One

What was left of the Resistance packed on to the Millennium Falcon and raced away from the Crait System. Chewie sat in the co-pilot seat while Rey maneuvered them past the floating rubble that used to be the Supremacy.

A tear escaped her eye as she thought about all of the loss of life that day. She doubted her decisions. If she stayed with him, how many could have been saved? But Rey couldn't think of that at that moment, she had to get her friends to safety.

Chewie called out next to her, about to jump them into hyperspace. "Brace yourselves!" Rey called out over the ship's comm system.

The Falcon seemed to wheeze when it was finally pulled from hyperspace. Rey and Chewie looked at each other, both knowing that the ship would need repairs before doing any other jumps.

"Where are we, Chewie?" Rey had depended on her co-pilot to get them to safety since he had traveled all over the galaxy, and she only knew Jakku.

"Kashyyyk. My homeworld." The Wookiee roared as they descended through the thick cloud cover to a planet with blue oceans and dense forests covering much of the surface.

Rey was still in awe that there could be so much water and greenery in the universe. "Was it wise to bring us here? Won't they think to look for us here?"

Chewie just shrugged his shoulders and took over the controls to direct the ship to a part of the planet that he knew they would be hidden.

Leia came into the cockpit and placed her hand on Rey's shoulder, "The Wookiee have always been friends to the Republic and the Resistance."

Taking the Wookiee's lead, Rey helped to bring the Falcon down in a clearing. The trees surrounding them were strange-looking, thicker than other trees she had seen, twisted trucks and short stubby canopies, each reaching for just a little more light from the planet's one star.

"The Black Forest will shield us from detection."

"The planet's magnetic field makes the Black Forest a dead zone to any electronic sensors," Leia added.

Rey's gut still turned with unease. She did not have to remind Leia that Kylo Ren did not use electronic devices. She had yet to tell anyone about the connection she had with Ben-with Kylo-while on Ahch-To.

The bond went silent when she felt Luke's Light leave the Force. Snoke was so confident that he was the designer of the bond. But even after Snoke's death, as she fought side by side with Ben, Rey still felt utterly connected to him. She was sure that if Luke was the creator of the bond that he would have told her why she needed to be connected to Kylo, but he seemed clueless until he saw them together in her hut.

They finished shutting down the flight systems, and she unfastened the four-point harness that held her in the pilot seat. Chewie followed her, and they went to address the other Resistance fighters.

Leia hung back for just a moment. Pulling something from her pocket, she turned the gold dice around in her hand for a moment before hanging them in their rightful place in the cockpit of Falcon. A name crossed her lips, barely above a whisper, "Ben."

When they lowered the ramp, the forest was quiet…almost too quiet. Chewie barked out an order and grabbed his bowcaster, going down the ramp first.

He made a few friendly, but warning calls to any other Wookiees that might be waiting for them in the tree cover. Before too long, a response came.

"Chewbacca, is that you?"

"Lohgarra?" Chewie called back in reply.

A Wookiee with pure white fur came from behind a tree, her weapon drawn, but lowered it when she saw her long lost friend.

Rey peeked down the ramp and saw Chewie and a pale Wookiee embracing and squawking at each other in Shyriiwook. They were communicating too fast for her to follow, but she guessed by their interaction that the Resistance was welcome on the planet.

She walked cautiously up to her hairy friend, and then he started to gesturing to Rey and speaking even faster to the other Wookiee. "You both have to slow down. I only speak some Shyriiwook."

Having lived and worked beside a wide range of otherworldly beings, Rey was very accomplished in understanding close to fifteen languages.

Chewie called out that it was safe for the rest of the crew to come off the ship, and Rey yelled the command in Galactic Basic. Ten others walked off the Falcon on to the soft soil of Kashyyyk.

Leia walked up to Lohgarra and wrapped her arms around the elder Wookiee. "It has been too long, my friend."

Lohgarra motioned with her arm and gave out a grunt, instructing the group to follow her.

Through a cover of thick brush came trees so large that they would dwarf a Star Destroyer. Winding staircases connected different levels of platforms built into the trees. On each platform stood small buildings, some no bigger than her stone hut on Ahch-To.

