Ben is four years (and ten months) when Breha Organa-Solo is born. Everything sorta goes wrong and she's tiny and pink, and he doesn't really understand why everyone thinks she's so cute, why it's so important that he be a 'good big brother'.
Ben is just past five when he finds out what that really means. It's terrifying, and awful, and he's so lost and confused, but he knows exactly what he has to do.
Ben is almost eleven when he decides to become a Jedi. It's entirely Breha's fault.

So this is it guys! The final chapter for this installment! (I've decided to post this a few days early, because I finished much more quickly than I expected, and because you guys have been pretty awesome so far!)

This was undoubtedly my favorite chapter to write (mostly because Ben's old enough to have more logical thought processes, and because Rey's old enough to do more than cry and scream). Ben's been a pretty good bro so far. Not so much this time. No one's a perfect brother, and Ben makes a mistake, Rey gets hurt, and things go downhill real quick.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The 'Home' that Ben has been referring to is the only permanent residence that the Organa-Solo family owns, a house on Yavin IV, part of the Yavin IV Colony that Poe Dameron is canonically a part of. In my series, this colony is far bigger and has grown into a reasonably well-established town, not too far from Luke's new Jedi Temple. While Ben refers to this house as Home, the Organa-Solos actually spend most of their time on the Falcon, traveling between Core Worlds and vacations, so Yavin IV is technically more of a summer home for them than anything.

*This in no way reflects my actual theories for Rey's parentage or the plot of the official movies.

**Cross-posted on ArchiveOfOurOwn under the username little_yellow_cape

***Everything belongs to George Lucas and Disney. I own nothing.

iii.

Sisters were annoying. Little sisters were even more annoying. Breha Organa-Solo would probably win 'Galaxy's Most Annoying Little Sister' if such a thing existed, she was that annoying. (And, knowing her, she'd probably end up showing off her stupid 1st Place trophy like it was some sort of compliment.)

"But, Ben," the pest in question groaned, drawing out his name until it sounded like a monotonous whine.

"But, Rey," he mimicked in the high-pitched voice that didn't really sound like hers (but never failed to make her pout and stomp her foot).

"Why won't you play with me?" she grumbled.

As far as Ben could remember, 'play with me' had been Rey's first words, and he had long since lost track of how many times the offending words had assaulted his ears. Really, from the way she made it sound, it was like he never spent time with her. The truth was that he spent far too much time with his brat of a sister.

"Why won't you leave me alone?" he retorted sharply.

"I asked first," Rey injected promptly, tilting her little chin up as if it made her more entitled and important.

"So?" Ben rolled his eyes and all but shoved her out of his doorway so that he could get through. "I was born first," he reminded her smugly; (it was his go-to response, and it always made Rey frustrated).

He was right (as he usually was) and his sister huffed in irritation and half-heartedly lashed out with one of her feet as he walked past her. She managed to clip him right on the edge of his shin, but he ignored the faint sting and continued through the hallway and down the stairs. As she was wont to do, the six-year-old followed half a pace behind him, almost, but not quite, treading on his heels at every step. She made sure to shuffle her feet and make little grumbling noises every once in a while, to ensure that her older brother hadn't forgotten that she was angry at him.

Stopping at the coat closet, Ben quickly flipped through the garments until he found a light jacket. He pivoted and very nearly knocked right into his little sister on his way to the door. Luckily for her, she was all quick feet and quicker reflexes, knowledgeable in the best methods of avoiding being trampled by the older members of her family (the little brat had plenty of practice). Ben didn't bother to stop for her, instead impatiently throwing the front door open and traipsing down the steps of their porch.

Unsurprisingly, he heard the soft patter of his sister's perpetually bare feet against the steps behind him.

"I'm coming, too," the girl asserted, and without even turning around Ben knew she had that determined, scrunched up pout on her face that she got whenever she tried to use Mom's 'No-Nonsense, I'm the Boss' voice.

Ben did turn around, though, and planted his hands on her skinny shoulders, spinning her and nudging her back towards the house. "No, you're not," he replied blandly, biting the inside of his cheek so that he didn't yell at her. Rey wasn't much of a cry-baby (even if Ben called her that a lot), and she rarely ever tattled on him for pushing her or anything, but the second he yelled or screamed his sister would be off in a heartbeat and he'd be grounded.

He wasn't too worried about that, however, as Ben and Rey were currently being 'babysat' by Threepio, and the protocol droid wasn't exactly great when it came to discipline. And, honestly, the only reason he was in charge of them was because Mom and Dad had been called away for an emergency council that their children weren't allowed to attend, and Uncle Luke and Chewie were both off-world and too far to stop by. So, it was just Threepio, Ben, and his little sister.

"Go have Threepio teach you Huttese or something," Ben muttered, rolling his eyes so hard that it nearly hurt.

"Um…" he heard his sister mumble.

Ben knew that sound, and he knew that it always ended with one of them getting in trouble. "What did you do?" he snapped.

