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Chapter Text

“If two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” –Qoheleth

General Leia Organa-Solo staggered but managed to keep her balance. Thankfully. Wouldn’t she be a sight sprawled on Ajan Kloss’ black soil in a corona of shattered glass and reeking of liquor? Not quite the image she strove to project. She snorted. Quietly. So as not to alert the sentries.

The dirt paths threaded with roots and rocks were difficult enough to navigate during the day cycle, let alone under Ajara’s silvered lens. But the decision to leave her cane in her suite reached nerfherder levels of stupid. When had that ever stopped her?

She probed with her toe before placing her weight on the ball and then heel, repeated the process with her other foot, and continued the pattern of halting steps. It’d take a while, but she’d arrive at her destination. Eventually.

What else was she supposed to do? She couldn’t very well carry a bottle of Corellian whiskey with two tumblers and still manage a walking stick. She refused to bypass this day. And she’d given her word to Han.

“Promise me, princess,” he’d said. Well, she was keeping her promise.

Mostly.

A clink sounded from her side, and Leia muffled the cut-glass tumblers against her fatigues. If her clatter brought perimeter security running, that’d be just dandy. Catch the esteemed General Organa sneaking through the night for a clandestine bottoms-up with her padawan. Never mind her Force-ghost brother’s opinion on mixing Jedi with alcohol.

The cave entrance into the tunnel system loomed ahead like the maw of a massive jungle beast.

It would have been more convenient if Rey accepted a berth on the Tantive, along with everyone else who’d claimed the old Organa consular vessel as home base. She could have requested Rey’s presence in her private suite and none would be the wiser. That’d be too easy. Instead, Rey insisted on sleeping alone in the jungle moon's long-abandoned barracks. But then she was accustomed to solitude on Jakku and must crave silence in the Force.

Leia toed past another root and eased forward. Careful now. One step at a time.

Observing the anniversary of the Galactic Concordance had been a subdued affair earlier in the day. Had it really been three decades? She could count on one hand those among their number who’d been born, let alone those who remembered.

What was there to celebrate when the First Order had broken the treaty and postured the galaxy for another civil war? The Resistance was still hemorrhaging after Crait. Their purported allies were reluctant to take sides, ponying up excuse after excuse for their refusal to offer aid. Leia could forgive her little band of warriors their lackluster enthusiasm.

Chewbacca was one of the few who knew how Leia had passed the historic signing, not that she could reminisce with him. He was off-planet, gone to rustle support from his Wookiee kin on Kashyyyk.

No, this night, thirty years ago, she’d spent laboring to give her son his first breath. She’d been afraid through the pregnancy that she wouldn’t feel for her baby what a mother should, that she wouldn’t know what to do—and she didn’t, as it turned out. But when they laid him on her chest, warm and wet, crowned with that shock of dark hair, her heart bloomed with love. And when she saw him in his father’s arms? How Han first cradled his son, half-terrified and wholly awed, well, her heart was never the same. For one eternal moment, their little family was perfect.

“Promise me, princess,” he’d said, “that you’ll tell him the truth.”

If only she had. Would that have made the difference? Could she have helped her son reconcile with the knowledge of Darth Vader as his grandfather when she hadn’t come to terms with it herself? Could she have prevented the rise of Kylo Ren?

A sob caught in her throat and she paused to gaze through the overarching trees silhouetted against the gas giant’s crescent. Bright as it was, stars still spangled the night sky. He was out there somewhere in the wide, wide galaxy. Her Ben. Her little starfighter, all grown up.

“Promise me, princess,” Han had said, his heart thrumming beneath her ear and his lips muffled in her braided hair, “when our son comes home, that you’ll forgive him.” As if Han had known, in a moment of uncharacteristic prescience, that he’d depart on her commission and never return. But she could neither keep nor break her promise. Ben hadn’t come home.

No. No more morbid thoughts about what her son had become. Not today. She’d remember who he’d been and who she hoped he’d be again.

At last, she stepped onto the tunnel's smooth floor. A faded illumination strip lined the hall across from a row of doors, their aurebesh labels faded and peeling. Which one was Rey’s again?

The lights wavered and Leia steadied herself against the rough-hewn wall. Maybe it wasn’t just the uneven ground or lack of a walking stick. Maybe she was a dram lightheaded. She closed her eyes against the dizziness.

On Ben’s thirteenth birthday, Han had come home to find her slumped on the ‘fresher floor, inebriated and at the tail end of a cathartic cry, all because her kriffing brother commed to cancel their annual visit. “He’s still having a difficult time without you,” Luke said. “He’s too attached.” Of course he was. Ben was her son, for Force’s sake. What good was a twin if Luke couldn’t understand the first thing about being a parent?

“Promise me, princess, that you won’t drink alone,” Han had said after that.

So maybe she’d knocked back a finger or two of Han’s whiskey in a bout of self-pity before she thought of Rey. With Chewie off-planet, who else on the base would understand? Who else would be willing to lift a glass in toast to the birth of Ben Solo?

Leia shared in Rey’s heartbreak after the battle of Crait, listened to how she tried and failed to bring Ben home. She hadn’t missed how Rey defended him in the months since, bristling in the Force at slurs against Kylo Ren, pointing out positive changes in the First Order and crediting them to the Supreme Leader.

Rey wasn’t wrong. The First Order had left the Resistance alone, for once preoccupied with an agenda Leia had yet to unravel—which worried her, if she was honest. What was Ben up to?

But that was a problem for another day. A day that wasn’t Ben’s birthday.

The sound of a door sliding open drew her attention. Light flooded the dim hallway a few paces ahead, granting illusory warmth to the duracrete.

“Master?” Rey stepped into the doorway, haloed in gold.

“Leia,” she corrected for the countless time.

“May I help you?” Rey’s sincerity and concern pulsed in the Force. She was obviously ready for sleep, her long, slim legs extending from short shorts to bare feet, and more relaxed than Leia had ever witnessed, even after all the hours they spent together.

She should leave. It was selfish to intrude on Rey’s few evening hours. But wasn’t a princess permitted to be selfish for once her in life? Surely there were allowances, all things considered.

Leia lifted the tumblers pinched at the rims in one hand and the whiskey bottle by the neck in the other. Better to be direct. “It’s Ben’s birthday.”

“His birthday?” A flurry of emotion flashed over Rey’s face too quick to interpret. “Of course. Come in.”

Rey might have mumbled something like “the nerfherder” as Leia crossed the hall and entered the tiny quarters, but she couldn’t be certain and she didn’t inquire. Perhaps she was tipsier than she realized. It’d been a long time since she’d touched Han’s whiskey.

The door hissed closed behind them.

Leia moved to a modest table with two chairs, topped with the ancient Jedi texts Rey was studying. She set the bottle and glassware down next to—was that a calligraphy set? When had Rey taken up lettering? Memories of her sweet boy twirling a pen through his fingers and bent over his work clenched her gut.

She removed the stopper. “May I pour you a finger?”

“Oh, I—” Rey wrinkled her nose. “I really shouldn’t, but, er, it is his birthday and he neglected—” Leia narrowed her eyes at the non-sequitur, but Rey squared her shoulders and nodded, as if to convince herself. “Yes, please.”

Why the hesitation? She’d seen Rey drink before—not to excess—but in solidarity with her friends. It’s not as if she were pregnant. The bottle clanked against the glass rim as Leia measured a short finger each. She’d probably had enough, but one more wouldn’t hurt.

After passing Rey her drink, Leia raised her tumbler. “To Ben, my beautiful son, on his birthday. Wherever he is, may he—” What did she wish for him? May he quit rampaging across the galaxy? Come home? Return to the light? She smiled. “May he know how much he’s loved.”

“To Ben,” Rey echoed as she lifted her glass and tossed the contents back in a single swallow.

Leia tipped the whiskey into her mouth, closed her eyes, and allowed the fire to burn down her throat. It tasted like Han. It tasted like the Falcon. Like arguments and adventure and passion. Like love. Stars, how she missed him. Both of them.

“That’s—” Rey choked and Leia’s eyes snapped open. Her padawan’s face turned crimson as she spluttered. “Gah. Sorry.”

“My dear.” Leia extended a hand, though too late to intervene. “You can sip Correllian whiskey, you know.”

“Right.” Rey sniffed, eyes watering. “I’ll just brew a cup of tea. Wash that down. Care for any?”

“Tea would be lovely.” Leia smiled. Pleasant warmth traveled through her limbs and tingled in her extremities. Maybe she should sit. She lowered onto the sleeper’s edge. The mattress was broader than the Tantive’s bunks and spread with a tattered blanket and a couple pillows far past their prime. It was testament to the Resistance’s plight that she couldn’t offer better linens.

Rey busied herself with a micro-heating unit in the corner. Where had she procured such an extensive assortment of tea tins when the Resistance was hard-pressed to ration food?

While she waited, Leia studied the sparse apartment. Repurposed lighting draped from the ceiling and lent a homey glow. Several potted plants stood beside the ‘fresher door. Anakin’s mended lightsaber peeked from beneath Rey’s arm wraps, which were unwound on a footlocker.

Muzzy warmth lingered in the Force and gave the impression Rey had been sleeping.

“Here you are.” Rey offered the tea in a mug hijacked from the mess.

She breathed the steam curling over the edge and a vision of Amilyn Holdo in her stately gown and purple hair overtook Leia. They savored tea on Leia’s porch in Hanna City and watched little Ben’s antics. His grubby hands flew starships across the lawn while his lips pursed to blow raspberries for sound effects.

“He’s darling, Leia.”

“He wants to be a pilot just like his dad.” She sipped the pale gold brew. “This tea is the perfect blend of spice and sweet. Did you bring it from home?”

“I did.” Ami chuckled and nodded at Ben. “Just so long as he doesn’t go into smuggling.”

The memory evaporated and Leia blinked at her protégé. “Unless I’m mistaken, this is Gatalentan Melange. Where in the worlds did you obtain this?”

“It was—er—it was a gift.” It wasn’t like Rey to dissemble. She looked down and palmed her neck in a gesture so like the one Ben had picked up from his father that Leia stared. For once, Rey’s head was free of the trademark triple buns. Instead—

Leia’s heart faltered in her chest. How had she not noticed before? She gasped and squinted. Had she imbibed too much? “Look at your hair.”

An elegant braided coiffure wreathed Rey’s head, unmistakably Alderaanian. The girl patted her head as if she didn’t know they were there, her eyes widened, and her cheeks flushed a pretty pink. “Oh, I forgot.”

“Those braids—” Leia beckoned with her fingers. She’d stand if she didn’t feel so woozy. “May I—I haven’t seen braids like these for years. May I—would you mind if I—?”

“It’s fine.” Rey set her tea aside and knelt on the floor before Leia to display the arrangement. “Go ahead.”

If her heart had stopped before, it was a kaleidoscope of sapphire butterflies now. What could this mean? Who had done such beautiful plaiting? Leia placed her tea on the sleeper's side table and leaned closer to study the intricate weave.

“This is exquisite. Just gorgeous.” Her fingers fluttered over the shiny chestnut locks, following the loops and swirls, pulling the interpretation from memories buried like forgotten treasure. “Do you know what these mean?”

A protracted silence ensued. Maybe Leia shouldn’t push, but oh, how she longed to know. Seeing these braids was a taste of home.

Rey shrugged a bare shoulder where her loose tunic had slipped down her arm. “He usually explains when he’s finished, but I was so tired tonight that I must have fallen asleep.”

So. There was an unidentified “he” and braiding her hair was a repeat occurrence. Questions pinged around Leia’s mind. As far as she knew, Urcos Furdam was the only other Alderaanian among the Resistance, but the Tantive’s pilot wasn’t the type to be interested in Rey. If there was anyone else who shared Leia’s heritage, she’d certainly like to meet him. Perhaps this secret was the source of the conflict she’d sensed Rey was hiding. “Would you like me to read it for you?”

Another pause followed before Rey murmured her acquiescence.