Survivors in need of medical attention were filtered off into a hut on a lower level, while Chewie, Leia, Rey, Poe, and Finn were ushered to a higher level. The structure the entered was built around the truck of the tree and offered a fantastic vantage point of the surrounding forest.

Rey was in awe and even gasped as she saw the bright yellow sun setting beyond the canopy. The Force within her blossomed as she surrounded herself with the pure wild of the land and connected to the massive trees and the beings that inhabit them. She quickly reined in her signature, not wanting to send out a signal to him.

Leia translated for Chewbacca and Lohgarra since she was most familiar with the Shyiiwook language.

"What brings you to Kashyyyk?" Lohgarra asks.

Chewie quickly recaps the events of the past few weeks.

"So, this is all that is left of the Resistance?"

Leia steps forward, "Yes."

"And Luke? The Jedi?"

Both Leia and Chewie look back at Rey, who was still engrossed by the view from the treetop. "It's her." Leia states with a mix of dread and hope.

Lohgarra furrows her brow. "You may stay for a while, but we are not equipped to take on the First Order."

"We only need enough time to tend to the wounded and repair the Falcon," Rey stated, picked up on the last part of the conversation.

It was days later, and Chewie and Rey were still pulling apart the Falcon, trying to find and repair what had been pieced together by the junkers on Jakku.

Rey was working on the cockpit console and removed an access panel to get to the wires and boards behind. She pulled at a steel sheet, cursing under her breath at the neglected ship. When the white but rusted panel gave way, she was met with a rat's nest of wires. "Gods, this is a mess," she said to herself before attempting to determine which connectors need replacing.

At the back of the compartment, there appeared to be a piece of paper. Rey reached through the maze of wires and reached it with her fingertips.

It was a photo, folded in half, and looking very worn. On the half that Rey could see, there was a grassy field with a forest in the background. The trees were not like the large ones on Kashyyyk, but smaller like the woods on Takodana.

The memory of Takodana came rushing back to Rey. Maz and the castle, the call from Anakin's lightsaber. The visions the Force showed her when she touched the saber also flooded her mind. Her screaming like a child, the rain struck battleground and the then-unknown masked man in black stalking her down, saber drawn. The cold forest of Star Killer Base and again, Kylo blocking her every attempt to escape. And then there was the voice that whispered to her-what had it said-something about the 'first steps' and she swore she heard 'It's Ben.'

Again she shook him from her mind as she looked at the photo. Unfolding the photo and looking at the white backing, she saw in neat script, Tralus-15 AYB.

She turned the photo over she was able to see the whole picture. Sucking in a breath, Rey almost dropped it to the ground. Standing in the middle of the tall grass was a much younger Leia and Han. But what struck her was the boy between them-Ben.

His head only came up to Han's mid-chest. His hair was still dark and shaggy, blowing in an unseen wind that cross the field just as the photo was taken. There was a carefree brightness to his eyes, and the smile that he wore almost brought her to tears.

Rey knew it was Ben, but the shadow of a man that she knew as Kylo Ren was nowhere in this picture. Her chest ached in an unfamiliar way. As a tear slid down her cheek, Rey quickly shut down her emotions, not wanting to send off a Force signal. She refolded the photo and slid it into her pants pocket.

In her room that night, Rey took out the photo again and tried to imagine herself in place of Ben. What would it have been like to have parents like Leia and Han? Kylo's voice rings her ears, 'You would have been disappointed.'

Sitting on her bed, which happened to be a padded mat on the floor of her hut, Rey placed the photo between the pages of a Jedi text. Her accommodation were on a platform over a hundred feet off the ground, and Rey was ever thankful that she was not fearful of heights.

That night's sleep was fitful. Rey found herself in that field, feeling the warm breeze that had ruffled Ben's hair in such a childish way. But the boy with dark hair and dark eyes was nowhere to be found.

"Kira!" Han called happily, and a small girl with brown hair came from the woods and ran into waiting arms.

"I found flowers, Da!" The girl said excitedly and held up a handful of white blossoms.

Han inspected the flowers and then smelled them, "Your mother will love these. Why don't you take them to her." Han placed the girl back on the ground, and Rey saw the child start to run towards a wooden structure.