Rey crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at Ben. "Nothing!" she replied hotly, scrunching her nose and scowling. The disbelieving and exasperated look that Ben gave her made her façade crumble ever so slightly, and she let out a puff of breath and wrung her hands behind her back. "We may need a new nexus converter for Threepio," Rey admitted in the quiet, remorseful voice she used whenever she got busted. (Mom and Dad never fell for it, and neither would Ben.)

Ben didn't exactly know what that meant (was the nexus converter the big cylinder or that small box with all the wires?); he'd always been more interested in history and the politics that Mom managed, not the machines and grease that Dad messed with. But Ben knew that his sister was far too likely to have broken Threepio (again).

"Is he on right now?" Ben questioned between his clenched teeth. This day was getting worse and worse. He didn't want to deal with Rey right now; where were Mom and Dad when he needed them?

"No. He can't function without the nexus converter," Rey scoffed, as if Ben were the stupid one here.

"Then why did you break it?"

"I didn't break it! I was trying to fix it!"

"Well, good job. Now you're going to get in trouble."

"No, I'm not!"

Ben felt the urge to snap back that yes she was, but that was childish and it was impossible to win pointless, childish arguments against the most pointless and childish sister in the galaxy. So instead of deigning her with a response, he started back for the treeline several meters beyond the house. But Ben had never been a very fortunate person, and his sister's stubbornness always seemed to win out over his own.

"You can't leave me home alone!" the six-year-old called, rushing a few paces until she could fall in step beside him. Her legs were still a good deal shorter than his, so for every one of his steps, she would have to compensate with two, causing her to do this weird little skip-step in order to keep up with him.

"Then maybe you shouldn't have broken your babysitter," Ben, in the entirety of his elder sibling omniscience, admonished. But the brat did have a point. For all her bluster and bravado, she'd probably end up breaking every machine in the house (and then probably grow terrified of every shadow and noise) if she were left alone. "Besides, Mom and Dad are due back around dinnertime. Just go play in your room for a few hours or something, or I'll leave you behind," he threatened, quickening his pace through the forest. His longer legs made him more capable of managing the underbrush and jutting roots, but his sister was more agile than a rat-monkey and seemed to scurry over obstacles like it was a game.

"Why are you even more of a jerk than usual?" Rey muttered, walking along the edge of a mossy fallen tree like a balance beam. "Where are you even going? And why can't I come?" The questions came out rapid-fire, and Rey lost her concentration, slipping from the log and landing in a heap on the ground.

Ben spared a look over his shoulder, just to make sure she hadn't accidentally broken any of her bones. She seemed fine even as she was disentangling herself from a thorn bush, so he merely rolled his eyes and continued deeper into the woods. "I'm going to go hang out with some friends. And you can't come because they're older kids and you're just a baby," he explained shortly.

Why couldn't she just go back home? This was the first time the guys had asked him to go pla- hang out – with them, and his stupid baby sister was going to ruin it by tagging along and making him look like some doting big brother instead of one of the cool kids that ran through the woods and through the villages without having to wait for some baby sister to keep up. If he showed up at their hangout with Rey tagging along, he'd never hear the end of it, and no doubt Kaus would kick him back out of his club.

Ben had a choice here, at the proverbial split in the woods before him. He could do what was expected of him, what was, perhaps, needed of him. To stay and wait for his sister to catch up, to go and play Jedi Knights with her like they always did, like it was completely acceptable for him to continue playing such childish games all his life. The house had since disappeared beyond the coverage of the towering trees around them. Rey was better at navigating the woods than he was, but even so she might lose her way if she were alone.

But…he could leave. The house wasn't too far, and Rey actually wasn't a complete bantha when it came to directions. And Ben really, really wanted to go pla- hang out – with the boys. They played better games, and had more fun, and they didn't have to worry about little sisters and parents that weren't home and some stupid broken protocol droid that never shut up. Why couldn't he just go meet up with his new friends? Surely he'd be home before dinner, before Mom and Dad, and then he could just promise to do all of Rey's chores and play a few games with her so that she wouldn't tell on him.

Yeah. That seemed like a decent plan to the (almost eleven-year-old) boy. He'd make it up to Rey later.

With that in mind, he ignored his sister tugging her shirt loose from the thorns and ventured out of her eyesight. In moments, there was a barrier of foliage between them, and Ben could no longer hear the rustles of his sister fighting against harmless barbs. It was a blissful quiet, one which Ben was unaccustomed to. After all, how could one achieve peace and quiet with a sister such as Rey? But he could find it here, among the soft sunlight through the tree branches, the twittering of the birds and the rustling of rodents. No sisters to bother him endlessly, only him and the woods and the prospect of adventure and freedom.

(Rey loved to find images in the shadows of the trees, tried to sing like the birds – she wasn't good at it – and longed to race the squirrels to the tops of the branches.)

The anticipation of adventures (fun ones, not little kid ones like Rey always conned him into) and the promises of Kaus and the boys spurred him on, until he was carelessly sprinting through the woods, bounding past trees and racing the animals that resided there. He could never go this fast with Rey, and the chance to stretch his legs seemed to feel like the greatest of freedoms in that moment.

