The ship shuddered around them, and Finn threw himself against a bulkhead to keep from falling down. The Stormtroopers blasting at him were distracted, which was good, but were still intent on arresting him, which was bad. He swung around the corner, squeezing off three shots in quick succession before ducking back.

Behind him, in the small room he was trying to protect, Luke kept his eyes lightly closed, hand waving over the weird old piece of junk. General Organa stood on the other side, her own eyes blinking open to watch Finn.

"Almost there," Luke said, calmly, easily, as though they weren't all about to be killed. "Leia, can you see the piece I'm holding? I need you to help me pull it apart."

The General's eyes shut again. "Got it. Like this?"

"Just like that." He used that same voice when he praised Rey.

Finn rolled out for more cover fire, barely avoiding getting hit for his trouble. He bit back his 'Any time now.' Sarcasm wouldn't help and might distract them. The ship rocked with another blast. Okay, that hadn't been his imagination. The Resistance fleet had arrived.

"Done," said Luke, quietly pleased with himself. For Finn's benefit, he said, "The centerpiece is disarmed."

"And reset," said the General. "It's going to self-destruct. How much time do we have?"

Luke shrugged in a manner that Finn felt was a little too blasé. Maybe the two of them weren't planning to survive this mission, but Finn had made different plans and intended to see them through. Noticing the worry on Finn's face, Luke said, "I've just set an extra pause. Half an hour? Maybe much less. Sorry. I'm not good with ancient chronometers. We shouldn't delay. Leia, you should warn the fleet."

General Organa clicked on her comm. "Stalking Bird to Convor."

"Convor here," said Poe's very welcome voice. Finn couldn't stop his instant smile.

"The egg is smashed, Commander. Please spread the word that it's going to hatch into a singularity in the none too distant future."

"Roger that. Have you got a bird?"

"Working on it."

Luke asked Finn, "Can we get out that way?"

"Nope."

"Then we find a different way," said the General. She retreated towards the back wall of the room. "Pass me your lightsaber."

"I am not falling for that again," Luke said. "I'll open the door, you cover us."

Organa joined Finn at the doorway, laying down a spray of cover fire at the feet of their attackers. He noticed the precision of her shots, carefully aimed right in front of the boots to force them back without killing them. She could easily strike them all down, he realized. Instead, she was holding the 'troopers at bay, killing only at need when one saw her ploy and rushed at them.

Luke's lightsaber hummed and buzzed as he hacked smoothly through the wall.

"Can you get us back to the ship from here?" the General asked him as they sent off a quick volley.

He nodded, but he knew his face wasn't hiding anything. Neither was hers.

"Can you get us to Snoke's chamber?"

They could escape now. Going deeper into the ship would probably get them captured, and going up against Supreme Leader Snoke would definitely get them all killed. Finn was positive Darth Whiner had betrayed them and given away their position, and the last thing they needed was for General Organa and her brother to try facing him down when he stood at Snoke's heel.

But Rey was there.

"Yes."

She'd often considered that duelling with a lightsaber wasn't much different from a dance. Feet here, arms there, turn with your partner, and now you bow. Rey had once watched a holovid with a scene where elegantly-dressed couples, much like those back at Huram's party, spun and turned in just this same fashion. Her steps moved nimbly against his. They faced each other across light. Add a little music and this would be romantic, a pleasant twirl spent locking gazes before they made their way to more private quarters, falling onto one another ravenously the second they were alone.

If everything could be different, she'd be happy.

Instead of meeting her eyes with amusement and desire, Kylo stared flatly at her with wrath overlaid by a thick veneer of jealousy. She had more innate power. She was lovely but would deny him the attention and affection he deserved. She was nothing yet dared defy him.

His lightsaber crashed against hers in a vicious, eye-quick series of blows. She had no room to breathe and analyze his attacks. She could barely recall Luke's advice during her training, much less the lessons she'd learned from sparring with Ben. Style wouldn't help now. Defense was her only option as she was driven back, desperate to block every swipe. If he got through her guard, if he got lucky even once, she would die.

Snoke had regained his throne, and sat watching them, pale chin resting on his hand, almost bored.

The sabers met and locked for a moment as they stood with their faces close. "Ben, you have to stop this."