Leia stroked her fingers across the braids. “This design is very—intimate isn’t quite right—but deeply personal. A profound statement.” She swallowed down the thickness that rose in her throat, reluctant to pry but needing to know. “You’re not—you’re not secretly married, are you?”

Rey jerked sideways, twisting her head to regard Leia over her shoulder, hazel eyes alight with surprise. “Why do you ask?”

“On Alderaan, this is the type of braid a husband might have composed for his wife to celebrate their anniversary or some other important date, to proclaim the depth of his love and devotion. The braid here”—Leia straightened Rey’s head and trailed her fingers down one side—“conveys protection and sacrifice, that he would give his life for yours. And this”—she switched sides—“this one is all about unity or union, that he is one with you in mind, heart, soul—and body.” Leia left an opening for Rey’s confirmation or denial, but the younger woman remained motionless and quiet. “Where both braids are woven together in this pattern, an eternity loop”—she cupped her palms at Rey’s nape—“it signifies that his love, your love, and the love you share is forever and all-encompassing—beneath you to carry you, above you to cover you, and all around you to shield you.” Leia blinked back tears as she finished, touching the braid one last time with delicate fingertips. “My dear, this depth of love—”

“Thank you.” Rey rotated on her knees and wrapped strong, calloused fingers around Leia’s. Moisture glimmered behind her lashes. “He does love me like that, and I love him. So very much. He’s—he’s the beloved of my heart and the other half of my soul.”

Something tightened in that hollow space where Leia’s heart had resided before it was cut from her chest, and she released a slow exhale. This was about Rey, not a widowed general and a mourning mother, but Force, how she ached for Han. As often as they’d yelled and fought and wounded each other, they had loved with that same fiery intensity. Unlikely as it might have been for a princess and a scoundrel, they had found each other and slotted inside one another’s souls. She knew precisely how Rey felt.

“I wish—” Rey pursed her lips and blinked eyes still bright with feeling.

“What do you wish, sweetheart?” Leia prompted.

“I just wish you could know him like I do.”

Chapter Text

“Then tell me.” Leia thumbed a single tear from beneath Rey’s lashes and trailed her fingers across the beautiful braids, as if in the simple act some of the love would spill over and mend her splintered heart.

Listening would be a pleasure. If Rey could unburden her secrets, perhaps it would resolve the conflict, ephemeral as the wind, that sometimes shadowed her brilliance in the Force. With a few shrewd questions, Leia might even determine which Resistance fighter had captured her padawan’s heart—strange as it was to imagine Rey in love with any of them.

The questions smoldered. Which man on Ajan Kloss was hiding such talented fingers and soul-deep devotion to their would-be Jedi? Who was he?

“I—I’d love to, but I can’t.” Rey’s shoulders slumped.

Leia nudged the younger woman’s chin up. “You can.”

The intel was a matter of security as much as morale. She didn’t mind turning a blind eye to fraternization among the troops. It was not, perhaps, the wisest approach to leading a military, but the Resistance was more like family. That didn’t mean Leia remained ignorant, even if she pretended not to notice.

Rey didn’t budge from her knees, her internal struggle plain, caught in a war between the desire to reveal or conceal.

This was hardly the comfort Leia envisioned when she’d come to toast Ben’s birthday, but it was a welcome trade. Losing herself in Rey’s love story would be a refreshing distraction. Shift her focus away from the temptation to stew over her son. Definitely better than drinking alone in her suite and nursing her sorrows.

Happy, Han? she nudged at his memory. He’d level that knowing smirk at her, elbow Chewie it was their cue to leave, and duck out the door.

“You don’t even need to speak his name.” Leia eased across the mattress until her back braced against the wall and patted the sleeper. “Why don’t you climb up here and tell me all about him? We’re overdue for some girl talk.”

“Girl talk?” Rey canted her head.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Leia snagged Rey’s hand and hauled her off the floor. Jakku had cost more than she knew. How often had Leia’s mother offered this, Breha patiently listening to a teenaged princess chafe over the constraints of royalty. “I remember what it’s like to be bursting with love, to want everyone to share in your joy yet have to keep quiet.” She winked. “Not to mention I’m pretty darn good at keeping secrets.”

“Like the fact that today is Ben’s birthday?” Rey returned a half-smile and leaned against the wall beside Leia. “But you didn’t come to listen to me talk about my—my—”

What did she intend to say? Her love life, boyfriend, fiancé? Anything less than husband would fall short of the proclamation woven in her hair.

Illuminated ropes danced along the walls’ perimeter like so many fairy lights. Or was the room spinning slightly? Leia rested her head against the cinder blocks. Maybe three whiskeys in less than an hour was a bit much. She wasn’t the same reckless girl who’d once threatened Han she’d drink him under the table—not that she’d succeeded. Even if Rey declined, Leia would need to find an excuse to stay, at least until the whirling sensation eased.

The silence weighed heavy as ripe fruit.

“How about your ‘beau?’” Leia bumped Rey’s shoulder. It was a soft pitch, a neutral place to begin.

Rey lolled her head sideways, parallel lines forming above the bridge of her nose. “Beau?”

For how bright Rey was and how quickly she learned, for how strong she was in the Force, and how brutal her upbringing on Jakku, how little she knew of the galaxy never failed to amaze.

“A general term for an admirer. A suitor. Force knows I’ve had enough of them.” Leia flicked her fingers, the twin orbs of her signet ring twinkling under the lights. “Unless, of course, you’re willing to divulge what he is to you.”

“I don’t—” Rey tucked her hands under her thighs but couldn’t hide the cherries clustering in her cheeks. “I don’t think this is a good idea. I really wouldn’t know what to say.”

Leia stretched across the sleeper to reclaim her mug and mask her smile. Was it wrong to be amused by a flustered Rey? The same Rey who approached her training with such dedication, who was impossible to flummox, who’d demonstrated the ingenuity and resilience bred from necessity again and again, but was rattled by the prospect of discussing the man she loved and who loved her with such remarkable tenderness? Leia swallowed the lukewarm tea and allowed Rey another moment to recover her composure.

“Then, humor me, my dear. I want to hear about him. Besides, it’ll take my mind off—” She gestured in the general direction of the Correllian whiskey and the reason that had brought her to Rey’s door in the first place. “It’ll lift my spirits. That would be a lovely gift.”

Rey sighed and dipped her chin.

Maybe she shouldn’t play on Rey’s sympathy, knowing she couldn’t resist, but she wouldn’t be Leia Organa if she wasn’t a clever negotiator. “Let me start with a question. Your hair suggests an established relationship, so how long have you been dating?”

“Dating?” Rey’s eyebrows arched into twin hills. “Oh. I wouldn’t call it that, but we’ve been seeing each other—so to speak—for a little less than a standard year.” That was around when Rey had come to the Resistance. He must be someone she’d met early on.

But how had she kept this from Leia? They’d been in close company since Rey’s Jedi training began on the heels of the Crait disaster and not once had she dropped a hint. She was more apt to talk about Kylo Ren than anyone among their ranks. Perhaps Leia had been too preoccupied with leading the Resistance, too consumed by her grief for Han and Luke—and Ben—to notice. Was she losing her edge?

Well, it’s not like she was inexperienced. Between her intuition in the Force and some astute queries, she could suss out the truth.

“So”—Leia slanted a suggestive smile—“how did you meet? Was it romantic?”

“Hardly.” Rey scoffed as she folded her legs. Oh, to have skin like that again, smooth and toned and golden. “I guess you could say I—er—ran into him on a mission and combat threw us together.”

“Funny how that happens.” Leia chuckled. “Remind me to tell you about my adventure with Han in a trash compactor.”

Rey groaned. “You can’t just toss that out and expect me not to ask.”

“Another time. Tonight’s about you.” Leia tapped the girl’s knee. A number of human males had gone on missions with Rey over the past year—primarily Finn and Poe—and she’d been spending considerable time with both. By proximity, they were the most likely candidates. But Alderaanian hair-braiding? Poe had known Leia all his life; perhaps he’d borrowed the romantic notion? And she could imagine Finn cultivating such an interest as he shed his Stormtrooper identity.

It was too soon to conjecture. “The facts,” her father used to chide. “You’re far too impulsive, Leia. It’s going to land you in a bantha trough one of these days. Learn everything you can—from every angle—before you must make a decision.” Impulsive. For all his flaws, Ben came by his temperament honestly. Leia swallowed a snort and resumed her line of inquiry.

“Was it love at first sight?”

“For him, it was something like that, I think.” A smile flirted with Rey’s lips. At least she’d settled into the conversation. That was progress. “But it took me a while longer. We did have a rather sizable misunderstanding at the start, but that’s all forgiven and in our past now.”

“Good girl. Forgiveness is so important.” If Leia had learned the lesson sooner, maybe her marriage wouldn’t have foundered as frequently as it did. Maybe they wouldn’t have had to endure extended separations. But she could be as moof-headed as her husband. Maybe more. Han had always been quicker to forgive. And like Han, Rey had a generous and compassionate nature despite—or perhaps because of—her deprivation as an orphan. She was caring toward droids, ready with a smile, and swift to help where a hand was needed. It boded well for her future relationship. “If it wasn’t love at first sight, then when did you know you loved him?”

Rey plucked at the pattern in the worn blanket. It wasn’t faded blue as Leia first assumed, but closer range revealed a patchwork of constellations cornered with nebulae, planets and old Rebel X-Wings. She’d lived this moment before. Little fingers stroked this very quilt. She squeezed her eyes closed and open to dismiss the déjà vu. It must be the liquor.

“Leia.” Rey touched her forearm. “Are you okay? You look a little peaked.”

“Perhaps I could trouble you for another cup of tea?” More hydration wouldn’t go amiss and might clear her head.

“Of course.” Rey bounced from the sleeper and retrieved both mugs, pausing in the ‘fresher to empty her own before returning to her corner stash. “Want to try something else?”

She declined, happy to savor bittersweet memories of dear Amilyn. “Do we have your beau to thank for being our tea benefactor?”

Rey flashed a smile over her shoulder. “Yes, although he’s more of a caf guy. Drinks it black. It’s awful. But he knows how much I love tea so he’s always bringing me new varieties.”

“We were just the same, Han and I, at first, but he eventually won me over to caf’s virtues.” That also meant Rey’s man wasn’t stuck on base like much of the Resistance and had independent credits to spend. He must be one whom Leia had sent off-planet—with Rey—in pursuit of allies or resources. That would narrow the list.

Rey delivered Leia’s fresh tea, repositioned herself on the sleeper with care, and bracketed her mug between both palms.

“Thank you.” Leia inhaled the fragrant steam. “This coverlet, may I ask, where did you find it?”

“Borrowed it from the Falcon.” Rey blew on her tea. “I didn’t think anyone would mind.”

From Ben’s old bunk. Of course. But Rey didn’t need to know. How could Leia have forgotten? She’d tucked Ben underneath that blanket more times than she could count. Back when the constellations and X-Wings still glowed in the dark and the edges weren’t frayed. When she pressed her lips to his forehead and blessed him with sweet sleep in the Force. When he murmured “I love you, Mommy,” circled his small arms around her neck, and begged her to lie down with him for just a little longer. Just until he fell asleep. She shouldn’t have been in such a hurry. She should have held him more, listened to his fears and his dreams, assured him he wasn’t alone. Her heart crumpled like a sheet of flimsi. If she dwelled on it longer, the hurt would leak from her eyes. No more “should haves.” Not tonight.

“I’m glad it’s being used again.” Leia caressed the well-loved material. Look at her, growing weepy over a quilt. Gah. “Before I interrupted, you were about to tell me when you first knew you loved him.”

“Right,” Rey said. “When he saved my life, I think.”

“He saved your life?” That was no mean feat, considering the reverse was more likely. Who in the Resistance didn’t owe their life to the Force-user at least once over?

Rey waved her hand as if to erase her statement. “No, it was prior to that.”

Leia wouldn’t press. For now.