Before long, however, the moment was past, and replaced with one of far more exciting temptation.

Their clubhouse was an old dilapidated building, one of the structures that had been used by the Alliance during the War, but had been half-destroyed during a battle with the Empire. Even if it had only been used as a supplies cache, the very history behind it painted a vivid picture in Ben's imagination, just as Dad's stories never failed to do, of Starfighters and Rebels and Stormtroopers and the swirling chaos of a fight. His blood sang with adrenaline as he stepped up to the building and climbed through a half-blown door.

The minute he entered the impromptu clubhouse, even before the dust around him itched at his nose, even before his eyes could adjust to the sudden darkness, something slammed into his back and knocked him onto his stomach. He tumbled to the ground, hard, and his chin banged against the ground enough to make his teeth rattle in his head. Something was holding him down, pressing him into the floor, so that it felt like his ribs were creaking in his chest. Ben thought to the times he and Rey wrestled and how Dad would join in and teach them some tricks (before Mom showed up and they all got in trouble). He lashed out with his elbow, one of the only things he could move, and managed to catch something (someone?) hard enough to topple it over, off of him. Ben rolled and scrambled to his feet. Getting stuck on the ground meant having the disadvantage. But before the fight (if that's what it could be called) could continue, the sound of laughter broke Ben's concentration.

He turned to where the sound was coming from, catching sight of a boy leaning against the wall opposite Ben. Well, boy wasn't exactly the right word to use, as he was several years older than Ben, already fifteen, and he was almost an adult.

"Not bad, Benji," he remarked, his features and the sharp smirk that stole across them half-concealed by the shadows in the building.

"What was that for, Kaus?" he snapped, brushing his chin and feeling the back of his hand smear with blood. He wanted to rub his chest where it was smarting from the fall, but he knew that doing that would seem like a weakness to the others in the room.

There were a handful of other boys around him, all of them a bit older than him, their faces stained with dirt and the old oil which seemed to coat the building, and their hands grubby with wasted dreams and stolen goods. These kids were the talk of the town, and everyone in the Yavin IV colony knew about them. Most were children of old Rebel fighters, just like Ben himself (and just like almost everyone in the Yavin IV colony), but these were kids who'd been orphaned and abandoned by the War. Mom and Dad said that the colony had tried taking them in, as if to replace the parents they'd all lost, but they'd become a nuisance to the people here. Poe said they were good for nothing rats, always out looking for a way to make trouble and ruin someone's day.

Mom and Dad had a pretty good track record of being right, and Poe was usually pretty smart. But Ben was old enough to have his own opinions, and he thought that they were fun and cool and everything he wanted to be.

"Don't be such a pussy," Kaus scoffed, standing to his full height (a good deal taller than Ben) and striding over so that he loomed over the smaller boy. "It's just a game," he stated simply. "And if you want to be one of us, you've got to enjoy our sort of games."

"Yeah, that's why I came," Ben nodded.

Kaus twisted his mouth and nose into a discontented expression, like he'd eaten some rotted fruit, and studied Ben with sharp black eyes that seemed to remind Ben of the carnivorous birds that pecked at dead bodies. (Ben wondered, idly, if that made him the dead body in this situation; he decided he'd much rather be one of the birds instead.)

Kaus opened his mouth as if to respond when two boys scrambled through the partially damaged door. They were holding a smaller figure in-between them and there was a short scuffle as they attempted to hold the smaller figure in place.

"Let me go!" the captive argued, lashing out and managing to catch one boy with a foot right at the junction between his legs while the other boy received a nasty, bony elbow right to the stomach.

Ben simultaneously felt his blood freeze and boil. He immediately felt like he should say something, but his body betrayed him and there was now only lead where there had once been a tongue. Besides, what would he say? Yell at Kaus' boys for trying to hurt his sister? Yell at his sister for following him even though he had told her not to?

Kaus made the decision for him. "Alright, alright calm your tits," he snapped at the two and waved off any others who had attempted to help. "Seriously, you pussies, it's just one little girl!" Kaus remarked condescendingly, walking up and crouching so that he was closer to Rey's height.

Thankfully, the guys weren't holding her arms anymore, and they were crossed over her chest in her perpetual scowl, her chin tilted up in defiance and her face twisted into an unimpressed look.

"Hey kid," Kaus greeted, offering a sharp-toothed grin. "What brings you to our humble abode?" he swept an arm out, a showman boasting his world of tricks and games.

Rey wrinkled her nose. By the light in her hazel eyes, Ben knew she was about to say something they'd both regret. "I couldn't ignore the smell of bantha shit," the ever-eloquent child retorted, promptly spitting in Kaus' face.

Ben held back a wince, even as Kaus and the boys broke out into peals of laughter. (If Mom ever found out Breha had used that word, both him and Dad would be scrubbing their mouths with soap for a week.)

"I like this kid. She's got spunk," Kaus cackled, standing back up. He turned to Ben and gave the younger boy a quick onceover. "This brat's your little sis, ain't she? Bet you want her to hang out with us, big brother," Kaus hooked a thumb back in Rey's direction.

