The control room was functioning normally. Everyone was going about their business, acting as if the world hadn't swung off its axis and begun to careen through space.

Leia couldn't hear the traffic of the busy room, couldn't hear anything but the sound of her heart, beating unnaturally loudly. Was it always that loud? Why hadn't she noticed? Could everyone hear it? That wasn't possible, surely. She was imagining it, imagining this . Her unconscious was attempting to soothe her grief, albeit in the cruellest way possible. She had survived unimaginable losses, so many of them, but she couldn't survive this, and her mind was attempting to ease her way.

Then she became aware of the sound of Han's breathing, ragged, almost gasping. This was actually happening. She wasn't imagining it. Her son was alive, and he was reaching out to her.

She jerked into action. "Patch that through to my office. I want a private line. Highest security level." She turned and hurried out of the control room, Han right behind her.

She waited until they were in her office and the door safely shut before she turned to Han, joyous and a little frightened.

He looked … worse. Filled with dread.

Her comm beeped and she snatched up the receiver. She didn't turn on the speaker function; under no circumstances did she want any of this overheard. "Ben?"

"Hello, Mother."

Her heart cracked. She strained to keep her emotion out of her voice, terrified of scaring him off. Her boy, who sat at the right hand of the being that terrorized the galaxy. She was afraid of scaring him off like a forest creature. "Thank you for sending the warning."

There was no reply, and for a long moment Leia was afraid he'd cut off the transmission. Han grabbed the receiver, his hand over hers, and angled it so he could listen as well.

Finally Ben said, "I've left them. I can give you Snoke."

Despite her best efforts a choking sob broke through. "I just want you." Someday, maybe, she'd look back in astonishment at brushing aside the offer, but she didn't care. She needed her son. She needed him back, desperately.

A longer pause, as if he hadn't expected that response. "No, you need him. I'll give him to the Resistance. But I want full immunity."

"I don't—I can't—" How could she manage this? Convincing the Resistance command not to prosecute him was a distant goal, almost simple in comparison to her urgent need to keep her boy on the line, keep him talking to her. Keep him from disappearing into the First Order, into space, into the void that Snoke had tried so hard to turn him into and had maybe succeeded, but her boy had somehow managed to bring himself to hold out a hand, and she could take it, she was almost there, she just had to find the way. If she failed this time she knew she would never get another chance, and her boy would be gone forever.

"You'll have it. Full immunity. You have my word."

Han jerked back, aghast. Leia knew why: She didn't have that power, no one person did, but right now she didn't care. She would use all the respect she'd earned from a lifetime of service, every favor she was owed, and she would get her boy back, not in front of a firing squad or a tribunal or in a jail cell, but with her. She'd had years to contemplate every little decision she'd made that had allowed Snoke closer to him, and she'd throw her life's work away to make things right.

Gladly. For her son she would do it gladly. The Resistance could guide itself, and the Republic could govern itself. If the galaxy was offering her a second chance with Ben she'd seize it no matter what the cost.

There was no answer from Ben. He was weighing her words, she knew. Deciding if they would be found wanting. The longer he hesitated the closer he was to accepting, she felt sure. He didn't want to be rushed. He'd always hated being rushed.

To her horror, Han tipped the receiver towards himself. "Have you got the girl?"

Leia jerked the receiver back in time to hear a sharply indrawn breath. "This line doesn't seem very private," Ben said curtly.

"It's just your father and me, Ben," she assured him, fighting to keep the desperate edge from her voice. "No one else. He was there when the message came in." She flashed Han a warning look. He looked frustrated, but didn't protest.

"I'm here," said a young woman with a Coruscanti accent. Leia hadn't heard such a proper accent since she'd left the senate. Hadn't Han and Finn said the girl was a scavenger from Jakku? How curious that a girl from Coruscant would be found in such circumstances.

Circumstances like a princess being a rebel leader, or a legendary knight choosing exile rather than service. Maybe there's no such thing as appropriate circumstances.

"So how do we proceed?" Leia asked gingerly.

"I assume you have to clear this with the Resistance command."

"Yes. Yes, of course," Leia said hastily, cursing her uncharacteristically sluggish mind. "But you're—Ben, you're coming back, aren't you? You're not just arranging for your freedom. You have to come back. That's my part of it. I'll get you the immunity, and you'll come back."

"Snoke is your part of it."

"Snoke is for the Resistance. You can buy them with him. I can buy them for you with him. But you're coming home to me. That's my price."