“There was this one time that I felt so alone and afraid. And lost. He listened—he truly understood, you know? And he comforted me. I knew, when he touched my hand, I saw—” Her lips trembled. “I couldn’t have labeled what I was feeling then, but that’s when it started.”

Even if her head was still fuzzy, witnessing Rey in love wrapped Leia’s sore heart in a cozy glow. Regardless of her paramour’s identity, the adoration that illumined the Force as much as her face rubbed balm into Leia’s raw edges. This was the best gift. Exactly what she needed. Especially tonight of all nights. “Tell me about him. What is he like? What do you love about him?”

“Oh, I—” Rey bobbed her shoulders and tugged her recalcitrant neckline back into place. “There’s so much. He’s hard to describe.”

“Try.” Leia sipped at her tea.

A starry, faraway expression descended like a veil over Rey’s countenance. “He’s very intelligent, doesn’t forget anything, and is always several steps ahead of everyone else. He’s prone to reflection and likes to ponder. I tease him about being ‘moody and broody,’ but I love it when he shares his thoughts with me.” A smile dimpled her cheeks. “He’s always eager to learn and teach—and he’s a wonderful teacher. Patient and understanding. I’ve learned so much from him. I think he could have been a scholar, if his life had been different.”

Interesting that Rey praised his intellect first. Beaumont Kin, perhaps? He would have been a professor at the Lerct Historical Institute, if Hosnia hadn’t been annihilated. No. Just the thought soured her stomach.

“He always speaks truth, even when it’s painful. He doesn’t let me get away with anything.” Rey’s mouth quirked. “Of course, I give as good as I get.”

Leia chuckled under her breath. That sounded like Poe, who was sharp and forthright—and known for his vocal squabbles with Rey—but far from a patient teacher. Still, the girl was smitten and love was blind. Her feelings could easily skew her perceptions.

“I trust him,” Rey continued, on a roll at last. “He has the biggest heart. He tries to hide it—used to think it made him weak—but he’s full of compassion.”

That could be Finn, whose heart was as large as Rey’s. Or Snap, who was nothing if not an oversized teddy bear, but he didn’t have the intellectual chops.

“He—he feels things deeply. Loves fiercely.” Her braids testified to that. “And I— I love that about him, but sometimes it’s overwhelming. He can be impulsive and intense yet astonishingly gentle. Especially with me. There was this one time that he—” Rey clapped a palm over her mouth. “Oh, stars. I really shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“You absolutely should. It does wonders for my heart to see you so happy.” Leia channeled all her warmth and tenderness into her smile. Maybe a little Force-suggestion too.

Individual Resistance members might fit an attribute or two, maybe three. But who could claim them all? Rey had been cautious not to disclose identifying details, but the mystery tickled Leia’s spirit like an itch she couldn’t scratch. She was missing something. Some critical piece.

Leia collected Rey’s empty mug, set both aside, and drew up her knees despite her protesting joints. She waggled her brows. “Is he good-looking?”

Rey grinned, her cheeks turning rosy and dimpling again. “He’s—yes, very—I mean, maybe not in the conventional sense, not the way Kaydel goes all dreamy-eyed over Poe.”

“Poe’s a charmer, for sure.” Leia laughed low. Rey’s secret suitor must not be Poe, then. Her second in command, for all his charisma, was oblivious to LT Connix’s crush. 

“He disparages his looks, but he’s—he’s striking and his face is so expressive. And his smile.” She clasped her hands in front of her chest and uttered a sigh that would rival any of Kaydel’s swoon-worthiest moments. “The first time he smiled at me, my heart—I don’t even have words. It was like I’d never seen the sun before—and I’m a desert girl! His face lights up and he’s absolutely transformed.”

Finn owned a brilliant smile, broad and gleaming, that lit his face and buoyed everyone within the circumference of his radiance. But as close as he and Rey were, Finn didn’t beam at her with the same admiration he bestowed on Rose.

“I could watch him forever. He’s—he’s beautiful. Actually, sometimes when he’s asleep, I’ll just—” Rey stopped short and cut wide eyes to Leia.

Ah. So they were sleeping together. Not particularly surprising, given the significance so lovingly and carefully threaded through her shiny locks.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart.” Leia patted her arm. “I’m not scandalized. In fact, I would have guessed as much from your braids.”

“Force.” Rey plunged her face into her hands, muffling her voice. “I can’t believe I told you that. A little whiskey and he’s going to kill me.”

Chapter Text

Going to kill her?

“A figure of speech, I hope?” Leia touched the fingers shielding Rey’s face. It was difficult to imagine the Force-user threatened by anyone, but love could have a curious effect on the balance of power. She knew that firsthand. “He’s not—you’re not unsafe, are you? You can tell me, Rey.”

“No. Force, no.” She barked a sharp laugh and lowered her hands to reveal a countenance as red as Crait’s jewel-toned salt. “Nothing like that. Even when he’s angry, he’d never hurt me. It’s just—I’m embarrassed and he’ll be doubly so.”

“Come now, my dear.” Leia chucked her under the chin. “A good sex life is nothing to be embarrassed about.”

Rey withered. “Please—”

“Force knows Han and I made the most of it when he was home from his rambles—and even when we were out saving the galaxy, for that matter.” Much to Chewie’s endless ribbing. Leia chuckled. “I doubt there’s a surface in the Falcon that wasn’t consecrated.”

The younger woman groaned and slunk down the wall, shrinking into herself like a tortoise its shell. Who knew she’d be so prudish?

“If you’d rather—”

Rey demurred before she could finish.

Leia had best forgo the temptation to tease, in case there was cause for concern. “We needn’t discuss it, but my door’s always open. Don’t ever suffer in silence just because intimacy is a private matter.”

“It’s not—” Rey tucked her head between her biceps and sighed before lowering her arms. “It’s not what you think. There are—er—reasons. But rest assured it’s”—she pinched a smile between closed lips—“good. Really, really good.”

Leia chortled and patted Rey’s thigh. Oh, to be in love and still possess the ardor and stamina of youth—not that she’d trade the beauty forged from decades of love-making with her husband—like a musician whose mastery increased in magnificence with the passage of time.

“In that case, no more need be said.” Leia jiggled her brows. “Unless there’s anything else you’re burning to share?”

Rey chewed her lower lip, eyes sparkling to rival the lights strung around her room. “Did I tell you he’s tall? Big and tall and strong. Stars, he’s strong. I was taller than a lot of humans on Jakku, but I like how being with him makes me feel—oh, I don’t know—”

“Delicate?” Leia suggested. “Feminine?”

“Is that silly?” Rey scrunched her nose. “I mean I’m a warrior and training to be a Jedi, for kriff’s sake. My hands are tough and half the time I reek like engine oil. Being feminine never mattered before. It never even occurred to me.”

Because Rey’s life centered on survival. There hadn’t been time to care.

“It’s not silly at all.” That might explain Rey’s shift in wardrobe from the drab, practical grays to the ivory tabards that floated and fluttered around her with an elegant grace. Not that Leia minded. In fact, she’d encouraged Rey, even helped her with the designs and sourcing. As the last Jedi, Rey was a symbol as much as an individual. Leia well understood the power in dressing the part. Hadn’t she done the same all her life? Ben had learned the lesson at her knee and crafted his costume as Kylo Ren to cultivate terror and a certain mystique. But crediting an anonymous man for inspiring Rey’s change had never occurred to her.

Rey leaned closer, lowering her voice and speaking quickly, as if fearing to be overheard or lest she lose courage. “He likes to tell me I’m beautiful and how smart I am and all the things he adores about me and how much he loves me and I just—” She fanned her cheeks. “I’ve never had—no one’s ever praised me like that.”

“You are beautiful, Rey, in every way. And he should tell you. Thoroughly and often.” Leia smiled tenderly. She’d always chided Han for calling her ‘princess’ in his mocking tone, without a gram of respect for her title. In truth, she’d loved the way he made her feel, that this man, worlds-wise and jaded by experience, would bow to no one yet yield his heart to her. A delicious thrill coursed through her. What she wouldn’t give to feel his chest at her back, his lips at her crown, and ‘princess’ breathed in the whorl of her ear, but never again would he—

No. She wouldn’t allow regrets to dim this night. Not on Ben’s birthday. Focus on Rey. “Does he have a pet name for you?”

Rey extended her endless legs, feet dangling over the sleeper’s edge. “He calls me ‘sweetheart.’”

“Ah.” Han had called her sweetheart. Unease niggled at her thoughts, but she brushed it away. Why feel possessive over a common enough endearment? It’s not as if she owned the word.

But the questions festered. Why would Rey’s beloved entreat her silence? Why was it important that General Organa not know his identity? Why be embarrassed? Shouldn’t he rather be proud of his love for Rey, of their mutual devotion? He should shout it to the heavens. Whoever he was, he must not belong to Leia’s inner circle.

Resistance numbers had grown, sluggish as a drunk Hutt, but they had grown. They were still small enough that she knew every name though not every story. Unless he wasn’t Resistance? But that was impossible. He’d been in Rey’s quarters this very night to braid her hair, and all traffic on and off Ajan Kloss was closely monitored. Not a single being visited the base without Leia’s knowledge.

Really, it came down to the braids. They were the key—a lost planet, a lost culture, and an art that most human males would eschew. Han had learned a few, out of love for her, but he wasn’t Alderaanian and would have died from mortification if anyone knew he could plait her hair. “Do you know how your mystery man learned to braid like this? It’s an unusual skill.”

Rey folded her hands in her lap and stared the short distance across her quarters. “His mother taught him.”

A strange and weighty stillness in the Force settled over them. What Alderaanian mother had sat down with Rey’s beau the way she’d sat down with Ben and taught him the language of braids? There couldn’t be many.

He’d been a quick study, her Ben, his fingers agile and gentle against her scalp. He learned the first braids, sweet and simple, that spoke of a son’s honor for his parents, love for his mother and respect for his father. He progressed rapidly to master the entire lexicon. A prodigy. He could craft a subtle insult as adroitly as a sincere apology. Even as a boy, he relished the complexity of the marriage braids. They were intended to be a rite of passage, passed from mother to son once he turned thirteen and commenced the journey to manhood, but she ignored tradition and taught Ben when he expressed interest.

“Mommy,” his small palm appeared over her shoulder from where he stood behind her, “you’re beautiful.”

“Why, thank you.” She squeezed his fingers as she passed him the last hairpin.

He secured the braid. “When I grow up, I’m going to marry you.”

“Sweetheart.” She rotated on the stool to meet his eyes, a milder brown than her own. “You can’t marry me because I’m already married. My heart belongs to Daddy.”

He frowned. “But I don’t love anyone as much as I love you.”

“Someday you will. Someday you’ll meet a girl and you’ll love her so much that you’ll ask her to be your wife.”

“How will I know?” Creases marred the smooth plane of his forehead.

Leia smiled and cupped his cheek. “You’ll want to braid her hair.”

Her heart clenched. Would she ever witness Ben in love? Would she ever know the consolation of grandbabies? What if circumstances had been different and her son had met Rey not as an enemy, not on the field of battle, but as a friend and fellow student of the Force? Beautiful Rey, as compassionate and fierce in spirit, as potent in the light as Ben once was.

Rey was young, but no younger than Leia when she’d met Han. What was a decade where love was requited? The years were vapor in the wind. She already knew Rey could have loved him, and Ben would have loved her. His enormous passionate heart, that felt so deeply, so keenly, would have made him devoted, tender, resolute.

For one shining moment, imagination transported Leia to a glorious future. Carefree laughter gilded the Force. Little arms wrapped around her waist, a cheek pressed to her stomach, and she stroked the silky curls. She could almost taste it, that future, honeyed and heady as Toniray wine. Her heart quivered within her breast, atremble with longing that left her breathless. What if—?

No, she wasn’t going to fantasize over the impossible. Not tonight. She’d remember him as he was, her sweet boy with his round, hopeful eyes and his big, soft heart.

“He’s teaching me the Alderaanian patterns too,” Rey said, shattering Leia’s reverie.

That’s right, this moment wasn’t about Ben. Or his mother. Or a future that would never be. It was about Rey and her secret beau.