Ben looked past Kaus to meet the eyes of his sister. She'd seemed tough and funny to the guys so far, but Ben knew his sister, and he recognized the glossy shine of her eyes, the imperceptible tremble of her upper lip, the determined pinching of her face. It was the same look she'd been getting ever since she was a toddler.

And he felt bad. Really, he did.

But Breha should've stayed home. And Ben wanted to hang out with these guys, not with her.

"Nope," Ben scoffed, turning his head aside and waving the very notion off. He broke eye contact with Rey. It was, perhaps, an attempt to ignore the betrayed flash in his sister's eyes. (He could still see it, clear as day, in his head.) "I don't hang out with crybabies," he continued disdainfully, as if to burn down all the crops, to raze the farms to the ground, to sow the soil with salt.

A chorus of boyish 'oohs' accompanied Ben's remark, and the satisfaction of having them on his side made the burn of his sister's wobbling lip simmer down into a mild annoyance.

"You hear that, brat?" Kaus crowed, bending down in order to get in Rey's face. "He called you a crybaby. And we don't deal with crybabies here. Sorry for your luck," he nodded sympathetically, and yet the spark in his dark eyes was anything but sympathy. If he were pressed to answer, Ben would probably use the word 'enjoyment'.

That left a foul taste in Ben's mouth. One that felt suspiciously like guilt.

He pushed the thought away. It was okay for Kaus to enjoy this. It was all just a game anyway, right?

"I'm not a crybaby! I'm braver than you smelly gundarks!" Rey yelled, getting up onto the tips of her toes so that she could get right back in Kaus' face as well.

"Really?" the boy questioned, leaning back and scratching at his chin in contemplation. "Then if you're so brave, why don't you prove it?" he suggested, that sharp-edged smirk cutting across his features, jagged and gleaming like the blade of a knife.

Ben shuffled on his feet, an uncomfortable pressure suddenly tightening in his chest. This wasn't really all that fun anymore. Why couldn't Rey just go home already? Why did she have to follow him and ruin everything, like she always did?

He noticed that even the other boys were beginning to grow restless, anticipation and unease building until the air in the dilapidated building-turned-clubhouse seemed stifling and suffocating.

Rey, for all her lack of understanding normal social cues, seemed sobered at the sudden tension around her. Ben saw her swallow thickly and she sniffled ever so slightly, trying to make it seem like she only had a runny nose or something.

(She didn't.)

"To prove it," Kaus went on, either unfazed by the same atmosphere that affected the others, or simply careless of it, "why don't you, Little Miss Crybaby, go fetch something for me?"

His little sister took a breath and narrowed her eyes. "What do you want?" she managed to get out, even though her voice seemed to quiver in the stale air.

The grin that stole across Kaus' face was thrown into stark relief by the singular ray of light that spilled into the building, skittering over half of Kaus' face just as a veil seemed to shimmer over the rest.

"I want a single hair."

Confusion swept like a river torrent through the building, dispelling the anticipation that had threatened to send the clubhouse and its members collapsing under the weight.

Rey adopted her best unimpressed look, the same one she gave Uncle Lando whenever he tried to pull tricks on her and she knew the secret behind them, and planted her hands on her hips, just like Dad did whenever he was talking to someone he didn't like. "A hair?" she scoffed incredulously.

"A hair," Kaus confirmed smugly, "from the Howler."

Just as quickly as it had evaporated, the pressure was back full force, and the whispers and chuckles of the boys around had dropped into utter silence.

"C'mon, Kaus, the Howler? She's just a little kid," one of the boys, the one who'd tackled Ben earlier, stepped forward slightly, scratching at the back of his neck.

"So?" the leader of the club shrugged. "If she's not a crybaby, then she's brave enough to do it. And, if she does it, then she's cool enough to hang out with us."

"And if she can't?" another boy wondered, just loud enough for the rest to murmur in agreement.

Kaus glowered at them as if the answer should be obvious. "Then she can run home crying to her Mommy and Daddy like the crybaby she is."

That shut everyone up. Everyone except Ben's head, which seemed to be flipping over and over faster than the Falcon. The story of the Howler was a bit of a local legend, one conceived and propagated by the relatively new residents of Yavin IV. No one had ever seen him, but everyone had heard the baying cries, the haunted shrieks that disturbed the still quiet of the night. Then, last year, there'd been that incident where something had broken into old Sal Kel's runyip pasture and killed several of the livestock.

(Old Sal Kel was crazy, though, so most of the adults just sorta ignored him. But the kids always flocked to his property just to hear him screeching and swearing at some invisible threat.)

Mom had said to stay away from Sal Kel's property after that, even though she said she didn't believe in any ghost stories. Dad had told him and Rey about the Howlers he'd transported for a job once, and had taught them the best way to wrestle one after Rey had had a nasty nightmare about it. Uncle Luke had merely said that he didn't sense any disturbance like that in the forests, not even around the old Massassi temple he had fixed up. And Chewie simply promised that if he ever saw any Howlers, he'd rip their arms off and bring them back for him and Rey (Mom had yelled at him for that, but Dad had been laughing too hard to admonish the Wookiee).