He kicked out at her, landing a foot hard on her leg. She collapsed instantly, rolling to avoid a broken bone from the force of the blow. She was back on her feet in an instant.

"You tricked me," he said, eyes seething. "I should have known. I did know. You wanted nothing to do with me. You only wanted to use me."

"That's him! Snoke wants your power for his own!" She parried another series of strikes, the loud crack of their blades deafening in her ears. "You are still in there, Ben. Fight him."

"You stupid little scavenger. There never was a Ben. There's only me."

He swung, and she blocked too late, feeling her skin burn through her clothing as he struck her side. Rey bit back her scream. He'd hit her on the left, and she spun away from the pain, bringing her own lightsaber down to shove his hand away. He fought to defeat her. She fought to save them both.

Kylo was going to kill her.

"He's using you. He tried to control me, but you helped me break free. You have to stop!" This last word was drowned by the squeal of their blades crashing together hard. "I don't want to kill you!"

"Good, that will make this much easier," he said with a chilly smile.

The door to the throne room slid open. Rey didn't dare turn her head. More Stormtroopers to deal with?

"I told you so," Finn said, disappointment in his voice.

"You should have fled," said Kylo, not even turning his head as he drove her back.

"Splendid," said Snoke, rising once more. "We meet at last, Skywalker."

Rey did not have the time to pay attention to their traded insults. Luke's lightsaber glowed green, and Snoke fired a red blade that Rey didn't get a good look at. As she spun in her own deadly dance, she saw the General raise her blaster. She wasn't aiming at Snoke.

"Snoke's controlling him!" Rey said, stumbling back in desperation.

"We've thought that before," said General Organa, her voice calm and sad. Her blaster kept a steady aim at her son's head. Rey knew the moment she was out of the way, Leia would fire. She forced her own steps, keeping herself between them.

The ship rumbled again, explosions rocking them from close by. The Star Destroyer's shields had been compromised.

"The shield! Give me the shield!" Hiding from Snoke was pointless now. Even as she took another step back, Stormtroopers poured blaster fire into the room.

Finn dropped back to cover the rest of them. Swearing, the General joined him, trying to hold the doorway. She dug into her jacket, digging for Rey's shield on and giving it a toss. Her throw wasn't as good as her blaster shot, falling short. Rey couldn't use the Force to pull it closer.

Kylo said, "You always knew I was going to kill you. We both knew from the moment we met." He hacked at her, finesse lost. Rey ached from her wound, was exhausted from her long ordeal. Destiny wanted them to end each other. Her arms were weakening. He'd chop her down, and there wouldn't be enough left of Ben inside him to care.

On the other side of the room, lightning crackled as Snoke threw bolts of power and Luke fought to ground them. There would be no help from him. After he'd killed her, Kylo would go after the others with no remorse, not with the madness raging inside his own head. He'd almost freed himself, almost become someone worthy of forgiveness. With his master this close, he was nothing but a frothing animal.

In her dreams, she'd known fighting moves all the way up to level twelve. She tried now, using the Force to flip herself high into the air, but she telegraphed the move too broadly. Kylo grabbed her leg and threw her with bruising force to the hard floor.

Right next to the shield.

She grabbed it with her hand, at the same time kicking his legs out from under him. Rey thumbed the device on, rolling atop him. He fought to bring up his lightsaber as they struggled.

The shield hummed alive, sending a cool dampening field over them both. Nothing could get out, and nothing could penetrate it. The galaxy was divided: the two of them inside, and everything else.

He stopped fighting.

"Please," she said, and realized she was repeating the word over and over in a hoarse whisper. "Please."

His mind was a shattered mess. Snoke had not been gentle, mentally bludgeoning his way back inside after Ben had shaken free. Subtle commands, planted over years, had yielded cracks wide enough for his master to rip open the rest. Given time, she might be able to help rebuild from the jagged fractures, but they had no time. As soon as the shield dropped, Snoke would be back in control. She kept thinking of them as two different men, dark and light trapped together, and she knew it wasn't true. Ben was Kylo was Ben, and only the often terrible choices they made separated them. Snoke would steal away all those choices, leave his servant as nothing but a vicious killer. Even without the direct influence of his master's puppet strings, the urge to kill and rend and scream threatened to overtake him. The destructive paths were too well-tread. He'd need a lifetime to free himself, would be a danger to himself and everyone else until he did.