“He has this amazing hair.” Rey danced her fingers in the vague shape of a man’s head. “The first time he removed his, er, I mean, the first time I saw his hair—all those lush, dark waves—” She moaned and her eyes half-closed. “I had this fleeting desire to run my fingers through it, even though the moment was absolutely, horrifyingly wrong. I guess that was kind of like love at first sight.”

If his hair made Rey moan like that, Leia’d probably desire to touch it too, but she couldn’t quite rally a laugh. “Sounds like he wears a helmet. Is he a pilot?”

“Er.” Rey blinked, caught off guard. “Yes, his skill at the yoke rivals—  Let’s just say he’s really good, but that’s not his main role.”

If he was an exceptional pilot who wasn’t Poe, then who in the worlds? It’s not like the Resistance was overrun by handsome ace pilots who were understanding, gentle and tall. Funny, he sounded a lot like Han.

She needed to stop thinking about Han. And Ben. What was wrong with her? She was normally a better listener. Kriffing whiskey.

Perhaps Rey’s mystery man belonged to ground crew. Leia had limited interaction with them. Maybe one of the quiet technicians who accompanied off-planet missions to keep their fleet of decrepit ships space-worthy? It wasn’t impossible. They did have more pilots than ships, and Rey invested substantial hours tinkering when she wasn’t training. She should ask Rose. The engineer was observant and would know with whom Rey spent the most time.

She could task Threepio with compiling a report on everyone with even the remotest tie to Alderaan, who might possibly have someone in loco matris—step-parent, grandmother, aunt, cousin, sister—schooled in the woven vocabulary. Cross-checking both lists might pinpoint him.

“It’d be a pleasure to speak with anyone connected to Alderaan. Are you sure you won’t introduce me? He sounds like quite the paragon.” Leia winked in a bid for levity.

“Oh, but he’s not. Not by any stretch.” Rey spluttered and turned, tucking her legs underneath her. Her work-worn hands gripped Leia’s with surprising earnestness. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. He has a—a complicated history. He’s done a lot of things—terrible things—things that he regrets, things he can’t ever undo or fix. He’s given up all hope of forgiveness, but he’s sorry and his heart’s right. He tries to choose good, and that’s enough for me.”

Who in the Resistance couldn’t tell such a story? Han had been a smuggler, Poe a spice runner, Finn a Stormtrooper, and Rey a scavenger. Where would they be if they expected perfection?

Leia twisted her hands to squeeze Rey’s in return. “No one’s perfect, my dear, and no one can change another. Change can only come from within. If you both realize that from the start, I’m not concerned. It will make your relationship all the stronger.”

The girl tugged free and glanced aside to swipe at her cheek. Was she crying? Had Leia tread on a sensitive subject?

“More tea?” Rey offered with false cheer and moisture rimming her lids.

Leia declined the tea but accepted the change in topic.

“Are you sure? I also have Chandrilan moonflower, Coruscanti Deychin, Hosnian green, Corellian tarine, and even a little Alderaanian lavender”—she ticked them off on her fingers—“or good old Jakku Moogan, of course.”

“That’s an impressive assortment.” Not least because two of the named planets no longer existed. The fine hairs on Leia’s arms stood on end. “I wonder what inspired his selection. Several of those are my favorites.”

Of all the tea in the galaxy, was it coincidence? Had Rey’s beau queried Threepio for General Organa’s recommendations? Maybe he raided her old Hanna City home? She resisted a snort. The protocol droid maintained a record of every tea she’d ever tasted. She’d have to ask. Maybe Threepio would have a name.

“He has good taste,” Rey murmured.

“Indeed.” Leia unfolded her legs, heels barely reaching the mattress’ far side, and shook out the pins-and-needles. When was the last time she’d sat in one position this long? At least the wooziness had abated, even if her head was still a little muddy. Might as well address the falumpaset in the room. “So, how does he feel about you being a Force-user?”

“It’s not an issue.” Rey’s spike of enthusiasm saved Leia from sinking into another brown study. “He’s not threatened by me in the slightest, which is refreshing. Sometimes, when I walk into the mess, the way everyone tries not to stare?” She shook her head. “Ugh.”

“Good. I’m relieved it’s not intimidating, especially to a man who’s as protective as your braids indicate.”

“Actually, he couldn’t be more encouraging or supportive.” The air fairly vibrated with Rey’s fervor. “He reads the Jedi texts with me and sometimes, when he can break away from his duties, we train together.”

She sent Rey to meditate and run drills. Leia would have preferred more hands-on instruction, but she had to divide her attention with leadership responsibilities and didn’t have the same endurance prior to her unscheduled space-walk. Still, she was intentional to welcome her padawan back and receive her debrief. As far as she knew, Rey trained alone, unless she was holding covert meetings in the jungle, but why be secretive?

“What type of training, may I ask?”

“Oh, lots of things.” Rey folded her arms across her chest and shrugged. “We spar sometimes. He’s very accomplished in—in combat.”

Rey used to spar with Finn on occasion, matching her quarterstaff against his First Order instruction. At one point, they crafted wooden practice swords the approximate size of an ignited lightsaber. When was the last time she’d seen them dueling? Longer than Leia could recall.

Force-training. Jedi texts. Combat. A loving and devoted partner might assist Rey with such endeavors, regardless of perceptiveness to the Force. But what if he were Force-sensitive? Apart from her own son—an utter impossibility, since he was occupied lightyears away as Supreme Leader of the First Order and remained the Resistance’s foremost adversary—who else was there? Another prickle licked up her spine.

“You don’t spar with a lightsaber, do you?” Leia arched a brow.

Rey didn’t answer.

Her foreboding would have prompted Han to declare he had a bad feeling. “I know you don’t want to tell me his name, but I’m puzzled because I can’t think of a single person who matches your description.” Adrenaline surged through her veins. “Is he with the Resistance?”

Their exhalations and the low hum of generators in the distance were the only sounds.

Rey swallowed but raised her chin. “He’s not.”

Leia firmed her lips. How had it come to this? She’d invited Rey’s confidence. She promised girl talk without judgment, but here she was, forced once again to choose the good of many over the needs of one she loved. “You understand it’s my duty to secure our mission and the safety of all?”

Rey offered a crisp nod.

‘Not Resistance’ didn’t equate to threat, but neither did it change the fact that Rey had violated orders and slipped an unauthorized guest—potentially Force-using, which raised another chorus of concern—into the base. Not only that, but she’d done so repeatedly and deceived her master. No wonder she preferred the abandoned and unoccupied quarters. She expected better from Rey. An invisible weight pressed on Leia’s shoulders. “Is he an ally?”

“Yes,” Rey said without hesitation. She held Leia’s stare, the muscles in her jaw tightening. “Though I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you his name.”

“Try me.”

“Leia, I’m sorry.” Rey rolled onto her knees and knotted her hands in supplication. “I can’t.”

“I’m afraid I must insist.”

“I want to tell you everything, I really do, but we’ve talked about it and he’s not ready and I—”

Beyond the girl’s shoulder, the ‘fresher door slid open and a man stepped out near the foot of the sleeper. He must have been hiding in the tiny space the entire time, which would be a feat given his size. Leia hadn’t heard running water or the whine of a sonic shower. What game was Rey playing?

A black towel draped over his bowed head and cloaked his face. One broad hand massaged his presumably wet hair. Charcoal gray sleep pants were slung low at his hips, but he was otherwise bare.

Rey had said he was big and tall, but her description didn’t begin to do this man justice. He boasted a thick torso, solid and broad across chest and shoulders, his muscles flexing with the motion of his arm.

His skin’s pallor implied he rarely saw the outside of a starship, and scars veined the expanse of alabaster flesh. He may as well be a marble statue of the gods breathed to life.

Leia gaped.

No man in her acquaintance, let alone the Resistance, sported such a physique—and yet—and yet there was something.

Every nerve ending tingled from the tips of her ears right down to her toes.

There was something peculiar about his presence in the Force, but it was too ephemeral to pin down. Like the echo of a song she’d once known, faint and distorted, the title hovering on the tip of her tongue.

Chapter Text

Leia glanced at Rey’s back, where she had turned to face the interloper. If this wasn’t her mystery man, then Leia had a whole passel of questions about her current bunkmate.

“Rey,” the man said and there was no mistaking the rebuke contained in that single word. “You promised me that you wouldn’t touch alcohol until—” He stopped short.

Promise me, princess, Han whispered into her memory.

The hairs at her nape stood to attention. His voice—the depth, tone, and a richness that melted like chocolate on the tongue—she’d heard it before. Somewhere. She ought to recall it.

But how could he know Rey took a finger of whiskey? No alcohol until when? Was she pregnant after all?

Towel still shrouding his face, the man paired his silence with an uncanny stillness, as if he were listening to something she couldn’t hear. Leia had never been as adept at reading the Force as Luke, but even she could perceive how it quivered around them. He must be Force-sensitive too, but his signature was oddly muffled.

Rey sprang to her feet from the sleeper, her hand snaking out lightning-quick to circle his wrist.

“It’s okay,” she murmured as if soothing a skittish vulptex. “It’s okay. Don’t go. I’ve—I’ve already told her everything.” She stole a glance at Leia, lower lip caught between her teeth. “Well, almost everything.”

Leia’s breath caught in her throat.

The man twisted his wrist free and raised his head. The towel slid onto his bare shoulders.

Unconventional yet striking features, just like Rey said. Aquiline nose, fair complexion, full lips, a scar running from eyebrow to jaw and trailing down his chest. And that strangely muted Force, his unique signature hazy and feeble—like starshine through deep-tint transparisteel or soundwaves underwater. She focused her higher senses, straining until she could make out the pattern, faint but clear.

Bands of light pulsed and shimmered, shot through with thick ropes of darkness.

A chill rushed down Leia’s spine, then a wash of heat. The room’s edges wavered and tilted. Her pulse galloped to race a herd of orbaks. A fog of multi-hued light peppered her vision. She closed her eyes.

She wasn’t the type of princess who fainted. She was the Hutt-slayer. She faced down death with an oath and a blaster. She patched a scrappy Resistance from rags.

But this?

Deep breaths. It was Luke’s voice this time, shaded with humor. That’s it.

Weak as it was, she’d know that pattern anywhere, the same Force signature she’d carried below her heart for nine long months. Her forearms pebbled, and she opened her eyes.

He was still there.

Rey had stepped toward her, but Leia couldn’t assuage the concern tightening the younger woman's mouth. Not now. Not when every atom of her attention focused on this hulking stranger in his lounge pants, towel slung around his neck like a scarf.

It couldn’t be. He couldn’t be—

She must be hallucinating. Last time she’d seen him unmasked, his Jedi robes draped off his lanky form, a towering collection of knobby joints and rangy limbs. From time to time, she wondered if he’d ever filled out the features too large for his face—as she’d assured him he would. But this—this specimen of masculinity—she might not have recognized him apart from his Force signature, diminished as it was.

Leia met his eyes, not the gentle eyes of her little boy or the conflicted eyes of her teenage son, but the sharp, incisive stare of a man grown with the gold-brown eyes of a hawk.

Ben. Her Ben. Her beloved son. Right here in Rey’s quarters.

How?

But that meant, all that Rey had shared—every fluttered eyelash, every blush, every soul-deep sigh, all the adoration and devotion—everything was for Ben.

Gravity must have shifted and turned a wall into the floor, or someone had tipped the room sideways. She couldn’t blame it on the whiskey. Nothing made sense. It was all wrong.

And it was perfect.

Impulsive. Tall. A crack pilot. Fierce in his feelings. A student of the Force and a teacher. Gentle and thoughtful, who remembered his mother’s favorite teas. Of course Rey’s beau was her son. Every attribute pointed to him like a compass to true north. The sweetest fantasy made reality. Who else could it have been?

It was impossible. It ought to be impossible. But here he was.