But none of them were there. It was just Ben and Kaus and his boys and Ben's little sister, and none of them had faced off Stormtroopers or bounty hunters or Sith lords, let alone one measly Howler.

(Ben wanted to go Home.)

"Alright," Rey's voice broke through the raging tempest that was Ben's mind. He looked to his sister, hoping beyond hope that she would admit defeat and go back home. It was a hollow hope, because Rey had been fortunate (unfortunate?) enough to inherit the stubborn streak from not just one, but both of their parents. She already had that fire in her hazel eyes, and the puffed out chest she adopted whenever she was about to do something stupidly brave. "I'll go get your stupid hair," she promised Kaus with all the sobriety a six-year-old could muster.

Kaus smirked. (Ben felt like beetles were crawling under his skin.) "Then off you go, brat," the older boy shoved Rey out of the clubhouse. "Go to that grotto by old Sal Kel's place, and pick off one of the hairs of the Howler. We'll be waiting here for you."

Ben felt the other boys stir, felt the same feeling that clung to the back of his throat dance over the minds of them as well. She was just a little kid. Not even any of them had ever braved the Howler's cave, so how could some little girl manage it?

"It'll be a fun game," Kaus added.

And just like that, the guilt was gone. Because Kaus said it was just a game, so it was just for fun. It was a joke, and jokes were funny, and this one would be too.

His sister didn't seem to agree with their idea of fun (and that's why Ben had ditched her for these boys; they knew about real fun). She looked past the boys, through the broken doorway, and found Ben. He still remembered the first time he'd met those eyes. Back then, they'd been a cloudy blue, but they'd exploded into a pattern of hazel with flecks of gold and green. Even so, they were the same wide eyes, full of life and promise and unconditional love. But also with confusion and longing, the eyes of a lost child.

(Ben didn't know how to find her.)

He felt like he was being torn apart, between what he needed to do and what he wanted to do.

But he could feel so many eyes on him, gazes crawling over his skin like the angry buzzing of enraged insects in the summer. The eyes of his sister, big and wide and so expectant, and the eyes of Kaus of his boys, narrow and accusing and demanding. They all wanted something, needed something from him, and he couldn't give them what they wanted, couldn't decide what he would give. So, he did the next best thing. He averted his eyes, and let them make the decision for him.

His sister didn't cry.

And then she was gone.

Kaus started laughing first, and like ripples that appeared in the lake after skipping a stone, the boys followed his example and chimed in, until all of them had tears in their eyes and several had wrestled each other to the ground. Ben tried to laugh with them (really, he did), but the noise sounded hollow compared to the ringing in his ears.

"You really think she'll do it, Kaus?" one of the younger boys, a grubby-faced blonde who looked a little older than Ben, piped up amidst the chortles.

"I don't know," he responded nonchalantly, and yet the air about him made Ben think that he already had an idea. "C'mon boys!" Kaus suddenly crowed, effectively jolting the last of them from their debilitating laughter. "Let's go on an adventure!" With that, a flood of boys broke from the confiscated clubhouse, streaming into the shroud of the forest.

"Where are we going, Kaus?"

"Yeah! What are we gonna do?"

"I wanna throw stones at ol' Sal Kel's place again!"

"That was fun!"

"Or we could toss Tsitan's goods into the lake!"

Ben let the comments roll over him, crashing like a tidal wave and threatening to drown him beneath. Even as he ran alongside the others, warmed by the blood pumping through his veins and the heat of the quickly setting sun, his limbs felt heavy and cold, like he'd been dragged down to the bottom of the lake, trapped there by tangled plants he couldn't undo.

"We're going to the Howler's cave," Kaus called back to them from where he was leading the pack, of course at the very front. After all, he was the oldest and had the longest legs. "We have to make sure the brat goes through with it, don't we?"

Excitement was ripe in the air, twining with the bitter sting of guilt and fear, until Ben was lightheaded from the confusion of it all. He stayed silent, though, even as he followed the others past old Sal Kel's place, even as they shushed each other and scrambled over the loose boulders before the grotto, even as he gazed up at the last vestiges of the setting sun and knew that Mom and Dad were probably home and that he was in so much trouble.

But…he was having fun, right? So that made it okay. And it's not like they were hurting anyone.

They crouched at the top of the boulders, overlooking the clearing right in front of the infamous Howler's cave. Ben had somehow gotten himself wedged between Kaus' jutting shoulder and some other kid's putrid armpit, and he had to wriggle just to get a good view. He didn't know what they were waiting for, but the anticipation made his neck prickle like someone was watching him, and the excitement at the very idea of a surprise, of an adventure made Ben fidget in his spot. This was why he had wanted to hang out with Kaus and his friends.

Rustling came from the bushes down near the cave, and the boys hunkered down and waited with baited breath. Out popped the arrival they'd been awaiting, and Ben truly thought that the galaxy hated him. Scabby knees, bony elbows, and messy brown hair. Of course they'd beaten his sister to this place (she may have been fast, but Kaus knew all the shortcuts), and of course she'd actually decided to go through with this crazy plan.