Rey sensed the power cell inside the shield fading, strained after so much use and failing under Snoke's attack. In a minute or two at best, it would wane and drop. They had little time left.

She reached into him with her own mind as deeply as she could, let him steady himself with all the calm she could gather.

"Please."

He blinked his eyes open, and he wasn't mad, not for this one safe moment amidst all the fighting around them.

Ben said, "Give me the shield. I can fight him." Anger roiled through him, dangerous and uncontrolled.

"You can't. Stay here. We'll handle this."

His hand found her side, avoiding her wound. "He made me hurt you."

"He'll make you do far worse when the shield is gone, and you won't care." They shared thoughts, lightning quick. She felt his hand drop to her pocket as he picked out the memory of what she'd taken from his quarters.

Snoke hadn't been able to reach him inside the dream.

She dug out the packet. "What's the dose?" Rey had gone under almost instantly back in the temple, but that had been injected directly into her vein.

"It doesn't matter."

Rey poured about a spoonful of the ground Cayad root into her hand, and tipped the powder into Ben's mouth. He licked her palm, drawing a circle and line with his tongue. "Ugh. It tastes awful."

"Stay down," she said, getting to her feet. She snatched up her lightsaber and hesitated. Finn and the General had the doorway. She went to join Luke's battle.

Seen up close, Snoke's weapon wasn't a lightsaber at all, but a hideous construction of kyber energy in a half-moon, half-spiked blade, the power harnessed and twisted. He flipped between the two Jedi, mirth glowing on his scarred face. She felt him probing at her mental walls, looking for an entrance.

"You can't get in there again," Rey said, slashing at him. Her whole body jerked at the contact with his blade against hers. He spun, meeting Luke's swing effortlessly.

"Not bad," said Luke, voice as calm as when he sparred with Rey. "Where did you train?"

"Under a great master. I killed him, obviously."

"Obviously." Luke fought faster than Rey's eyes could follow. She went in for her own attacks, and was driven back by Snoke's casual strikes. She'd never seen anything like this. They were equally matched, and Rey felt like nothing more than an annoying fly Snoke swatted from time to time as he went after his true target, leaping for better position only to find Luke already there.

Snoke said, "You're better than your reputation."

The door fell open under a hail of blaster fire. A bolt struck the General against the side of her neck, and Luke winced in sympathetic pain. Instantly, Snoke lunged in, striking Luke hard with his power in one burst, shoving him up against the wall.

Rey stood still in a moment of indecision. Finn needed her help. There was no other choice. She ran at the 'troopers surging into the room, lightsaber desperately blocking their fire. She hadn't yet learned the control to reflect their own blasts against them, instead letting the energy shots veer away wildly. It was enough to cause the chaos she'd hoped for. To either side of her, Finn and General Organa targeted the Stormtroopers who didn't take the hint fast enough. The General was burned badly, but didn't miss a shot. Behind them, Luke could be dying. Rey didn't dare return to that fight, not yet.

Another blast shook the ship. "We need to get out of here," Finn said. "The whole thing is going to blow soon."

"How soon?"

Leia said, "Soon enough. Sorry, kids. I don't think we're going home." She squeezed off another shot.

A warm, nearly obscene shudder went through Rey as the Force shield sputtered its last and died. She saw the same realization move through the General, as their eyes met. Rey shouted with her mind, "Ben!" His mental shields were back in place, solid and locked against her. "Ben?" He'd crawled with the shield to his master's throne, using it to help him stand.

"Not any more," said Leia, her face still. She fired three shots at her son's chest. Kylo froze them in the air and nimbly plucked her blaster from her hands with the Force.

Snoke chuckled. He held Luke up in the air, and threw him against the floor, hard. Luke rolled, better than Rey had thought he could, but he was an old man. He lay there for a moment, breathing. Snoke closed his eyes. "And now, my apprentice, it's time to finish your work."