Another long silence followed, very long. Eventually a sigh filtered over the line. "All right. I suggest you talk to them as soon as possible. The destruction of Starkiller Base has sent the First Order into disarray. The longer the attack on Snoke is delayed, the more time they have to regroup. Right now I can reasonably be unaccounted for by the panic of evacuation, but soon he'll begin to wonder where I am. You'll lose your best chance at him if you don't act soon. There isn't time for the usual debate."

"I'll push it through," she said, steel beginning to enter her tone.

There was a faint sound over the receiver—a soft laugh? She couldn't tell.

"I'll contact you in an hour. You can tell me the verdict then."

The line hummed, signaling that the connection had been severed.

Han turned to her, wariness and fear almost hiding the hope on his face. "Is it a trick?"

"No. No, Han. It's our son. He's coming home."

The conference room of the new Resistance base was completely silent. Leia was fairly certain she knew what everyone was thinking: That she was so desperate that she'd abandon her ideals and everything she'd fought for to save her son.

They were absolutely right.

"You're telling us that Kylo Ren—the leader of the Knights of Ren—is actually an undercover operative?" asked General Dāran carefully. The youngest member of the executive command, she wasn't quite able to keep the disbelief from her voice.

"Yes," Leia answered with complete self-assurance. She had no doubt she could get this done, because there was no alternative. The others would agree; she would accept nothing less.

"For all these years?"

"Snoke began his attempts to lure my son to the dark side while he was still very young. Luke spent many years training Ben to resist him." That had been the plan, at least. "I offered Ben the choice to help, just as I'd been offered the choice when I was young. Ben accepted."

"You risked your own child?" General Morellan said with more skepticism than Leia wanted to hear. This was going to happen, no matter what she had to do.

"I've risked everything ," Leia choked. "I've given my entire life to seeking freedom from tyranny. I've worked for nothing else since I was a child. My parents gave their lives in the struggle. It's in my blood. And Ben's."

The command room was silent for a long moment, letting the intensity of Leia's words settle over them. They couldn't argue with her assertion. Generations of Organas and Skywalkers were venerated for their bravery. Han Solo, too, had covered himself in glory in the fight against the Empire. It was not hard to believe that her son could give up so many years of his life to aid in the fight, but Kylo Ren was not a functionary who sat back and allowed others to get dirty. Kylo Ren was Snoke's right hand. Just as his grandfather had been for Darth Sidious.

For while the general's bloodline was filled with great heroes, it also throbbed with darkness.

Leia reached for calm. Surely they would see the good in her family outweighed the bad. So many in her family had fought so hard, lost so much, for the good of the galaxy. Vader had doomed Padmé, destroyed Leia's home and parents, tortured her, condemned Han to nothingness, and finally destroyed her political career. The Force had to bend to good sometimes. After all she'd endured, it must. She had paid the price, and she was owed it.

A few of the command staff glanced around the table, plainly trying to suss out what the others were thinking.

"There is no record of this," croaked Admiral Ackbar.

"It was ears only. General Hallan and I planned it together, and Chancellor Villecham and Secretary Rousli approved it."

"All three of them were killed in the attack on Hosnian Prime," Morellan pointed out. "There's no one to confirm this."

Leia allowed a sting enter her voice. "I'm confirming it right now."

"If this has been your plan all along, why did you initially announce that the message used to warn us from D'Qar was originally from General Solo?" Morellan challenged.

"Ben was a deeply embedded agent, not a low-level spy. He was in a position to acquire the knowledge to bring down the First Order from the very highest level. That's what he's doing now. The First Order is no longer a fringe danger. When our fighters blew up Starkiller Base, he knew he could deal them a killing blow before they could regroup. He waited for his best chance, then he took it. Just like I raised him to."

Dāran frowned. "And you expect … assurances? For an agent for whom we have no record?"

"My son risked his life for the Republic, and he's risking it right now," Leia said, her voice beginning to shake. In the quiet of her mind she reached for the Force, that unfathomable power she'd largely left to her brother and son, and used it to coat her words with persuasion. "He'd be safer maintaining his cover, but he took the risk because it's the best chance we'll ever have to take down Snoke."

"How so?"

"He can give us coordinates for Snoke's location. With the First Order scrambling to regroup, we have a narrow window in which Snoke is vulnerable."

"Where is he?" Morellan asked urgently.

"I'll tell you that when I have a guarantee that my son will be immune from prosecution."

Morellan's eyes narrowed. "He's putting conditions on the information?"

" I'm putting conditions on it," Leia shot back. "My son has risked his life for years. I'm not letting him come home if I'm not confident of his welcome."