The sun was fully set by now, the scene bathed in an eerie yet soft glow from one of the nearby moons. Yavin IV was a moon in and of itself, and it had no natural satellites of its own, so their world was left to be illuminated by the distant stars and whatever fellow moon was within the same space as them. It left the woods darker than they should've been.

(Rey was still scared of the dark. She'd never admit it, but Mom and Dad always made sure she had a nightlight.

There were no nightlights out here.)

Ben kinda felt like throwing up, even as his attention was drawn away from his sister. Kaus had turned to a few of the boys on his other side, whispering fiercely to them. They grinned in response, before branching off into two groups and disappearing in separate directions. Ben didn't know what they were doing, but something about the way his stomach pitched and roiled made him have a bad feeling about this entire expedition. (Why hadn't they just stayed home?)

When Kaus twisted back to face Ben, there was a glimmer in those dark eyes that made Ben want to shiver. "What d'ya say, Ben? Won't it be nice to not have to worry about your crybaby little sis following ya around anymore?" he muttered, a jagged stretch of skin carving a smirk onto his features.

"What do you mean?" Ben shook his head. The prickling on the back of his neck grew more pronounced. There was a chill in the air. He had the taste of bile in his throat.

"After this, I don't think she'll want to follow you," was all Kaus said.

Ben didn't know what to make of that. He tried to ignore it.

(It wouldn't leave him alone.)

Rey had since inched closer to the entrance of the cave, a wide gaping hole that seemed to swallow every speck of light to be had. There, she hesitated at the precipice of the Howler's home, teetering on a row of rocks, only a step away from the reaching blackness of the cave. The very sight made Ben sick. He couldn't help but think what would be worse at this point: getting attacked by the Howler, or having Mom and Dad find out about this outing.

"Kaus," Ben whispered, his voice hoarse and strained even to his own ears, "I don't think this is a good idea," he admitted.

The sneer wasn't fully unexpected, but it was disconcerting. "Oh? You don't want to play this game, Ben?" the boy snapped under his breath. "What's the matter?"

"I don't think my parents would lik-"

"Your parents!" Kaus almost shouted, the sneer now an all-out snarl. "I'm beginning to think maybe you're the crybaby here! What's the matter, you pussy, gonna go cry to Mommy and Daddy?"

Ben pursed his lips into a harsh, flat line, mostly to keep them from wobbling. "That's my little sister, Kaus. It's not funny anymore."

But before either of them could say anything else, there was a sudden commotion down in the clearing. A guttural keening noise arose from the depths of the cave, echoing off the rocks and dispersing shrilly through the trees. Rustling came from the trees, their limbs shaking as if even they were terrified by the disturbance, and a flock of birds erupted from their cover.

Ben's blood ran cold, so cold that he thought it might've been turned into ice, but even through the sluggish pulsing of his heart in his ears, Ben knew that that wasn't the baying of some legendary monster, but rather the ministrations of some idiotic boys.

It was the final noise, the last note of the cacophonous chord, that sealed the deal for Ben, that reminded him that this was very much not fun. A shriek, a screech, high and shrill and piercing, tearing a jagged hole straight through to his heart. It was a sound he had once been quite accustomed to, a more infantile version of it the bane that had kept him awake in the middle of nights years ago. The cry, the scream of his baby sister.

And, from right beside him, transposed over the searing sound, was the grating of laughter on Ben's ears.

He saw his baby sister, collapsed as she was in the middle of the clearing, curled up and sobbing, crying out for their parents, for Uncle Luke, for Chewie, for anyone. He saw the gaggle of boys, half-hidden around the mouth of the cave and the underbrush on the opposite end of the clearing, laughing like there was no tomorrow (laughing at his sister). He saw Kaus next to him, a cruel glint in his dark eyes and a harsh chuckle ripped from his throat.

But mostly, Ben saw red.

A bright, visceral red, like the crimson of smashed beetles, the beads of blood that bubbled over cut fingertips and scraped knees. Anger like Ben had never felt before flooded through him, crashing as the waves against the cliff's side, hot and itchy and overwhelming, the blistering scorch of a summer sun, the caustic sear of boiling oil, the mordant snap of an untempered flame, burning and devastating everything in its path until all that remained was Ben's smoldering ashes and the resounding cries of his little sister.

He lunged. Slammed his body against Kaus' as the waves against the cliff, as the anger against Ben. He let it wash over him, the anger and the fire and the red, and felt something both simultaneously be born and destroyed within himself, a star in its supernova, no longer giving life, but rather out to take it. He fought. Not as the waves, taking piece by piece over years and years, but as the fire, burning and raw and thriving, devouring everything in the blink of an eye, never stopping until the very last of the wick had burnt through.