"Of course, Master." Kylo smiled coldly. He was already blinking back the sleep in his eyes, but it was too late. "They've sabotaged the artifact to explode. I'll inform our engineering crew. They should be able to hold it in stasis until you and I have time to reset the item properly together."

Rey's burn throbbed. It was the second-worst pain she felt now. She raised her lightsaber. She couldn't fight to save him this time. She could only fight to win.

Snoke smiled gleefully. "Then kill the girl and the traitor."

Kylo nodded. "Naturally." He touched the communications panel. "This is Kylo Ren," he said, voice booming from the intercomms all across the Star Destroyer. "The Terrorizer has been critically damaged. Abandon ship. Repeat, you are ordered to abandon ship."

"Sir?" came the confused reply. "Abandon ship? Are you sure?"

Snoke's glee turned to fury. He raised his weapon again, building up speed as he ran towards the throne.

"Are you questioning my orders?"

"Where is Lord Snoke?"

"Dead." Ben released his hold on the frozen energy bolts. All three slammed into Snoke, and as he staggered, Ben swung out with his lit blade in one perfect motion. "I told you, abandon ship!" He didn't even look as his master's body hit the floor with two soft thumps.

"Yes, sir!" A klaxon sounded. The last of their attackers at the door retreated

Ben turned to his mother with an offended frown. "You shot at me."

"When I walked in, you were trying to kill Rey. I love you, but I like her better."

He opened his mouth again then closed it and shrugged, placing his hand unsteadily against the control panel.

Rey had already doused her blade. When she reached Luke's side, his eyes were open. "How badly are you injured?"

"Couple cracked ribs. Minor concussion. I've had worse. How're they?" he asked, as she helped him to his feet and led him towards the others.

Leia said, "We'll be better once we're out of here." She already wrapped a handkerchief around the worst of her wound. Beside her, Finn appeared to be unhurt, miraculously. Good. He and Ben could figure out how they would get out of here.

Another Stormtrooper appeared in the doorway, this one all in chrome-polished armor. Finn raised his blaster again, but the General pulled his arm away.

The Stormtrooper took in the disaster of the room with one look as Finn said, "Ma'am, she's trouble."

"Don't I know it," said the General.

"Ma'am," said the Stormtrooper in a rich voice. "The way is clear. We'll need to get you to a shuttle as soon as possible."

"You're coming with us, Evaan. This whole place is about to blow."

Finn glowered, and his face slowly changed. "Captain Phasma's your spy?"

There was a fairly loud thump. Rey didn't even need to look. She'd felt the brief, muzzy call from Ben before he passed out cold. She said, "Can you help carry him?"

They didn't stay to watch the Terrorizer implode around the singularity that bloomed inside its belly. The Resistance ships jumped away, and the smarter members of the First Order fleet followed suit.

In the days and weeks that followed, she often thought about the poor souls who didn't have hyperdrives in their shuttles and escape pods, who were drawn into the high-gravity well and slowly crushed to death over aeons. That section of space because off-limits to all but the most foolhardy and reckless pilots. Legends grew, ghost stories mostly: even distress signals couldn't escape the pull of the new black hole but some travelers through the region swore that if you tuned to the right frequency as you passed by, you could hear screams stretched out slower than the heartbeat of the universe.

Rey wondered if she'd have nightmares about this for the rest of her life.

She sat beside Luke in the cramped back cargo space of the stolen ship, using her powers to coax his broken bones back into place. He had to guide her, and the work went slowly. "I'm not good with burns. Ben can help the General when he wakes up."

Luke's eyes went to the slumped figure nearby. With his thoughts open to her, Rey couldn't help but read the one that mused what else would happen when his nephew finally woke.

There wasn't much privacy on the shuttle. Finn came to sit on her other side, resting against her until she lay her head on his shoulder. After a few minutes, Luke made a flimsy excuse and moved into the small cockpit with his sister and her friend, giving the two younger people a small measure of alone time, ignoring the snoring lump on the floor.

"Are you all right?" she asked him.

"Yeah. I think I'm the only one not injured. How are you?"

"It hurts when I remember it. Bacta sounds good right now."