Rey woke with a start. She was covered in sweat, and had tears streaming down her face.

She didn't sleep for the rest of the night, opting to walk along the platforms in the tree village. Firstly wondering why Han had called her-the girl a different name in the dream.

The field plagued her dreams almost nightly. Some times Han and Leia were there, other times it was just her. Then after being on Kashyyyk for nearly four weeks, the dreams changed.

On this night, she was a child again, a vision of her younger self. She was playing where the field met the forest, chasing a grasshopper as it jumped from blade to blade.

Toddling into the shadows of the forest, she laughed as she watched the little bug hop on to a tree. Then she let out a little gasp. From behind the tree came a boy, maybe five years older than herself. He was dressed like the boy in the photo.

"Hey," the boy said kindly. "What are you doing?"

Rey was pulled from inside the girl's body, and she watched the interaction as if floating above them.

"I'm trying to catch that grasshopper," the girl stated.

The boy looked around, seeing that the insect was much too high on the tree trunk to catch. He looked back down at the girl, "I'm Ben."

"Kira," the girl answer, using the strange name that somehow felt familiar to Rey.

"Do you want to play?" Ben asked.

The girl smiled, reaching out and tapping the boy on the chest. "Tag! You're it!" She yelled before running out into the field.

Ben gave chase, laughing in a way that almost sounded angelic.

Rey watched, unable to move, unable to wake as the two children ran around the flower dotted glen. Laughing and lightly tapping each other in an endless joyful game of tag.

A movement off to the left caught Rey's attention. Leia came out of the wooden home and was calling out to the girl.

"Kira! Time for supper!"

The girl grabbed the boy's hand, and together they ran for the home.

"Who is your friend?" Leia asked, seeing the flushed cheeks of both children.

"This is Ben. Can he stay for supper?" The girl asked, still not dropping the boy's hand.

Leia smiled, "Sure, why don't you both get washed up."

The children ran into the home, still hand in hand. It was only when Leia closed the door that Rey woke.

Her heart was racing, and her right hand was sweaty and warm. She quickly figured out that tonight would be another long night of walking the platforms.

Twenty-eight sleeps since his defeat on Crait. It was challenging to gauge day and night in the cold emptiness of deep space. The Supremacy was destroyed and with it all of the evidence of his betrayal.

The Force bond with the girl was deafeningly quiet. Kylo Ren paced in his quarters, bordering on madness. He was questioning if his current mental state was due to the constant interrogations from Hux concerning the death of Snoke, his new ascension to Supreme Leader, or his fear that the bond had been severed in death.

Kylo Ren ceased his movement; the thought of the girl being dead set a pain deep in his chest. He mused that if she were truly gone, he would have been able to feel it, just like he felt his mother's pain when he ran Han through.

Han, his mother-Rey. All of the pain that he caused was raining down on him, and he felt the swells of darkness attempting to pull him under.

Just thinking her name, for he had not let it cross his lips since the Supremacy, cause a new flood of discomfort. He had begged, would have gone down on his knees if he thought it would help sway her to his side. But she rejected him, just as everyone else in his shallow life.

He needed to get out of his head. He wasted too much of his time on the dwindling hope that the girl…his girl was still alive and that by some great mercy of the Force, their bond was still intact, but dormant.

Kylo Ren donned his new helmet and left his quarters, moving swiftly down the corridors with an awkward lumbering gait. His long black cloak flowed behind him, and he would almost look elegant if it also didn't appear that his feet were too heavy to move correctly.

Making his way to the bridge was like second nature, and his legs moved on their own accord. The perfectly slicked back orangish-blonde hair of General Hux seemed to mock Kylo. Under the mask, he was a mess, having not bathed or shaved in days. Outwardly he appeared to be the vision of a menacing Knight striving for revenge, but on the inside he was floundering.

"Nice of you to join us, Ren," Hux quipped, not taking his eyes off the light of stars in hyperspace speeding by the ship's bridge porthole.

Kylo let the snide remark slide with a roll of his shoulders. He never had a good relationship with Hux and with Snoke gone, if he was unable to keep Hux in check, Kylo feared what was to come of himself and the First Order.