And the braids. The inarguable braids. Her heart beat as if it’d take wing and fly right out of her chest. The magnificent sentiment woven into Rey’s hair was the work of Ben’s hands, his nimble fingers composing paeans to his love night after night. The same braids she’d taught him as a boy now crowned the queen of his heart. She could hardly wrap her mind around it. The purest pleasure tingled in every nerve. How desperately, how completely, how devotedly he loved her. Of course he did. Leia knew he would, if he were given even half a chance. And Rey loved him in equal measure. She said as much at the beginning, that he was the beloved of her heart, the other half of her soul. A miracle. How had this happened?

Whatever else it meant, it was enough. For every prayer that had driven her to her knees, for every private tear that had drenched her pillow, for every tormented cry with which she’d begged the Force, for all the agony and the hope to which she’d stubbornly clung, this was recompense. It was everything. If she expired from shock right here on Rey’s sleeper, she would die one happy mama.

It took a minute to regulate her breathing, for the room to reorient itself, but Leia squared her shoulders. Of all the surprises she’d faced in her life—and she’d faced a few—this might be the most astonishing. Certainly the most welcome.

Leia watched the two young people, lost in some wordless deadlock, the angular lines of Ben’s countenance flinty as a boulder while Rey’s were soft and beseeching. Her wayward nightshirt had drifted down again to expose one shoulder and her sleep shorts didn’t leave much to the imagination, not that her state of undress seemed to bother Ben in the slightest. The same young Jedi Ben who wouldn’t even look at a girl, so strictly did he adhere to his vows, or so said Luke.

But now—

Ben was in Rey’s room, half-naked. Because they were sleeping together. Her son and Rey. Making love. Imagine that. Never thought she’d see the day. Humor bubbled up in her throat. It was good she was already sitting down. All those intimate details she’d shared about her and Han? Goading Rey into the confession their sex life was highly satisfactory? Leia clapped a hand over her mouth lest laughter erupt. No wonder Rey squirmed like a snake on a stick, sweet girl.

But that could mean—

Oh, kriffing Force.

“You’re pregnant,” Leia blurted—and regretted it the instant the words left her mouth.

Rey’s head swiveled toward her, eyebrows arched nearly into her hairline. “What?”

“Even were that true, it’s none of your business.” They were Ben’s first words to her in nearly a decade, lobbed from the catapult of his tense shoulders in a ball of bitterness.

Served her right, though. Of all the things Leia could have said—could have wished him a happy birthday, told him how much she loved and missed him, anything to set them on the path toward reconciliation—she had to go and ruin it. Didn’t she always misspeak when it came to her son? There was no taking it back.

“The whiskey,” she said to Rey, “you said you shouldn’t and then”—why was it difficult to state his name in front of him?—“and then Ben stepped out and said you promised not to touch alcohol. What was I supposed to think?” Leia blinked away the unexpected blurriness. Stupid karking tears. Gah. “That I’d gone and poisoned my own grandchild?” The innate huskiness in her voice cracked at the end.

Another heavy stillness pervaded the room, this time with the weight of truth. They were bound in a new way, the three of them, as mother, father and grandmother, woven together into the potential for new life.

Rey rotated her head toward Ben and rucked her shirt over her shoulder. “Is that—is that possible?”

He scoffed. “A single drink would hardly poison a fetus.”

“No, I mean, that I could be pregnant?”

Rey didn’t know? Had they not discussed the consequences or taken precautions? Though, to be fair, she and Han hadn’t, not that she owned any regrets. She wouldn’t have Ben otherwise. Better keep her mouth shut this time.

“Ask her.” The scarlet tips of Ben’s ears peeked through his wet locks as he nodded toward Leia. “She can tell you what it’s like when a Force-user’s pregnant.”

He couldn’t even speak her name. Not mother. Not Leia. Not even ‘the general’ or ‘princess.’ Just ‘her.’

Leia’s mouth went dry. She looked at Rey. “You’ll know. After the—” sperm fertilizes the egg? What was she, a reproductive biology teacher? She shifted her gaze to Ben. “I was training, right here on Ajan Kloss, meditating one afternoon, trying to center my spirit for the trial I was to run that night. The sky was clear and blue, sunlight filtering down through the jungle, the air thick with the scent of life, and then there was this—”

Despite his icy glare, Ben hadn’t looked away.

“—this flare of light, like a star, a bright, new presence in the Force. You.” She moistened her lips. Even though she and Han had tried for more children after Ben, there’d only been one other flare of light. Ben was ten and asked when he sensed it in the Force. She’d told him maybe he’d have a brother or sister, but nothing had come of it and he’d left to train with Luke. Did he remember? “I didn’t know what it was. I was young. I’d only known I was a twin and Force-sensitive for a matter of months. But he—Luke—”

Ben flinched and his face shuttered. She shouldn’t have mentioned her brother. Was every subject taboo?

“He felt it too and explained what it meant, and I—”

“You what?” Ben growled. “Couldn’t believe you’d ruined your life over a romp with the galaxy’s foremost smuggler?”

“Is that what you think?” Leia’s nostrils flared. It would be so easy to respond in kind, to repay his hurt and anger with the same. Weren’t Solos famous for it? “I loved your father. I wanted a child with him.”

“Just not me.” Pain lanced through his eyes.

She couldn’t read the Force in him, but she could read his very human expressions. He’d killed his father, the father he hero-worshiped as a boy, and it was shredding his soul. What had Rey said? That he’d done terrible things he regretted and could never undo, that he’d lost all hope of forgiveness.

Ben started to move away, but Rey, who’d remained silent beside him, threaded her fingers with his and brought him to a halt.

“Learning I was pregnant with you was the third happiest day of my life.”

“Only third?” He drawled, his low voice thick with accusation.

“The first was marrying your father and the second was the day you were born, the day I held you in my arms and saw your beautiful face.” She expected him to flush crimson, but he remained unmoved. “Today, in fact.” Her lips tugged into a hesitant smile. “Happy birthday, Ben.”

“Yeah, moof-milker.” Rey planted a palm flat on his bare chest and stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek. He leaned toward her, eyes half-lidded. The sight was utterly riveting. “Happy birthday. Thanks for telling me.”

The apology he flashed at Rey—warm with tenderness and gratitude—was swiftly surmounted by the distress of a wounded and cornered animal. Flight or fight. The former when he was young, the latter as his darkness deepened. Which would he choose?

He wrested from Rey’s grip and reached into the middle distance. A black shirt appeared in his hand as if summoned from thin air. He tossed the towel in the same direction, it disappeared from sight, and he tugged the shirt over his shoulders. Either he’d developed some new Force-powers or something strange was going on here.

“I don’t have time to reminisce or pretend you don’t regret the day I was born.” He spat the words.

“Never—” Leia’s mouth opened and closed uselessly. “I’d never—”

He looked to Rey. “Call me when you’re done.”

Call her? Did he maintain his own quarters in the core of the Resistance? Should Leia summon security? Much good it’d do against a Force-user. Or two. Rey wouldn’t hesitate to defend him. Hadn’t she done so in subtle ways for months?

“Ben,” Rey chided.

“What?” He shrugged, the petulant tone so like his teenage self that Leia would have grinned if the pain weren’t acute. Why did grown children revert to their childhood habits around their parents? “You know I don’t want to talk to her.”

He spoke as if Leia weren’t present. Would it be so terrible to speak with her, to address her as an adult and a peer, if he couldn’t acknowledge her as mother? Her heart twisted. For him. For her. For what they had become.

Rey braced both hands on her hips. “It’s not like I planned this.”

They glared in mute stalemate, as if by simply staring they could impose their will on the other. There was a time, when Ben adopted that mulish set to his shoulders, Leia would have expected an Alderaanian artifact or Gatalentan antique hurled across her living room and shattered with the Force. She’d hoped Luke could help her son learn to manage his frustration. But Rey remained fearless and unfazed.

Ben couldn’t leave. Not yet. Not when questions swarmed like a hive of Killiks: how in the worlds had archenemies managed to become lovers, why was his Force-signature weak, did that mean he was no longer a threat, what happened next? One thing was certain, no matter how much he loved Rey, Leia couldn’t permit the Supreme Leader—son or not—to play house on Ajan Kloss. But where to start? Which question wouldn’t spark a conflagration?

Did it even matter when there was fixed between them an impassible abyss of injury and offense?

The answer descended with sudden clarity.

“Wait,” Leia said.

Rey and Ben looked toward her as one.

Words would never accomplish what was needed. It didn’t matter that Leia had been an ambassador, senator, general—that words were the currency of her profession. Solos were better at hurting than healing, better at saying what they’d regret than that which would mend and restore. Always had been.

There’d never be enough words to close the chasm or the right words to build a bridge, but there was a language Ben would understand, a gift she could give more precious than any other. If he ran from this, at least he would run with mercy nipping at his heels.

Leia scooted across the mattress, until her knees bent over the edge and her toes found the floor. She looked up, up, up into her son’s face, still beloved despite the anguish and fury that simmered behind his eyes and clenched his jaw.

She reached for her coiffure and removed the first hairpin, reciting to herself the litany that narrated each motion—a litany Ben had memorized under her tutelage. What you did can never be undone.

His nostrils flared.

She settled the hairpin beside her thigh. It’d be more meaningful if she could place them one by one in his open palm, but that was too much to ask. At least they were received by proxy on his boyhood quilt.

The mourning braid was purposefully simple, a single loose twist wrapped over the crown, intended to be managed by the grieving widow who no longer had her husband to braid her hair.

She dropped another pin onto the sleeper. My beloved died by your hand.

A groan tore from him, guttural and tortured. As if beyond his power to control. He remembered what this meant.

The remaining pins collected beside their mates. I have mourned. I have suffered. My heart is broken.

The knob in Ben’s throat rolled the length of his neck.

Rey searched between them with knit brows. Leia dare not pause to explain or reassure her. Let her interpret the unspoken.

Liberated from its pins, Leia lifted the mourning twist from her head and swept its length over her shoulder. But I choose mercy.

To undo a mourning twist before the murderer of the deceased was to offer undeserved grace. When this act had been undertaken in the Alderaanian high court, almost unheard of for its rarity, the judge always ruled in favor of clemency.

“Don’t.” Kylo Ren may have commanded, but the protest clawed from Ben’s throat in a strangled plea. A boy begging his mother. He shuddered.

She didn’t stop.

She unwound the locks, slow and deliberate, one strand under another, never breaking eye contact. I release you from blood guilt. She would do this, and he would know the purity, the depth, the purpose of her intention. Her love. I forgive you.

His eyes glistened and his lips quivered.

Leia combed her fingers through her hair until it was completely loosed, cascading in a gray-threaded waterfall to her elbows. You are free.

As if a marionettist had yanked his strings, Ben lurched forward, collapsed to his knees, and buried his face in her thighs. Her boy. Her sweet, broken giant of a boy. For a moment Leia’s hands hovered above his head and then she sank her fingers into his dark, damp mop of hair and grazed her nails along his scalp.

She glanced at Rey, who remained where she was, hands clasped over her mouth and tears shimmering in silver trails down her cheeks.

Leia bowed over her son as if she could gather him to her breast as she had when he was a squalling infant, when she had tried to fold him into the fortress of her arms and protect him from every evil, from the powers that preyed on his soul. Her hair fanned into a curtain around them.

Ben’s long arms closed behind her. The span of his shoulders heaved with soundless sobs.

That’s right, sweetheart. She stroked his head, kneaded his neck, glided her fingers down his ridged and muscled back. Let it go. Let go the fear and the sorrow and the rage. And let it in. The forgiveness and the grace and the love.

But she said nothing because nothing need be said.

Chapter Text

Ben may as well have been a magnet for Leia’s inability to focus on anything except her son.

She’d held him in her arms as he wept for Force knows how long. Her fatigues were saturated with his tears and stained with his snot. When she couldn’t reach him in the Force, couldn’t soothe the roiling energies as she used to do when he was a boy, she’d consoled him with the simple human comfort of a mother’s touch.

Even so, his presence in Rey’s room defied belief.  