She would ask Ben to help her, once he'd healed his mother. Rey could keep pushing the pain down into a place where she didn't have to think about it, but she needed treatment. She'd peel her scorched shirt away from her body, gasping as the fabric stuck. His hands would glow warm, and he'd close his eyes, directing healing energy into the damaged cells, and after, he'd kiss each sensitive millimeter of new, pink skin, mouthing "I'm sorry, so sorry," over and over.

"How else are you?" he asked, aiming for casual and failing.

"I'll be fine."

"You didn't think you were walking out of there alive. When we reached you, your evil boyfriend was trying to kill you again. You're not fine." He only paused half a blip on the word 'boyfriend.' He rested his head against the wall behind them. "I have to stop going on missions with suicidal people."

"Poe's not suicidal."

"He's the only sane person I know." He considered this for a long moment. Then he looked at his former boss. "You and I have a lot to talk about. Not here. When we're back, and you're feeling better. Your life got complicated, and so did mine. We'll talk."

She followed his glance, watching Ben. She sensed him as a distant, indistinct presence far away. When he woke, they'd have to discuss everything that had happened, and decide where their future was headed. After that, she could figure out how to tell Finn just how complicated her life was, now that she was sort of married to their former enemy.

"Yeah."

Ben stayed asleep all the way back to their base.

The General's face was almost as pale as the clean bandage on her neck. She clearly needed rest. Rey wasn't about to be the one to tell her so. Her own regeneration bandage moved stiffly each time she turned. She'd have a scar, but the med droids had done their best and Finn had assured her scars were cool.

They stood at the observation window. In a bed to the side, out of the way and mostly ignored, Ben slept. Rey didn't recognize the name on his chart. The droids had started an intravenous line with a nutrient drip to keep him hydrated, and otherwise left him alone.

"Can you wake him up?" she asked Rey.

"Yes."

"Can you leave him under?"

Rey didn't answer.

"He was tried in his absence a few years ago. The sentence was thirty years." Leia turned to her. "We tried containing him before, back on the station. We blocked his powers and held him in a tiny room on an abandoned space station, and he still only stayed as long as it suited him. He nearly killed two of my closest friends on his way out the door. A prison sentence is a joke we would play on ourselves."

He'd last been asleep this way for four days, and that had spanned half a decade for him. How mad would he go locked inside the horror of his own skull? An infusion of Cayad root could drip into Ben's arm, allowing his body to be cared for and kept alive for as long as the Resistance existed. The droid could inject a lethal dose of sedative, and they would stay here at this window, watching until his heart slowed and stopped. There were no good choices left.

"I can leave him under."

"You think we're being cruel."

"Ten years? Thirty?"

"Those were the charges at the time. He's added several murders since." Her voice didn't waver. Rey hadn't forgotten. It was simply that she didn't always choose to remember. "As I recall, he has a chance of parole after ten years of good behavior. He was always good when he was asleep, even as a kid."

Ten years, and Han would find him inside the dream, and neither would be alone. Rey told herself there were worse fates.

She stood in the same place two hours later. She'd gone for dinner, gone for a walk, gone to clear her head, and she'd come back to this window, watching Luke prepare the infusion with the remaining powder left in the packet. She didn't touch Luke's mind, and couldn't read his lips as he murmured words over the final solution, running his hand over the precious container. He might have been speaking to Ben, or saying a prayer to the Force, or talking to ghosts.

Luke met her at the window.

"That will be enough for several weeks. Chewbacca and I can go find more."

"Last time, he spent five years inside the dream."

"Maybe this will give him time to grow up." He took her hand, which surprised her, but not so much as the paper he pressed into her palm. "There's a little left. It might be enough."

"Enough?"

"To say goodbye."

She squeezed the paper. Then she handed it back, folding his fingers over the packet. "Can you pull your sister into a vision with you?"

"I'm sure I can. But there's nothing we have left to say to Ben that would change things now."

"I don't think you should use it to talk to Ben."

Understanding grew on his face. The quiet grief he'd worn since the day they met smoothed into something like hope. "Thank you."

"Tell Han I said hello."

end

(almost)

Rey opened her eyes. She was chilly, wet, and sore. As she blinked and sat up, she found herself soaked to the skin, lying in an uncomfortable heap on a shore made of fine pebbles. The lake washed the shore, grey and muttering from a recent storm.

