A/N: I've come back after months. Terribly sorry for the delay. I've just watched The Rise of Skywalker, and it didn't do me any good, so I've decided to write a fix-it fic.

This fic was inspired by It's Quiet Uptown, from the musical Hamilton. Take a listen to complement the reading.

It's Quiet Uptown

The greyish sandstone nailed itself to her legs through her pants. Above her, hundreds of ships buzzed silently, muted by the ingravity of space. The triumph of a thousand generations over the dark side tasted bitter. At what cost? A blow of guilt knotted itself to her throat. The war was over and that should suffice.

It didn't.

The sound of the monochromatic inmensity, the effigies crumbling and yes, her crumbling as well, didn't seem half as deafening as a specific silence. It smelled of ozone and a dryness that brought her memories of the desert, but with a crueler overtone.

Death. Mocking her and humming more terrifying choirs than the ones on the Sith's buried tribunes.

It was cold.

Ben was so cold.

His eyes looked at the sky emptily. His mouth fell open in a macabre visage. How far away the first time she'd seen him smile appeared. Oh, maker, she had only seen that miserable creature smile once. And she knew. She knew that was the one time he had felt truly happy, giving his life to save hers.

Death would have been kinder. She would have preferred it if that, on itself, didn't insult the sacrifice of the only person that… that…

"Ben, please, I want to leave this place with you" she squeezed his hands. Held back the tears accumulating within her eyelids, trying to capture them in a couple of blinks. "Not like this".

She searched for him in the bond, at the corner where she normally hid him, either to keep herself in denial, or to avoid crying. A fathomless gap. Her voice broke in a pained moan.

"No" she wept.

She held his jaw, closing the mouth.

Rey knew well how corpses looked like. The indifference of the desert had shown her death, but not something as horrifying. Only her parents leaving matched the heartbreak of this precise moment. She didn't think it possible to go on, pretending, persevering. The usual wasn't enough. She'd lived that life for so long, fooling herself into believing Jakku would not have her again, but the silence and loneliness of her childhood followed her wherever she went to.

What was she going to do? Bring Ben's body back. Cremate it. They wouldn't allow her to do it next to his mother's. In death, even after redemption, that was their reward, loneliness. It wasn't supposed to end like this.

"When I touched your hand. I saw…" Rey drank in the tears. Ben couldn't hear her, but the air, nothingness, something, deserved to know. "I saw us walking over the hills of a green planet. We were looking at the sea. You didn't say anything in particular, neither did I. But you seemed at peace" she broke even more after saying that. "I've never… never… seen you… like that. I wish I… could have you… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"

"Rey".

A bluish shinning poured over her back. That was the solace she could find in the Force.

Rey turned her head around. An expression in between despair and resignation had stuck to her like a mask.

"Master".

Leia looked at her with drowning compassion. She appeared younger, canonized in an ethereal spectre.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't save him".

The general, the princess, approached her. The ground did not notice the presence of the ghost, o didn't have the courage to be altered beneath the solemn figure of the legendary woman. She placed her hand on her shoulder. Rey only felt a vibration, energy. The Force.

Leia looked at her and smiled tenderly.

"Oh, Rey, but you did".

"At what price? Ben…" Rey swallowed saliva, disgruntled by the salty aftertaste. A heavy sigh escaped her mouth "he's gone".

"No one's ever really gone".

Rey smiled with bitterness.

Leia kneeled by her side to touch her son's face in a similar manner to Han's before dying. Now there wasn't burden of imminent tragedy hanging in the air, only the mercy contained by the gesture.

"My boy" the princess then faced Rey for a second. "Kylo Ren is dead".

Rey closed her eyes. After opening them again, she saw Leia leaning over the body of her son, kissing his forehead.

"But not you" she caressed the side of his jaw with her thumb. He looked older than she imagined. Years didn't pass in vain for nobody. "You can't come back with me, but you can go home".

Leia put her hand over Rey's.

"Hope" she said to the Jedi. "That's what kept us going for all these years. Don't ever lose it, both of you".

Rey did not understand what was happening. Leia vanished without more answers.

Suddenly, the world filled itself back with colour. The sensation of absence in the bond closing as a wound in the Force that had bleeding for so, so long.

"Rey?"

Ben coughed.

Rey threw herself at him, sinking against his neck. She heard him cry, or laugh, or both. The two shared that reaction. She squeezed his hand, Ben reciprocated the action.

"Are you okay?"

She rose, placing her head right above Ben's, foreheads touching, and she nodded grinning.

"It's the second time I see you smile".

They kissed again.

The hardened trace of tears pressed against the other's face. Warm breaths mixing. Ben held her a bit tighter. This once, none of them would run away, everything was okay.

"How?" he asked her when they pulled apart.

Rey focused her gaze on Ben's eyes.

"Compassion".