Ackbar twitched in surprise. "That's not like you, General. You've always put the welfare of the Republic first."

Yes, I have , she thought with a pang. "I'm putting it first now," she said. The lie didn't even prick at her conscience. "And all of you know me well enough to know I mean what I'm saying. I'm not calling him in without that guarantee. And if this discussion goes on much longer the decision won't matter, because we'll have lost our chance."

Rey clenched her fists, desperate to do something. The preferable thing would be to hit the monster who had taken her, but she wasn't so sure anymore about him being a monster. He'd pushed into her head and slipped through her thoughts as if he had the right to, but then he'd freed her. No torture. No … inappropriateness. Just helped her escape from the base.

She could have done it herself. She'd still been working out how to escape her bonds, but once she'd figured it out she would have been out of the cell in no time.

But she might not have gotten off the planet soon enough. And if she hadn't…

The image of the planet crumbling in on itself, fires eating it from within, would never leave her. She was tough. She was resourceful. But she couldn't have strode into the docking bay like she owned it, commandeered a ship, and flown off without a fight, like he had. He'd walked her through the base and people had jumped to get out of their way, no questions asked. When they'd boarded the shuttle, other departures had been delayed to accommodate them, even in the midst of the attack. Probably most of the ships in the hanger had been destroyed with the planet. Only so many could depart at once, and it had only taken a few minutes for the Resistance to obliterate the planet.

"What do you want?"

Rey jerked her head up to look at her captor. Or her rescuer? She didn't see how he could be both, but he was. Kylo wasn't wearing a mask, and his face was painfully open.

She wasn't sure she liked him focusing on her, sort-of rescuer or not. He hadn't so much as glanced at her since they'd left the planet. He'd motioned her to the comm during his tense discussion with his mother—the legendary General Leia Organa, she'd taken it—and then brushed her back after she'd spoken. Since then he'd slumped in the pilot's chair, frustration and anxiety passing in waves over his face.

"I don't know what you mean," she answered honestly. She'd looked right inside his head, straight to a writhing mass of tension and insecurity, but she had no idea why he would ever care what she wanted.

But he had chosen to help her, this strange boy, so she was putting her skepticism on hold. For the moment.

"It looks like I might be going to the Resistance. If that happens you'll come with me. After that you can head out to wherever you want."

"And if it doesn't happen?"

"That's what I'm asking. What do you want?"

Rey didn't hesitate. "I have to go back to—"

"Don't say Jakku. There's nothing for you there. You shouldn't lie to yourself any longer."

"My family—"

"Isn't coming back. They wouldn't abandon a child and then come back for an adult. Would you even want to be with people who'd do that?"

She looked away, tears stinging her eyes. She gritted her teeth and forced them back.

"You have to train."

She swung around. "What?"

"In the Force. You're extremely strong, that's how you were able to push me out of your mind and dig into mine. Luke Skywalker can train you. Maybe. If he comes back. He's good at it," he added reluctantly.

"Is that why you wanted the map? To train with him?"

Kylo chuckled, the sound bitter. They both winced a little. "I think I've studied with him as much as I'm going to."

"But you think I should train with him?"

His gaze slid past her to land on the wall. "I think you should train," he hedged. "If you don't want to train with him, you can train with someone else."

"Who else could there be? I thought Jedi were a myth."

He mumbled something she couldn't make out.

"What?"

He gritted his teeth. "You could train with me."

"After what you did to me?" she demanded in disbelief.

"If you mean released you from captivity, then yes."

She bit out a laugh. " You're the reason I was in captivity."

"I was gentle with you. Gentler than you can know."

"It didn't feel gentle."

He stared at her, his dark eyes stormy. They were always stormy, she thought. The only time they hadn't been was when he was contemplating the wall after his discussion with his parents and disappeared somewhere inside his head. But when talking with her—or them—his eyes were angry-sad, locked somewhere between rage and tears. Madness and sadness. She could feel both coursing over him.

"Do you remember what the stormtrooper who interrupted our discussion said?"

A discussion . A discussion in which one of the participants was chained to a torture chair. Even if there had been no torture. "Yes."

"He said my master wanted to see me. The Supreme Leader doesn't normally interrupt my sessions. But this was about Luke Skywalker, and that matters to him. And when I told him that you were resisting my attempts, he commanded me to bring you to him. He said he was going to show me the dark side."