They hadn’t spoken. What could be said after such a passage? When Ben lifted his head from her lap, she reached to wipe away the moisture. It was too much to hope he might respond with the reciprocal braid, but he did cover her hand with his larger one and press her palm to his cheek in wordless acceptance. He’d come home, perhaps not in the traditional sense but in the ways that mattered most. She wished he’d never let go.

But he did.

Ben eased off his knees and comically dwarfed the small seat across from Rey, who at some point had settled before the table cluttered with ancient tomes and Han’s whiskey decanter. The calligraphy set belonged to Ben, of course. Leia should have recognized it.

Experience taught her not to overestimate the effect of a cathartic cry. It would go far, but it would not heal all wounds. Difficult conversations cratered the path ahead with potholes, but the important point was that a path existed at all. Love had made a way. The tension was broken, the ice melted, the chasm bridged.

Rey had drawn her heels onto her seat, wrapped her arms around her shins, and rested her chin on her knees. She appeared as wrecked as Ben.

Leia probably didn’t look any better. A discreet rub under her lashes might remove the worst of any raccoon mask, but she wasn’t vain enough to visit the ‘fresher over something so trivial. Or maybe she refused to be parted from Ben for even a nanosecond.

“I think,” Rey began, breaking the silence, “another cup of tea might be in order.”

Ben didn’t quite smile at her, but despite his red nose, swollen eyes and puffy cheeks, there was no mistaking the fondness in his expression.

Rey’s mouth relaxed into something inexpressibly soft.

The tenderness with which they beheld one another was sweet and syrupy as Life Day Wookiee-cakes—and it warmed Leia to the core. She folded her hands in her lap to keep from pressing them over her heart and sighing aloud.

“Or caf, now that Ben’s here,” Rey turned to Leia, “I’m sure he’d be glad to brew you a cup.”

“The lavender, if you don’t mind,” Leia said. She needed its calming properties more than a stimulant. After the tears, it was a wonder her voice wasn’t any huskier.

While Rey moved to prepare tea, Ben stood and faced the side wall.  His thick fingers danced in the air as if tapping a control panel. What in the worlds?

He clasped his hands behind his back and fixed his attention on the exposed duracrete floor. Would he start drumming his foot next? What was he doing? The inquiry hovered on her lips when he reached forward and a tall tumbler the color of matte durasteel materialized in his grip. He took a sip. Had he conjured caf from thin air?

He closed his eyes, presumably to savor the flavor or the heat—like his father used to do. How many times had she watched Han finish his morning caf, prop his heels on the Falcon’s dash—prompting a roar of Chewie’s annoyance—and cross his arms behind his head, the image of contentment? Something twanged in Leia’s heart. If only Han could be here now, could see his son.

“I have an entire starfield of questions,” Leia said as Rey placed a steaming mug in her hands.

“So few?” Ben muttered into his caf.

Most were more important than this one, but curiosity burned within her. “First the shirt and now the caf appear from nowhere. Either of you care to explain?”

Ben traded a speaking look with Rey.

“It’s—” Rey settled into her chair and crossed her legs on the seat. “Ben’s not really here. Well, I mean, he is, but he’s also in his quarters, which is where he got the caf. And his shirt.”

Had Leia misheard? But her son was stuffed in the too-tight chair right here in Rey’s room. “His quarters?”

Rey nodded. “On the Steadfast.”

Leia swallowed. Hard. “As in the Supreme Leader’s flagship?”

“Last time I checked,” Ben said. “Unless Pryde has mutinied or Hux has found the nerve to stage a coup.”

Kriff. But that meant he must still be Supreme Leader, still with the First Order. She’d dared to wonder if his presence with Rey might indicate he’d defected or turned or— Her head swam with implications for the Resistance. The facts, Leia. Learn as much as you can. “But how can you be in two places at once?”

“We”—he nodded at Rey—“are a dyad in the Force.” Ben placed his caf on the table to free his hands and proceeded to explain the most astonishing Force-bond, if such it could be called, that Leia had ever heard. Rey was right; he was an excellent teacher. Leia had been able to sense her twin across vast distances, even exchange impressions and feelings, but this? If only Luke had known. Maybe he did, wherever he dwelled in the Force.

“Let me see if I understand,” Leia said when Ben finished. “As two that are one, you can read each other’s minds, share feelings and physical sensation, and project yourself where the other is.”

“Not ‘project,’” Rey said. “That’s what Luke did on Crait and it—the effort cost his life. But we’re one. Where I am, Ben is, and where Ben is, I am. Does that make sense?”

Leia shook her head. Luke had been fond of saying nothing was impossible with the Force, but this was more than her beleaguered mind could comprehend.

“When the Force first connected us, we could only see and speak to one another, then touch and perceive each other’s thoughts, and then pass objects. As we,” Rey cleared her throat and pink tinged her cheeks, “grew closer, we gained control and could interact with each other’s environments. Ben’s table is superimposed on mine, even though his chairs are significantly larger”—she chuckled—“and I can operate his food dispenser whenever I want.” She waved toward where Ben had obtained his caf.

“When does she not want?” Ben mumbled, though the delight twinkling in his eyes belied his tone.

Rey ignored him. “We share the same ‘fresher door, but his is in a separate sleeproom on the far side of his suite while mine’s right here at the foot of my sleeper.” She pointed past where Leia sat on the mattress’ edge to the general vicinity from which Ben had appeared. “Both environments are present and they overlap to a degree, but we can interact with either. I’ll admit it can be disorienting. It’s—it’s difficult to explain.”

If this was true, then Ben hadn’t been hiding in Rey’s ‘fresher but exiting his own and Rey hadn’t smuggled him onto Ajan Kloss, at least not in the manner Leia presumed. Her thoughts whirled. She’d confronted her share of the bizarre in her lifetime. She didn’t sense Rey was lying, incredible as it was. In fact, Rey had taken care to answer honestly during their entire interview. Everything she said was proving true, even while overturning Leia’s assumptions.

But the potential to exploit this—their connection—was disastrous. “If someone entered Ben’s quarters, who would they see?”

“Not you, don’t worry.” Ben snorted. “We already know those who aren’t Force-sensitive can’t see Rey.”

Rey winked and leaned forward to mock-whisper. “I might have sat on his lap during a Supreme Council meeting.”

Leia sipped her tea and pictured Ben trying to maintain a stoic countenance and authoritative presence while a beautiful girl—the woman he loved—probably did more than sit quietly on his thighs. She barely managed to swallow without choking.

“Yes, well.” A crimson stain crept from Ben’s neckline. “Now we know you can see me, we’ll have to experiment.”

“Luke caught us once,” Rey interjected, “but it was so brief I don’t know if it’s because he was a Force-user or related to Ben.”

“Luke?” Leia raised her eyebrows. “When you were on Ahch-To? But that was before Crait.”

Rey bowed her head and palmed her neck.

“You mean, all this time—” What had Rey said about her secret beau, that they’d been seeing one another for nearly a year? No wonder Rey seemed to know so much about First Order operations. If Ben was with Rey wherever she was, if he could read her mind and hear her thoughts—  Leia’s head snapped to her son. “Have you been spying on the Resistance?”

His face closed, the hard-won warmth cooling to stone.

Kriff. That didn’t come out right.

Rey’s gaze flicked between them. “It’s not what you think.”

“Oh?” Not what she thought? The Supreme Leader of the First Order—their archenemy and nemesis—had direct access to the Resistance’s most sensitive information, and it’s not what she thought?

“Has the First Order attacked the Resistance even once in the past year?” Ben bit out.

“No.” She’d taken advantage of the reprieve to rally allies, however minimal her success.

“I know where you are.” Ben enunciated each word, the low register of his voice heightening the implied threat and sending a tremor of dread through Leia’s gut. He held the upper hand. He knew it, and he wanted her to concede. “I know about every Resistance mission. I’ve ensured the First Order has not had opportunity to engage.”

Her hackles rose. What had Rey done? Unilaterally trusted their safety, their very existence, to the whim of an unstable darksider, to a—a murderer? It didn’t matter that Ben was her son. All because the girl had nursed a passion for a handsome face, powerful enough to undermine her commitment to those whom she defended? Hot betrayal seared through Leia. Her pulse hammered at her temples, and the Force eddied in an ominous swirl.

Calm down. She needed to calm down.

That was uncharitable. Ben was changed. The extent was unclear, but he wasn’t the same troubled young man who’d fled Luke’s temple in a haze of smoke and reemerged as Snoke’s disciple. He wasn’t the same crazed knight who descended on Crait in a fury. Hadn’t Rey painted him with the most beautiful strokes?

Was Leia to renege so soon on the forgiveness she’d freely offered? Force forbid.

Nor could she forget that he and Rey were joined in heart and soul and body, united by the love woven in her hair, an abiding love that surpassed words to express.

Leia counted to five with each inhale and exhale until her heartrate slowed. If they were one, then to attack Rey was to attack Ben—and vice versa. Two of the most powerful beings in the galaxy sat at this humble table in the center of the Resistance. She must tread with care.

She pleaded with the young Jedi. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“I did.” Rey plunked her empty mug down and folded her arms. “As much as I could.”

Leia’s perspective shifted. During how many command meetings had Rey agitated in Kylo Ren’s defense, boldly enough to descend into verbal tussles with Poe and sometimes Finn, even though he was predisposed to support Rey almost beyond reason? Rey had detailed rumors of plans to transition the Stormtrooper program from conscripts to volunteers. Of planets and cultures that refused the Resistance because the First Order’s offers were better. Of overtures from shadier groups—cartels, smugglers, slavers—that were motivated by the pressure they were experiencing from tightened First Order policies. But Leia had thought they were just that: rumors. She couldn’t afford to chase phantoms when the mission to rebuild took priority. Could she have been so short-sighted?

If Ben had been protecting the Resistance, then had Rey been protecting the First Order, working with him to ensure their factions didn’t cross paths or cross swords?

“Ask your nerfherder of a son.” Rey glared past the whiskey at Ben. “He’s got this moof-brained idea that he has to fix everything by himself, that it’s weakness to ask for help.”

He wanted to fix things? Hadn’t Rey said earlier that he tried to choose good in the wake of his regrets?

Ben bowed forward and set the tumbler on the floor near his bare feet. His fingers dug into his hair and tugged. He’d done the same as a child, the self-inflicted pain an outlet for frustration. He dropped his hands and raised his head. “I will not run to my mother and beg for rescue.”

“Kark it all, Ben.” Rey growled. “If we could just work together—”

“No.” That steely tone was all Skywalker. Stubborn. Willful. Tenacious. Clearly this was not the first time the two had pursued the argument.

Rey spread her palms in a helpless gesture, eyes blazing. “See?”

“Then don’t,” Leia said.

Surprise and suspicion narrowed Ben’s gaze.

“Don’t come as my son. Come as Supreme Leader or host me as Resistance General, either way, I don’t care.” She extended an arm in invitation. “Let us meet and deliberate terms for a ceasefire. We can formalize what’s already happening in practice, if I understand correctly. That would be a first step. After that perhaps we could solidify this partnership Rey thinks is warranted.

“It has nothing to do with rescue. It’s about holding the good of the galaxy in common. If our respective”—what should she term an oppressive regime like the First Order, if Ben was intent on overhauling it?—“if our respective organizations are to honor any deal that’s brokered, it cannot be on the basis of our familial relationship but on reasoned negotiation.”

Ben studied her, not as her son but as a fellow leader, with those incisive eyes and that calculating mind. It was at once unsettling, strange, and wonderful. Was it wrong to feel pride, to credit at least some of his skill to her influence?

“I’ll give it some thought.” The tension in his shoulders might have eased a fraction.

“Good.” Leia nodded. It was enough. For tonight.

***

Ben twirled a stylus through his fingers, levitated and twirled it again. The action was absentminded, a habit from childhood, his thoughts obviously elsewhere.

His use of the Force prompted Leia’s query. “You’re not weaker in the Force, are you?”

Ben’s head jerked up. “What?”

“Stars, no,” Rey exclaimed at the same time.

