Let me help you with that,' she said.