"What is our course?" Ren asked just as flat as his fatigued mind would let him.

Hux finally turned to look at his black-clad companion. "I am not sure you need to be privy to that information." Hux turned again, looking at the star maps on the display screens. "You have managed to botch every mission concerning the Resistance, and Command had lost faith in you."

Kylo's hands tighten in his black leather gloves. He was attempting to not take his rage out on everyone working the bridge. Hux knew what he was doing, choosing his words carefully, prodding at the verbal and emotional abuse they both received while training under Snoke and Hux's father. But he also wanted to remind Hux of his power, so Kylo reached out with the Force, just enough to induce discomfort.

Hux made a gagging sound and then rounded on Kylo with wide eyes. When the choking sensation passed, the expression of indifference returned, "If you are done with your childish tricks, I do have a job for you."

Ren turned his masked face toward Hux and cocked his head slightly to the side, intrigued.

"With Captain Phasma out of commission, the troopers need a new leader…"

"I will not lead an army of thoughtless troopers. My unique abilities would be wasted on such a task."

Hux exhaled, annoyed, "You will be selecting a new Captain." The General almost had a smile pull at the corners of his lips with the next statement. "Again, the Command does not trust you with anything remotely important to the rebuilding of the First Order."

Kylo swiftly threw back the right side of his cloak, exposing his lightsaber. Hux had the curtsy to flinch in anticipation of Ren's reaction. Usually, Kylo would fly into a fit, igniting his saber, slashing, and destroying the closest inanimate object. Instead, he just smirked behind his mask, satisfied that Hux still feared him.

"Consider it done," Ren drawled while spinning and stalking out of the bridge.

Once the automatic doors to the bridge closed behind him, Kylo's gait became more lumbering, his shoulders rolling forward just slightly. Although he was only an inch taller than Hux, in his mask and boots, he appeared to tower over the sniveling General.

Kylo Ren may be the new Supreme Leader in title, but Hux still controlled the troopers. If he was ever going to make changes to the First Order and have a chance of Rey ruling beside him in their New Order, he needed to pick his commanders carefully.

Back in his quarters, the mask that hid his guilt and conflict made a hissing sound as the mouthpiece moved up and out, allowing Kylo to free his head of its confines.

He removed his cowl, tunic, and undershirt before sitting on his bed and pulling his boots from his feet. Taking an elastic band from the table next to the bed, Kylo tied his hair into a knot on top of his head.

Sitting down on the floor in the middle of his room, Kylo hated that he devoted so much of his time looking for her. A few times a day, he would sit like this, in mediation, searching for her Force signature. He could no longer feel his uncle and his mother's signature was faint, but there.

Was Rey hiding from him? Had she learned how to put up a block? Who was teaching her? Surely not his mother.

Kylo worried for her, knowing how strong she was with the Force and how confusing it can be not to know how to channel that power.

His time at the academy felt like Luke was trying to mold him into something that he was not. With Snoke, again who Kylo was expected to be, did not fit. Now more than ever, he felt torn in two. The Light and the Dark both fought for control, and he just wished for balance.

Over an hour of medication turned up nothing. Kylo felt Force users in the galaxy, but none of them were her. He stood from the floor and entered the fresher to ready for bed.

Twenty-nine sleeps. Thirty sleeps. Thirty-one sleeps. Kylo felt his sanity slip each day without feeling Rey through the Force. He practiced in his mind what he would say to her if she were to let him in. He would fall at her feet and beg for forgiveness. He would rage at her for being so foolish and reckless going back to the Resistance. He would tell her that he…that he…no he couldn't tell her that.

Another night of silence awaited him. At this point, he felt that he was going to drown in loneliness. Rey told him that he wasn't alone, but in the quiet of his darkened room, with no one on the ship that could understand the battle that was raging within him, it was the most alone a person could ever feel.

For some reason, that night, he dreamed about a holiday that he took with his parents when he was ten years old. It was in the Corellian System, but he could not remember the name of the world that they spent almost a month on.

This holiday was right before his mother went away to handle the Black Fleet Crisis. Right before he was shipped off to his uncle at the academy, this was the last time they were together as a family. The last time that he felt love, hope, and fulfillment.