Leia had sensed her son outside the Raddus before it blew—the same bands of light overlaid with a thick net of darkness—unmistakable across the vacuum of space. She’d sensed his conflict, wavering with indecision and then cresting with resolve. It was still difficult to believe he fired on her, even though he’d killed his father and even though it was the best explanation in retrospect. That moment was too fraught to introduce now, but his presence in the Force had weakened dramatically since then.

“I don’t know,” Leia said. “Your Force signature feels like you’re at the end of a tunnel. I can’t—I can’t read you.”

Ben and Rey exchanged another look. Ah. They were communicating mind to mind, swapping thoughts. Probably discussing how to answer and who would speak.

“It could be the dyad.” Ben shrugged. “You perceive me through Rey, who has her own unique Force signature. That could mask or mute mine.”

“But you should know that we are—both of us—stronger together than we ever were apart.” Rey leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and interlocking her fingers. “Master Leia.”

Leia’s arms prickled with the resumption of her title and Rey’s sudden gravity. It was more alarming than if the girl had yelled.

“We’ve been studying the Force.” She flicked a glance at Ben again. “We think the Jedi—”

“And the Sith,” Ben added.

“—were wrong,” Rey concluded. “Jedi like Luke spurned the dark side and attempted to control it through detachment, through shunning passion and negative emotions.”

“And in doing so, afforded it more power.” Bitterness threaded Ben’s words.

“The Sith,” Rey said, continuing their dual narrative, “despised the light side. It wasn’t that they judged it inherently weak. They knew the light’s strength, often warped it to their purposes, but they scorned lightsiders for curbing their power with the Jedi code.”

“What we’ve discovered,” Ben said, “not only through research but through the dyad, is that there’s extraordinary power where light and dark are woven together, where they exist in balance, passion with serenity, power with harmony, not forsaking one for the other.”

“And extraordinary peace too.” Rey bestowed a gentle smile on Ben. “It makes the Force happy.”

“You can’t ascribe emotions to the Force.” Ben’s mouth turned down.

“Does too.” Rey beamed at him, unperturbed. “I can feel it.”

What should Leia say? Whom should she believe? Was Ben deceiving Rey, seducing her to the dark side with sweet words and soft kisses? That seemed counterintuitive. Luke had taught the light side was good and harmonious, the locus of peace, to be sought and revered. Her birth father had demonstrated that the dark side was evil, corrupted users, and to be avoided. Hadn’t she seen the impact on Ben’s life as he fell deeper into the dark, a prey to fear and consumed by rage? Balance seemed a dangerous line at best and unattainable at worst. And yet—

Rey wasn’t any feebler in the light for the shadow Leia had sensed in her.

And Ben—

Leia blinked and her heart staggered under the realization. She had barely admitted it in the privacy of her inmost thoughts, let alone in words, yet even as an unspoken question, her dearest hope had dared to unfurl its wings. “That—that means you haven’t turned to the light.” Nor would he.

He shook his head, the movement slow and gentle. “It’s not a binary choice. It’s not one or the other. I—” He sought Rey’s eyes. “Thanks to the dyad, I quit resisting. Light has always been there. No matter how hard I fought, I couldn’t extinguish it. Not entirely.”

Luke had said the same of their father, of Anakin, that even after a lifetime of submission to the dark, a spark of light still smoldered in his heart, that he was not, after all, the soulless monster Leia had judged him. And it proved enough. Could it be that Anakin didn’t so much return to the light as he found balance? Leia had always wrestled with accepting Vader’s last-breath conversion. In some ways, this felt more plausible.

Ben pressed his eyelids closed for a moment and inhaled a deep breath. “In the same way, the darkness has always been part of me too. It’s still there, but when yoked in tandem with the light, when both are guided by ethical use, there’s nothing to fear. The conflict’s gone.”

“I’m glad, Ben.” Leia set her empty mug on the side table. “So very glad.” And she was. Relieved, actually, after bearing witness to his lifelong struggle and living under the weight of guilt only a mother helpless to intervene could know.

Hadn’t Ben’s signature told the same story from the beginning, bands of light veined with ropes of darkness, even in the womb? She’d credited that darkness to Darth Vader’s long shadow stretching down the Skywalker generations, had feared what Ben might become. Had it been self-fulfilling prophecy all along, her efforts to protect him from the dark and anchor him in the light somehow vectoring him toward his fall? She’d have to consider further. This had the potential to overthrow her entire conception of the Force.

Leia turned to Rey. “Is this how you’ve been training together, in the balance of light and dark?”

Rey wrinkled her nose and bobbed her head. Well, her padawan ought to feel ashamed. She’d trained in the light with the mother while covertly training in the dark with the son. No, that wasn’t right. They’d been training in the united Force. If only Rey had been open from the start, but Leia could hardly blame her, given the circumstances.

“I suppose training together and your connection as a dyad explains how you more or less ended up living together,” Leia arched a brow, “a circumstance we need to address, I might add.” She slanted a pointed look at Ben. “If it were to come out the Supreme Leader is living under my roof, so to speak, and consorting with my Jedi-in-training, it would seriously undermine negotiations.”

Though what in the worlds she was going to do about it, Leia had no idea. She couldn’t very well afford to have two powerful Force-users at odds with the Resistance.

“No, that’s—” Rey erupted with a bright laugh and flashed an apologetic grin at Ben. “That was entirely my fault. I—”

“Here.” Ben scooted his chair forward and extended a broad palm to Leia. “It’ll be faster if you let me show you what happened.”

Chapter Text

Leia stared, her heart thumping as if an Ewok were playing bone drums.

Ben waited, nearly knee to knee, his palm outstretched and open. He boasted a man’s hand nearly twice hers in size, but she saw only childish fingers stained with ink and Chandrilan dirt.

How old had he been, her little starfighter with his sniffles and sleep-tousled hair? Maybe five or six?

“It was just a nightmare, sweetheart.” She stroked his back, kissed his temple, and repressed a shudder. A creature of darkness haunted his dreams, hideous in feature yet kind in its overtures—and vicious in its kindness.

That was the last time. Ben never invited her into his memories again.

Decades later, long after Ben fled Luke’s temple, Leia discovered to her horror and shame that the creature wasn’t a product of his slumbering imagination. It was Snoke, his terrible master, preying on Ben as a boy. How could her son have any chance at resisting such a powerful darksider when his own mother didn’t believe him? If she’d known, she’d have run straight to Luke. Hells, she’d have hunted down the monster and ripped him limb from limb herself.

But she hadn’t known. Not until it was too late.

The apology mounted to her lips and moisture to her eyes. Karking tears, would they never stop? But Ben and Rey were— arguing? Tension sparked in the Force. What had she missed?

“I don’t see how this is any worse than you sharing our secrets without consulting me.” Ben spoke over his shoulder to Rey, who hadn’t moved from her position at the table.

Leia gathered her loose hair to one side as her head swiveled between them.

“I didn’t.” Rey leaned forward in her chair. “I was careful, but this— Why can’t we just tell her?”

“And trigger a thousand more questions?” Ben blew a puff of air between his lips. “I thought you knew her better than that. Trust me, this will be easier.”

Postponing her apology would be the prudent course. Leia wanted to make a full confession and she hoped Ben would listen, but to rush into that conversation might very well be counterproductive and would certainly be self-indulgent, driven by her need to assuage maternal guilt. She’d lived with it this long; she could do so longer.

“But I’ll be mortified.” Rey sat back and pressed fists to the roses clustering in her cheeks. “I was—  And we—” She glanced at Leia and stopped.

The two Force-users could have conducted this argument in the privacy of their bond, which meant they intended Leia to overhear, probably counted on her taking sides. What in stars had them worked into a lather?

Ben grinned. Actually grinned. Not his smartest move.

Rey glared back across the table. “You’re enjoying this far too much, Ben Solo.”

“Not at all, sweetheart.”

Would Leia’s heart ever cease to thrill at hearing the name she and Han had given him? At ‘sweetheart’ purred in his deep voice? Would she ever cease to be reminded of his father?

“If I had a grain of sand for every regret and shameful memory, I could create a beach on Ahch-To.” Ben sobered, the light dimming from his countenance as if clouds passed over the sun. “But there’s one thing I will never be embarrassed about and that is loving you.”

Rey’s color was still high, but she nodded. And that was that.

“I was interested before,” Leia said, “but after that little display, you’ve stoked my curiosity to fever pitch.”

Ben returned his attention to his mother and twitched his fingertips in invitation.

Leia slid her palm into his—and exulted in the rasp of his warm, calloused skin. Her perspective shifted with the old familiar disorientation as he took hold in the Force and drew her into his memory. Then she was looking through her son’s eyes, her mind awash with his thoughts and feelings, as she had not done since he was a boy.

***

The dim hallway in the Correllian cantina reeked. Mingled body odor, urine, and inhalants nauseated Kylo’s already queasy stomach and muddled senses. He wrangled the dizziness into focus, one useful skill he’d gleaned from his years of vile training. Snoke had first drugged and then made him fight. At least he’d never be subjected to that particular torture again.

What in the worlds was Rey doing here? And what in the worlds had happened?

Following the battle of Crait, she slammed mental shields across their bond as securely as she’d raised the Falcon’s ramp in his face. She kept him at a physical and figurative distance, ignorant of her whereabouts. Or tried to, at least. The Force continued to bridge them despite her desires and efforts otherwise. And he, fool that he was, savored every glorious sighting, no matter that she remained aloof, glittering with a cold brilliance as brittle as ice.

Until now.

Now her presence beamed through the Force like a beacon. She may as well have hailed him with a comm. Her inebriation had flooded him with such potency that his knights drew blood before he could call them off.

He flew directly to Correllia. Well, almost. First he stopped by medbay for a patch job, which reminded him why he was here and why he was angry. What if he’d been caught unaware during mortal combat and not a sparring session? Kriffing bond.

She was coming.

Kylo peered over the top edge of his cloak and shrank into the shadows.

The hall door opened and Rey stumbled in with a wave of blue light and pulsing music. She staggered and braced a wrapped forearm against the grimy wall.

Kriffing scavenger. She was drunk.

Not drunk, Rey’s words echoed in Leia’s mind, nearly startling her out of the memory. Maybe a wee bit intoxicated.

Excuse me, Ben said without speaking. Only a wee bit?

If Rey could huff mentally, she did. Okay, maybe more than.

Are you going to let me tell the story?

Fine, but Leia should know I was on Corellia with Finn and Rose to recruit allies. We were celebrating a rare success.

So. They really did communicate—banter—mind to mind. Leia remembered that mission. She’d sent the trio off to solicit support shortly after the Resistance relocated to Ajan Kloss. Rey had been different when she returned two weeks later, often preoccupied, her mind elsewhere. But that was to be expected after confronting the grim reality of their circumstances, wasn’t it?

“Scavenger.” Kylo yanked Rey into a closet—and Leia back into the memory.

She’d have fought him off like a cornered Loth-cat if alcohol wasn’t dulling her reflexes.

The sharp tang of cleaning chemicals pierced his nostrils. He’d ensured the janitorial droid was absent—probably waiting tables—but it was tighter than he anticipated with them stuffed between the shelves. Far too tight. Kriff.

Rey pressed her lithe body against him and tipped her head back. The single light above illuminated the depths of her hazel eyes. Twin pools of sunlight through a forested bower. Such beautiful eyes. He needed to focus.

“Name’s Rey.” Her fingers walked up his shoulders, and she studied his face like he might be good to eat. “Whatcha doing here?”

She exhaled and the fumes overwhelmed him. Correllian whiskey, of course.

Ben was ten. They had stopped over on Takodana, en route to Uncle Luke’s Jedi Academy. “Boy’s gotta have a little fun before he becomes a monk,” Han said to Maz with a ruffle to his son’s mop. There’d been drinks and dice and “don’t tell your mother” until Dad tucked him into bed and crept out again. The best part was spending time with his father. Ben could care less about the rest—and he hated the cacophony of inebriated minds in the Force. He pretended sleep when Han returned and leaned over his son’s mattress, but the whispered “I love you, kid” lingered heavier than the whiskey on his dad’s breath.