Rey froze, comprehending, with a sickening suddenness, how much danger she'd been in on that base. When she woke up in the chair she'd been angry and a little frightened, but had somehow not doubted that she'd be able to get away. Her struggles on Jakku had been constant, but had left her with a deep confidence in herself. It was a harsh and pitiless world, and she had survived it. No one had taken care of her but herself.

But she knew, from her glimpse into Kylo Ren's mind, that she would have been helpless against Snoke.

His voice drew her back to the present. "And if I had done that, scavenger, you would have realized exactly how gentle I'd been with you."

A part of her didn't want to ask. Didn't want the image in her head, where she could examine it and terrify herself in retrospect. And yet—"What would he have done?"

"Torn his way into your mind. Ripped down every paltry defense you could muster and burn through you as if your pain were fuel. If he was being kind you'd be in agony for days afterward. If he wasn't, your mind would be broken beyond repair, and he'd have a stormtrooper put you down. The Supreme Leader is not known for his kindness."

Rey was aghast. "Why would you follow someone like that?"

His eyes were heavy upon her and gave nothing away, but a sense of grief washed over her. She had an impulse, sudden and stupid, to apologize for prying. He was helping her. His cruel master had demanded her on a silver platter, and he'd refused. For some reason, he'd refused.

Instead he'd unlocked her shackles, thrown a cloak over her, and spirited her away from the besieged base. And now she could deliver the message to the Resistance and join them, or go back to Jakku to wait for her family and pretend none of this had ever happened.

He'd given her her life back. He'd taken her, invaded her mind, but freed her. And hadn't tried to punish her for pushing back into him, despite his dismay. He was strange and unknowable, a shuttered window, yet she knew him. Part of him. She'd seen his secrets and felt them too, and knew his mask was crumbling. She'd watched his shoulders tense when he spoke to his mother, crept far enough to the side to see vulnerability edge into his face when his mother insisted he return. And seen him recoil when Han Solo spoke. His own father! How could anyone look so upset when hearing their father? She couldn't understand it. She would have given a week's rations to hear her father's voice. For her father to care enough to try to save her.

"You don't have to tell me."

She jerked her head up. She'd forgotten he was there, somehow. "What?"

"You don't have to tell me what you're going to do. But you'll have to reach some decision. A better decision than 'Go back to Jakku.'"

If she didn't go back to Jakku, her family couldn't find her.

If she did go back to Jakku, her life was unchanged. And her family wouldn't find her, because they hadn't. She'd been there for 15 years, waiting, and they weren't suddenly going to come now. They were dead, or maybe they just didn't care about some little girl they'd dumped on Jakku with the other garbage. Their lives went on without her and hers had stood still waiting for them.

Because waiting was the only life she knew.

He sent the same message as the last time, in the same code. There was really no reason to alter it.

This time his mother opened a line immediately and began to speak rapidly, giving him no chance to break in. "Ben, I want to tell you how overjoyed everyone with the Resistance is to welcome a returning hero back into their arms after so many years undercover with the First Order. It's been hard for your father and I, but we know how much you wanted to bring down the First Order. With the information you've obtained, all those years we've all sacrificed won't have been in vain. You're going to have a triumphant homecoming, Ben."

Of course. Of course she'd managed it, the great Leia Organa, who sent her son away but kept a galactic government afloat. This was in her wheelhouse in a way that cookies and milk had never been.

Rey grabbed his arm, giving him a warning glance. He shook her off and leaned forward. "I'm very glad, Mother." To his mortification his voice softened. "I've … missed you."

Leia's voice was thick. "I've missed you, my darling. I'll transmit the coordinates now."

"We'll be there soon."

He didn't turn around after terminating the call, and Rey let him be.

These were his last moments of freedom. His mother may have smoothed the way for him, but he was trapped nonetheless. Pulled back into a family that had pushed him out 20 years before, expected to live a lie.

He was going from servant to son. From mendicant to supplicant.

His head sagged.

Kylo Ren or Ben Solo, his life would never be his own.

Kylo Ren was used to tension. It had been a part of his life every day for as long as he could remember. Tension at his mother's absence, Han Solo's disaffection, Luke Skywalker's disapproval. Tension as he attempted to learn how best to please his master, an impossible task. How can you predict the desires of a god? Even after his stature had grown and he operated with a degree of autonomy, he'd been forced to consort with First Order officers and dignitaries who had no understanding of the delicacy of his position. They thought he was an attack dog. In reality he was less a soldier than a religieux whose vows including combat. His life was ascetic.

Acidic , he corrected himself. It was an acidic field where no seed could grow.