It didn't matter that Kaus was older, or bigger, or stronger. Didn't matter that they had tumbled over the edge of the ridge, down into the clearing where Ben's baby sister lay sobbing. Because Kaus was the towering trees, impressive and daunting, but only for as long as they could avoid the searing of a wildfire, a fire that started as but a single flame, unrefined and fragile, and grew and grew and grew until it flared out over the tops of branches and hunted down every fragment of life, scorching indiscriminately and unrestrainedly.

Ben was that flame, as fragile and delicate as the tiny candle he had started out as, but ignited and surging and so powerful now that there was something, an obstacle, to climb and overcome and devastate.

His knuckles were torn, blood (red blood, everything was red) flying from his hand as he cocked his arm back. Kaus was under him, no longer looking so high and mighty and in charge, but there was still a sneer on his lips, still a glint in his eyes.

(How dare he? How dare any of them? To use him? To insult his family? To hurt his baby sister? Who the hell did these bastards think they were? How dare they?)

Rey's crying was quieter now, drowned out by the shouting and screeching of boys (insolent, foolish boys; how dare they?) and the roaring of an engulfing flame in Ben's ears. He flung his hand out, reached for that ever present woven tapestry around him, that encompassed all of life and everything that resided in it, and he latched onto a single thread. He pulled. Yanked as if his life depended on it, as if to drag that damned tapestry off the wall, off the pedestal it hung on, as a fuel for the raging, untempered flame.

He heard it, loud and consuming, just as the fire roared in his head, and the boys shouted in his ears, and his sister cried in his heart. The rocks, the supporting sentinels of the ridge, looming and resolute in the night, collapsed under the strain of that pulled thread, submitted to the wavering of the tapestry that Ben had commanded. He was the crashing of the waves, but these rocks were not steady enough to be the cliff, and so they collapsed around him, shifting and spinning in midair as if supported by the threads of a tapestry.

Kaus wasn't smiling anymore. There was a different gleam in his eyes, bright and wet and primitive, the fear a common shrew held before the cat pounced. He screamed, sharp and cutting and jagged just like his smile, just like the humor he had allotted for Ben's sister (how dare he?). The words were knives flung uselessly at a moving target, and yet they tore through the flames of Ben's mind, whipping past only just slow enough for his burning mind to hear over the searing.

Freak. Monster.

Ben didn't know how, but one minute he was winning, his opponent pinned beneath him and crying, and the next the wind was driven from his lungs and he was knocked onto his back. He tried to get up, the fire unimpeded by the obstacles of the forest, but Kaus was already on his feet, already fleeing, like the coward, the monster he was. Ben screamed, loud as thunder and cutting as lightning, (How dare you? How dare you?), and he longed to give chase, to spread the fire until it burnt through everything.

"Ben?"

Quiet. Gentle. The hushed churning of the sea after the storm dispersed, the hint of blue that crept out past the clouds, the hesitant twitter of a bird in the early morn. Voice a teary note, ready to weep at the cruelties of the world, the salty droplets not evaporated by the roaring of flames, but rather soothing it.

And just like that, the flame was doused.

He collapsed. Weak-kneed, bleary-eyed, and so, so tired, Ben collapsed. He fell back against the boulders that he had moved, the avalanche that he had commanded settled already in the clearing. Kaus and the boys were gone. Ben didn't think they'd be back anytime soon.

Ben took a deep, shuddering breath. Like Uncle Luke always said. Calm is the key to success. Without the fire to keep him warm, he felt ice creep into his veins. He was sticky with sweat and blood and tears. He felt sick to his stomach.

(But how dare they?)

"Ben!" a cry now, soft and scared and all too innocent for the burn of flames, a sob that both ignited and doused the fires nestled deep in his soul.

But, as it always did, the call spurred him on, dragged him to his feet, forced him to shuffle closer to the sound. His eyes trailed the ground, the rough divots cracked into the earth by the weight of fallen stone, and so when his gaze finally met that of his sister's, he nearly collapsed again.

Her eyes were red-rimmed and wide, her face pinched and dirty and bruised. Teeth dug into lips, eyes squinted, hands balled, all in an attempt to stave off the incessant tears that distorted her vision, a tourniquet to ebb the flow of pain.

This time, Ben did not see red, did not feel fire and anger. This time, it was black. Despair and pain and so much guilt that he felt lost in open space, swallowed by a black hole and left to be ripped apart by its strength.

She was trying not to cry. Ben could tell. But there was hurt and pain and raw agony in her eyes (hazel eyes, although they'd once been cloudy and blue). Ben understood why, and it was all the more painful to realize that it was his fault, not Kaus', not the boys', not Rey's, but his.

(How could he?)

He choked out apologizes, full of regret and guilt and love (because he did, he did love his sister), and she gritted her teeth and tried not to cry. She failed, of course, and by the time he had levered the rock off of her leg and they could sit back to assess the damage, the horrid, grotesque blue and black of her ankle, how her foot was turned a direction that it should not have been, Rey was sobbing and inconsolable.

It was Ben's fault.

(How could he?)

But she threw her arms out, seeking any form of comfort she could find in the chilly night air, and Ben gathered her against him. Careful, always so careful, of the ankle that had been crushed just as assuredly as Ben's love for Kaus' idea of fun. He kissed her on the temple, just as Mom and Dad would have, and apologized once more, promised that he'd never leave her again.