Kylo steeled himself against the recollection. “You’re not being a very good Jedi.”

“’M too.”

“If you’re going to drink, at least learn to control it.”

Her hum vibrated against him. “S’whiskey.”

Stars, the glow of her presence in the Force intoxicated more than the liquor.

“I can tell,” he said drily. “The effects are crossing the bond. Not to mention you dropped your shields, which is how I found you.”

“So cozy.” She nestled into his chest like a burrower into a wroshyr tree. The Force in her swirled with a confusion of emotions, warm and wanting, that threatened to drag him into the whirlpool.

Alarm spiked. “No more alcohol. You have to promise. I can’t afford not to be alert. You’ll get us both killed.”

“Isn’t that whatcha want?”

He squeezed her upper arms to set her back and peer into her face. “Do you?”

She blinked slowly, pupils wide and dilated. Her lips pursed in the most fetching manner.

Why couldn’t he maintain an appropriate degree of frustration?

“No. I want—” A blur of images and sensation flashed from her mind. His gloved hand extended to her. His face raw with yearning. What his lips might feel like against hers. His bare chest. A soul-deep ache. For him. So profound it hurt. And not just physically but a longing to connect in mind and heart and spirit.

Her desire perfectly mirrored that which had driven him to offer his hand in Snoke’s smoldering throne room. If only she’d said yes. Had she intended for him to see, to reveal she’d been denying her feelings? He loved her too much to gloat.

Kylo cupped her cheek, swept the leather encasing his thumb under her fluttering lashes.

Rey leaned into him and half-closed her eyes.

His stomach swooped. If he was what she truly wanted—

“Then marry me,” he murmured.

“Okay.” Her eyelids wobbled open as if they were too heavy to lift.

Kriff. He couldn’t do this, couldn’t take advantage when she was compromised. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Do too.”

“Let me—” He shifted around to generate a little space between them.

She mewled in protest.

“Wait.” He barked a laugh and caught her hands as they scrabbled for purchase on his tunic. “There’s a Jedi technique. To cancel the effects of alcohol in the blood.” Even though he’d tried it on himself without success during the hyperspace jump. “You’re not thinking straight.”

“But you’re not a Jedi.”

“I was,” Kylo mumbled. He retained the training, though concentrating and wielding the light side was proving more difficult than he remembered. Maybe it was the vicarious effect of the alcohol or the distraction of her nearness. The process took longer that it should, but eventually the fog receded from his thoughts and then hers.

“Thanks.” Rey lifted unclouded eyes to him. “You’ll have to teach me how to do that.”

She was clear-minded and wanted him to teach her?

Rey tugged her fingers from his and, before he could mourn the loss, wove them behind his neck. She stood on tiptoe and met his lips with hers. It was a quick kiss, sweet and chaste, probably a simple thank you, but stars, it set his heart racing and rippled through him, right down to his booted soles.

“The answer’s still ‘yes,’” she said. “I’ve had time to think about—about what happened on the Supremacy, and I can’t keep going like this, keeping you out, when that’s the last thing I want. But I have one condition.”

He didn’t dare speak, only arched a brow and feigned calm over the utter clamor of his heart. Rey had changed her mind? She was agreeing? Was this really happening? In the cleaning closet of a Corellian cantina? It was oddly fitting.

“The first time you asked—” She tugged at his glove, loosening one finger at a time.

She may as well have been undressing more than his hand for her effect on him. Kylo drew a ragged breath through his nose and counted before exhaling slowly. Be still. Just be still. 

“I did want to take your hand.” She aligned her smaller hand with his, palm to palm and finger to finger. “Ben’s hand.”

A month ago, before the debacle on Crait, Kylo might have bristled in defense. But Luke’s last gambit had succeeded. Upon reflection, Kylo had awakened to the horrifying realization that were it not for his uncle’s intervention, his rage might have killed Rey. And his mother. That, more than anything else, snapped him to his senses. He was already forced to live with his father’s loss. He couldn’t bear to lose the last two people he loved most in the cosmos. It had realigned his path, but he was the same person, whether he answered to Kylo or Ben. “I’m not going to change.”

She slotted her naked fingers through his and squeezed. “You already have.”

How could the touch of her hand make him melt? He donned his most commanding tone. “I’m still Supreme Leader of the First Order.”

“I won’t reign with you, and I won’t convert to the dark side.” She shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t want any of it. I want Ben.”

And just like that, he capitulated. His mouth crashed into hers, followed by a flurry of lips and teeth and hands. As if he could kiss everywhere at once and, stars, if she didn’t feel the same. She shoved and his back collided with the shelf. Something rattled. He didn’t care. She could have Ben Solo. Kriff, she could have everything. He’d lay it all at her feet, the First Order, his every aspiration, the entire galaxy. Didn’t she understand how deeply, how passionately, how completely he belonged to her and loved her?

A wandering hand slipped under his tunic and met skin, her fingers chilly against his abs. He jerked backwards. A bottle toppled and he caught it with the Force.

Rey pulled away, face flushed and triple buns askew from his fingers threading into her hair. What he wouldn’t give to braid her shimmering chestnut locks, to give voice to the depths of his emotion with the wordless Alderaanian vocabulary. Someday, maybe. Soon.

Heavy breathing drove the rise and fall of her breasts. She looked at once shocked and supremely pleased with herself.

“Let’s go.” He offered his hand. “The courts are still open.”

“What, you mean right now?”

“Would you rather wait?”

She bit her lip but shook her head—and took his hand.

Leia caught a flurry of final images as Ben retracted the shared memory: a careworn judge who would never suspect he’d been manipulated in the Force to neither recognize nor remember he was solemnizing the marriage of the Supreme Leader and the Last Jedi. A register bearing the names Ben Solo and Rey of Jakku. A sleeper spread with an expanse of pristine linen, a soaring view over the light-sprinkled city, chestnut hair slipping through thick fingers, the glide of skin on skin—and then it ended.

***

Leia tingled all over with the residual rush of Ben’s pleasure.

Well.

That was—

Not what she expected and more than she could assimilate at the moment. He was Kylo then and Ben now, which suggested his change had been gradual. Han and Luke’s deaths may have been the catalyst, but marriage was the crucible and Rey’s love the compass. Leia hadn’t missed the intimation that Ben still loved his parents, that all was not lost. Nor the rather amusing revelation that while they might claim elevated status as a dyad in the Force, they were still a couple of hotheaded fools in love: a finger of whiskey to lower inhibitions and they leaped straight into marriage. This changed nothing—and it changed everything. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry.

Ben released her hand and slid his chair back to the table.

Leia shook her head. “How in the worlds did you keep this from Finn and Rose?”

Rey hummed. “I might have told them I had to go away on Force business and backed it with a subtle mind trick.”

So they’d had a secret honeymoon too. Leia looked between them. “I can’t believe you’re married.”

“Of course we are.” Lines furrowed Ben’s forehead and his generous mouth curved down. “You thought Rey was pregnant but didn’t think we might be married?”

“It’s not like you have to—”

He folded his arms across his chest, biceps bulging from the sleeves of his black pullover. “I was raised better than that.”

Laughter burbled out. Leia couldn’t help it. That the Supreme Leader, whose recent past was defined by reprehensible choices, should take the moral high ground with his mother? It was the stuff of farce, but it was true.

“You’re right. You're right,” she said, waving off Ben's stormy expression.

After seeing the intensity with which he loved and how the death of his pet Tooka shattered him, she’d cautioned her young son to choose wisely and give his heart judiciously. She feared betrayal and broken relationships would gravely wound his spirit and toughen his tender soul. And she was right. Except it was his family who betrayed him. And he hadn’t lost his heart to a girl—he’d lost it to the dark side, or rather to his dark master, to Snoke, to a blinding devotion that cost him his goodness and gentleness.

Until he found it again with Rey, who was his match in every way that mattered and the fullness of his soul.

He crowned her with the braids of sacrifice, union, and eternal love—the braids a husband had plaited for his wife to celebrate a special occasion, his birthday. The very first clue, which Rey had never denied.

“I’m not sure how much more shock my poor heart can withstand,” Leia said. “Any more surprises I should know about? You’re not actually pregnant, are you?”

“No,” they said in unison, Ben with a scowl and Rey with a laugh.

“I suppose the prohibition on alcohol has to do with not placing the other half of your dyad at risk.”

“Until the war is over,” Rey said, turning her soft gaze on Ben. “Until we can be together, for real and always.”

If only Leia had some means to commemorate this occasion, to convey her joy in their marriage. If only Han could celebrate with them. Wasn’t there? It was perfect. Leia tipped her unbound hair forward to expose her neck and reached into her collar to feel for the chain. After the Raddus, her fingers trembled too much to manage fine tasks like the clasp.

Leia creaked to her feet—she’d been sitting too long in one position—and turned her back to Ben. “Help me with this, would you?”

He rose behind her, and his fingertips brushed her neck. Leia withdrew the liberated chain from under her fatigues and turned to face him. After sliding the ring free, she offered it between thumb and forefinger.

“When I was pregnant with you, your father had this made.” The metal was worked in a delicate braid. “A cord of three strands for the three Solos. He’d want you to have it.” She’d worn it on a chain over her heart ever since Ben was born and her fingers reduced to their normal size.

Ben accepted, his throat bobbing.

Rey unfolded from her chair and skirted the table to peer into his hand. “May I?”

Ben flicked a glance at Leia, and she knew his intention, knew the same way she’d sometimes been able to read his mind as a boy. But she made no acknowledgement, didn’t smile or nod her head, only stood as witness.

He lifted Rey’s hand and positioned the small braided circlet at the tip of her ring finger.

Parallel lines formed above Rey’s nose. This tradition likely fell outside her limited Jakku experience, but she didn’t object.

“With this ring, I marry you.” The words rolled from Ben’s voice, rich and resonant and momentous. “With my body, I worship you. With all that I am and all that I have, I honor you. By the power of the Force.”

The ring slid into place.

Rey had been staring at their hands, but when she lifted her eyes to Ben—to her husband—her countenance shone with all the love and tenderness that reflected between them, that shouted from her braided hair.

Truly, Leia’s cup overflowed. She might have missed the wedding, but this was a lovely substitute.

The ring glinted from Rey’s hand under the ropes of lights. There were still three Solos. Han would be pleased. As briefly as he’d known her, he’d likened Rey to the daughter he never had, even offered her a place on his crew. Not for the first time, Leia wondered if Han had sensed the Force, despite his vehement protestations to the contrary. Had he somehow been drawn to his son through Rey? He’d flown into danger to rescue her. And to bring Ben home. Leia supposed he had succeeded, in his roundabout and haphazard way.

“My most heartfelt congratulations to you both.” Leia gave a quick squeeze to their hands. “Welcome to the family, Rey.”

“Thank you.” She'd never seen Rey smile so wide, her cheeks dimpling with the breadth of her grin.

Ben smiled in return—a broad, deep smile that cut valleys around his mouth and crinkles at the edges of his eyes. Rey was right. His entire face transformed. Until he bent and stopped Rey’s smile with a kiss. Her hands crept over his shoulders and tugged at his neck, pulling him closer.

Leia looked away.

It was time to go. They were still newlyweds, even if it had been nearly a year since they married in secret. Problems remained to be solved, questions to be answered, and discussions to be held—but not now. The night must be far gone, and they would meet again. Of that Leia was certain. This was only the beginning. An extraordinarily beautiful beginning.

“Good night, you two lovebirds. I’ll see myself out.”

“Wait,” Ben said. He parted from Rey with a last press of his lips to her knuckles. That move was all Lando.

Ben stepped behind his chair and gestured to the seat. “Mom—”

Her heart fluttered over the appellation. Would he think her crazy if she begged him to say it again? If she pleaded for a hug? Except, if she drew him into her arms and held him once more, she’d never let go. Ever.

“Would you—” His angular features softened with hesitation. And hope. “May I braid your hair?”