Kylo reached for his helmet, and even as he took it he realized he couldn't wear it. His mother's desperate lie would never hold if he went out there as the first among the Knights of Ren.

"Your cowl, too," the girl instructed.

He raised an eyebrow.

"You're supposed to act like you weren't really with the First Order, right? Then take off the cowl. And the gloves. If you wear them, nobody's going to think of you as anything but Kylo Ren."

He could feel no ill will coming from her, but the kindness felt like a trap. "Why would you help me?"

"Why would you save me?"

He had no answer to that, at least none he could articulate. Wordlessly he removed his cowl and gloves as directed.

If he did come up with a reason, he wasn't sure either of them would want to hear it.

They weren't meeting at the Resistance's new base, that was obvious. Unless the new base was an exceedingly well-hidden bunker. If it was, they'd upped their game.

The coordinates his mother had relayed took them exactly into the middle of nowhere. A field with low-lying grasses and wildflowers, some distant mountains that were thickly forested. Beside him he could feel the girl, Rey, vibrating with excitement. This lush world was an opposite to the wasteland she'd been consigned to as a child.

Strange that any parent would leave their child in such a place. But he knew that even the most basic nurturing did not come naturally to some people. He had more experience with that than he cared to think of.

Two trucks waited at the side of the meadow, a cluster of people standing around them, waiting for them to disembark.

For him, he corrected himself. No one was worried that Rey was leading them into a trap. As far as they were concerned, she was just detritus. It was funny, in a grim way. It was the same way the Supreme Leader had regarded her.

He released the ramp. If he really was still Ben Solo he would have gestured for Rey to go first. Of course, he didn't think putting her between him and the Resistance would actually be a courteous gesture, but he doubted she was aware of the New Galactic Republic's social conventions in any event. He'd saved her life, so she was grateful. He found it a more honest exchange than the elaborate, deceptive courtesies the so-called civilized world favored.

He started down the ramp, leaving Rey to trail in his wake and perhaps miss a bolt or two of the possible barrage.

The welcoming party was small, and, as he got closer, he could see that they didn't seem armed. She was right in front, looking strangely tiny. Had she always been that small? She had to be several inches shorter than the scavenger. And worn, like she never slept. But the look on her face—the look was so tender, so loving, that it stabbed at him, an actual pain in his chest. He must have stopped, because Rey ran into him with a soft thud.

She stepped around him and surveyed the random assortment of people sent to greet them. She spotted Han Solo and brightened up, then looked up at Kylo, her gaze searching.

Her hand, warm and strong, slipped into his. He flinched, and she squeezed warningly. She started down the ramp and gave his hand a tug, and he followed like a house pet. He had saved her, and now it appeared she was returning the favor.

His mother couldn't wait any longer, and rushed to him, throwing her arms around him. She fit completely under his arms, so small. He couldn't believe he'd once fit in her arms. She was shaking, sobbing silently, and despite himself he could feel his hands moving soothingly down her back. He had to step away, had to get away, but he couldn't move. She had lanced him through with her pain.

He began to shake as well. His eyes ached and he forced his weakness back, but he couldn't let go of her, burying his face where her neck met her shoulder, that place he had always sought comfort when she had been the tall one and he the one who needed reassurance.

She smelled the same.

His breath caught once, just once, before he mastered his vulnerability.

"Welcome home, son."

Kylo looked up. It hadn't been his mother who spoke, but Han Solo.

It was a long moment before he could bring himself to meet his father's eyes. There had been a time, once, when he would have given up everything to hear those words from him.

His father looked guarded, as he often had around Kylo, even back when he was Ben Solo. Kylo had seen holos, in later childhood, of his father playing with him when he was very young, looking happy and open. He wondered when it was that he had moved from being Han Solo's son to some strange other to be regarded with suspicion. Which had manifested earlier—his powers in the Force, or his occasional moroseness? Either would be anathema to Han Solo. He was made for music and clear skies, not tears and unknowable powers.

And now Kylo was trapped with him, unless Han took off for parts unknown. He could stand his mother. With her arms around him he could finally feel his heart beat again, even if it was lying to him. But his father—

In the distance a familiar glint caught his eye. He stared at it. Considered his options. Shrugged to himself. He shouldn't have been surprised, really.

When the little convoy was ready to leave, the shuttle loaded onto a set of hover pods and hooked to the back of one of the trucks, Kylo boarded with the rest of them. He looked at his mother, at the officials she introduced him to, at Rey. They were almost at the entrance to a tunnel before he glanced back.

The glint was still there.