Rey sniffled, and offered Ben a teary-eyed grin. Weak and fragile, but still there. "We don't need those smelly banthas anyway," she told him.

Ben choked on a laugh. He was crying now too, just as much as his baby sister. The fire was gone and he felt so hollow and ashamed, and guilt was heavy and thick on his tongue. But his sister was strong (stronger even than him), and she didn't hate him. She didn't blame him (even if she should). He wanted to cry and scream, wanted to run off so that Mom and Dad would never find out what he'd done, so that they could never be disappointed with him.

"Let's go Home," he said instead.

It earned him an eager nod and a quiet sniffle. "I want Daddy and Mama," Rey agreed through her tears, and that's all Ben needed to gather his strength, to gently pick his sister up and slide her onto his back. She fisted her little hands in his jacket and a few sobs escaped her pinched mouth, but she buried her face against his neck and Ben thought that maybe she'd already forgiven him.

(He hadn't forgiven himself. He didn't think he ever would.)

His knees shook and his head swam a little and Ben felt so exhausted, but he walked around the fallen rocks and into the woods, back towards their home, where Mom and Dad waited, probably worried sick for them.

It was his fault. He'd probably spend the rest of his life making it up to his sister, to his parents. Maybe they would never trust him again. Maybe they'd never love him again.

(No. That was a lie. Mom and Dad would be disappointed, furious even. But they loved Ben, and a few mistakes along the way would never make them stop.)

It was then, with Ben a burnt out husk, his injured sister quickly passing out on his back, the night-darkened forest around them, that Ben thought maybe he understood Grandfather more than he ever had. He still didn't know the Full Story (Mom and Dad and Uncle Luke said they'd explain it more when he was old enough), but he knew that Grandfather was a bad man. And he knew that Grandfather became that way because he had tried to protect the ones he had loved, except in doing so he had forgotten how to love.

Ben had never really understood that bit. How could one love people so much, work so hard to protect them, that they lost their sense of love? Ben wondered if Grandfather had had that same fire, the scorching, searing flames that had burned through Ben and left only devastation in its path. And Ben thought he understood now.

Fire was powerful. Very powerful, even. It could destroy forests and plains and cities, and even entire planets. But that was the problem, wasn't it? Fire burned everything. Even those you may have lit the fire to protect. It did not stop for loved ones, it did not stop at all. It was uncontrollable. It was untamed.

It was dangerous.

Ben thought maybe he was a lot like Grandfather, and the very idea made his skin hot and itchy, made it crawl with bugs. But Ben knew now. He knew that the fire was not always a good thing. Perhaps not always bad, but it was not something innocent and good.

He decided that he wouldn't be like Grandfather, that he would start meditating like Uncle Luke suggested, that he would talk to his uncle about this, that he would learn how to make the right decisions and not hurt the people he loved. He would become a Jedi. Not like Grandfather, who had used it for power, but like Uncle Luke, who used it to promote peace, to teach others love.

His sister was asleep now, her cries quieted by sleep and her head lolling uselessly against his shoulder. Ben looked back at her, how the faint light of distant stars and moons filtered through the leaves and how the shadows played on her face.

No, Ben decided. He wouldn't be like Grandfather. Because Ben understood now, knew that fire was strong, but that love, the dousing tears of a little sister, the warm hugs of a parent, was far more powerful than even that. Perhaps that was what Grandfather had once forgotten. Perhaps that was why he had turned from love, and had given into hatred.

Ben promised that he wouldn't, that he'd be strong like Uncle Luke and use the Force not for hatred, but for love. Because Ben had so much that he loved, had so much that he refused to lose to hatred.

Love, Ben thought, was what families were for. It was why parents existed, to teach it. Why siblings existed, to share it. Why families existed, to spread it.

Love, Ben realized, was what Kaus and his boys needed. Those who had no parents to teach it, no siblings to share it, no families to spread it. They were the ones who needed it most.

Love, Ben decided, was exactly what the galaxy needed more of. It needed more parents, and siblings, and families. It needed a brother, a guardian, just as Rey did, to protect it and love it and stand by its side.

Love, Ben promised, was exactly what he'd give.

No one picks on Ben's little sis. Like, ever. (Just don't.)

So, yeah, Benny still has his anger issues (I figured no matter how good he may be in this, his short temper is a pretty major facet of his character). But, unlike in canon, Ben actually has a reason to understand the repercussions of his actions at a young age. I felt it was important for Ben to realize that he actually is a bit like his grandfather, but to come to conclusion that he doesn't have to be bad as well. This will have lasting effects on Ben throughout my series, and will play into the difference of how the whole Snoke issue is dealt with.

This is it for The Guardian. Thank you everyone for your support during this! I hope everyone enjoyed this as much as I did! Please be on the look-out for the companion piece, The Keeper (which might be out next week? maybe? if we're lucky?) and eventually any other installments for the series!

Thank you all so very much!

Love you all lots!

~Cape