She knew even before she turned her head that the house would be in tattered ruins.

He sat a few feet away, chin on his knees, watching the lake. He didn't turn to look at her as he spoke.

"They have no intention of waking me up."

"No. Not for at least ten years." Or more. When the people who loved him did allow him to wake, he'd be hated and hunted for the rest of his life. In the waking world, Rey could be sensible about the decision. In the dream, sitting next to someone who read her mind as easily as he could a datapad, she didn't have to pretend she agreed. "It's not fair. You beat Snoke when he was trying to command you. You defeated him."

"I held him off for a few minutes. I can still feel his influence even though I know he's dead. In here, I've got some control. Out there, I would try to kill you again. Part of me wants to kill you now."

She touched his thoughts and knew he was telling the truth. She'd held out hope that her Ben was back, that he was sane and whole again. Instead, she felt his familiar anger, and the harsh discord of a mind preoccupied with his own bitterness. The only difference between the horror he was and the man he had become was that he cared for her enough to stand between Rey and his own worst impulses.

He looked behind himself. "I know it's a dream this time. That's why everything is broken. It won't be the same as before."

"Does it have to be?"

"I had a home where I was happy and a wife I loved more than anything. Everyone liked me except your stupid friends. The punishment is being back here knowing I had all that and and living with the loss. Clever. Your idea or my mother's?"

"Call it a group decision. Ben..."

"I'm not Ben. I invented him here. I tried to be him for you out there. I'm not good at being good."

Rey sighed. "Now you have time to practice. So what if the house is broken? Fix it. Learn to set plastisteel into place and to use a hammer. If you don't know how yet, start with a broom. This is your vision. You can make your home sturdy again, if that's what you want."

"What if I do it wrong?"

"Then you'll rebuild again and again. You love this house. Anything you love that much is worth working on until you get it right." They watched each other warily, neither admitting what both wanted to say.

He broke first.

"Once you wake up, I won't see you again for hundreds of years." His voice was ragged. "Please don't go yet. You're going to open your eyes, and return to your life and your friends, and fulfill your destiny. I want you to. I don't want you to put your future on hold because of me." She read a core of selfishness inside him, undercutting his honesty. He couldn't change who he was, only try to be better about how he acted. "Just. Stay for a little longer." "Please."

"I didn't come here to tell you goodbye." She took his hand. "I came because you called for me inside your dream, and I heard you. As long as we're connected, I'll always hear you, and I'll always come back. I promise."

She swore to herself she wouldn't put this second life ahead of her real world. There were adventures ahead of her, and so much to learn. Rey wanted to be a Jedi. She wanted to fly all the ships she could. She wanted to fall in love, maybe a dozen times over. She wanted to meet her birth family, and Finn's as well, and set foot on every planet she passed. She intended to live each day to its fullest. And each night, she would close her eyes, and she would come home.

Rey sensed his confusion, and his reluctance to believe her. He said, "It won't work. The time will be all wrong."

"Time is what we make it inside a Force vision." Luke had said as much, and she hadn't understood until now. "You can choose to pass the whole span in every minute, or sleep through the next decade experiencing a single night. I'd like to spend the days one by one with you, but this is your dream." It would take him years, Rey thought. He had his whole life to reconstruct, stone by stone.

"I could just wish it back," he said, with half a scowl. "If nothing here is real, it doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

He glared at her, then stood. For a moment, she was sure he was about to change the world around him the same way she had when she'd shown the dreamscape to Finn and Poe. Kylo had always chosen the easy path. A permanent lucid dream would become a decadent paradise, with his every sense indulged in centuries of uninhibited hedonism. His thoughts lay open before her, considering the enormity of the task before him weighed against the ease of merely waving his hand and changing the world around them to suit his pleasure.

"You'd get bored, and the house would still need to be fixed," said Rey.

His mouth moved into an unpleasant scowl, because he knew she was right. He stomped over to the ruined house, picked up a piece of debris, and tossed it aside with bad grace. He picked up another and did the same.

They would take a break later, she decided, to go for a swim before warming up together here on the shore. For now, she got to her feet and began to help him sort through the mess.

end