Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ahhhhh crap.

Ben Solo held the end of his severed SOLO-Gear lifeline that had once connected him to his dimension and looked around for the shimmer that signified the passage back home. Nothing. No wavy lights. No glow. No familiar faces watching him from back at the mansion on Chandrila. The portal had shut on him, and he had no idea where he was.

He scanned the military vessel with a penchant for black, mirror-like decor. The familiarity gave him goosebumps. He had been to a place like this before: his brother Kylo’s old Star Destroyer. “Oh I really should have checked Bail’s calculations before I let him set the portal.”

Of course, Ben would have lost his mind and screeched to the ends of the galaxy had anyone tried to correct his math when he was eight. But in retrospect, leaving his fate to a little boy without taking the proper precautions, well, that was on him.

The portal they had selected should have stayed open. That it closed so quickly meant he was not where they had planned for him to be. Well, mistakes happened. Time to fix it.

He just had to figure out where, or when, he was.

{Ben, where are you? Please tell me you can hear me!}

Decked in his adventuring garb, Ben squeezed himself into the quietest corner he could find and heaved a sigh of relief. At least he could still talk to Rey through their dyad bond, even across dimensions. {I hear you, but I definitely don’t know where I am. Very familiar though, and I’m not sure I like it.}

{Why did the lifeline snap? The portal slammed shut when you went through—Bail ’s sobbing thinking he killed you.}

{Aw, tell my little chocolate chip cookie Daddy’s fine, we all make mistakes, and we’ll find some way to fix it. I just need to make sure I have a safe spot to go over everything before we get to that point.}

{Safety? What ’s going on? Why are you worried about your safety?}

{Becauuuuse I think I ’m on a Star Destroyer.}

{Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?}

{I think it might even be Kylo ’s, though time travel is a statistical and scientific improbability, fun fact—} 

He could feel Rey’s roar of fury and concern. {Ben, you have to get back here. What can we do? Just tell me, and we’ll do whatever we need to on this end.}

{I know, and I will. I just need a safe place to do it. This corridor is crawling with Storm Troopers.}

{Ben …be careful, please?}

{Don ’t you worry. I’ve got my belts full of gear, my lightsaber, and my Rock Hound guns. I’m ready for whatever comes!}

{ …I don’t feel better.}

{Well I promise you will later when I get home and whisk you into the bedroom. But for now, I gotta concentrate.}

Ben peered around the corner of his hiding spot and immediately drew back in. Crawling with Storm Troopers was putting it lightly, and he needed space to work. And supplies. If he was to rebuild the dimensional doorway, he’d need parts galore.

First stop, engine room! And not get caught…

It took time, and patience, but eventually the river of troopers emptied from the halls. Perfect! Footfall after careful footfall, Ben crept down the glossy black hallway, ducking to the side at every sound and chirping droid. Hm, maybe he needed to be proactive, get the droids on his side.

Creeping as much as his giant frame would allow, he finally found an access panel. With a droid connect key in one hand and his comm projecting a fresh screen, he inserted and went to work, easily connecting to the system.

Heh, guess this dimension can ’t be too different from mine. Let’s see if they left the default password for admin access—aw damnit! At least someone in this realm has a brain. Not to worry, come on key-gen, do your stuff.

As his password cracker furiously stormed the code on the screen, his insatiable curiosity had his eyes drifting about his area. So damn similar to Kylo’s Destroyer—this could only work in his favor. Ah, and look, the incessant propaganda screens every few feet spewing blah blah blah about serving the First Order.

First Order, eh? Guess they hadn’t worked up to the Final one yet. Made him wonder if his clone existed in this realm too. There was usually another version of Ben and Rey, but he was always strict to keep out of contact. Interdimensional travel was for observation only, and he learned a lot about the makeup of the multiverse by seeing how similar—or different—each parallel dimension was. But the last thing he wanted to do was interfere. Something as powerful as a dyad shouldn’t be messed with.

But seeing another Kylo, as a clone version of Ben? Nope, not even once. Honestly, he hoped he wouldn’t start now. He was getting a little too old to be escaping an angry Sith student who looked just like him. Had enough on his hands with his ten-year-old son Oren, or his little twelve-year-old pirate, Reayon, for that matter.

Thank the stars the twins could be kept content for hours upon hours playing Caverns and Rancors or strategy games like Settlers of Corellia or Ticket to Fly.

The screen’s typical red-and-black-spoke logo assured with a pleasant voice that they were right and just in bringing order to a chaotic and corrupt galaxy. Ben shook his head. The only thing that brought order was sound scientific fact! And math, of course. A beautiful equation that explained the universe in perfect calculation. Anything else was just…barbaric.

Moments later, the propaganda shifted to a display that really caught his attention. Ah, so that’s where all the Storm Troopers went! All lined up white and orderly, listening to some redhead yelling stuff rather proudly and furiously.

Hey! He’d seen that guy before! On Kylo’s Destroyer! Hux was it? His brother told him all about the sniveling, smarmy bastard. There was no love between those two, and the only thing keeping Kylo from choking the orange-headed twat to death was Palpatine’s order. Yikes, Palpatine! Almost forgot about him!

Oh crap, thinking about all this was becoming too unnerving. Come on, key-gen, before I lose my nerve, or life…

But the redhead said nothing about Palpatine, instead referring to Snoke as Supreme Leader. Oh, poor Kylo, if he was even on this ship. Palpatine went and made Snoke Supreme Leader instead of him. His clone’s self-esteem was already in the negative; this had to have killed him!

His ruminations fell when he really started listening to what Hux said. Weapon…wipe out the Hosnian system…the seat of the New Republic…

Oh no.

Whatever was happening, it was way worse than he thought. Luckily, his generator stopped, having found the right password, letting Ben take command of the ship’s system. All its maps, data, everything, all was now in his hands.

Fun!

Primary thoughts of getting to the engine room and scavenging it for parts died back a little as the propaganda kept screaming on the screens. He knew he was not supposed to act in other dimensions. Travel was a learning tool, for data collection only. The last thing he should do is play Force and stick his rather prominent nose where it didn’t belong.

Last thing he should do.

Definitely.

To…totally…

Licking his lips, Ben reached into one of his many pouches and drew out a little card he did not retrieve often. It was a nasty little beast, but sometimes a necessary one.

He inserted it into his bulky comm and worked his nerdy magic. While his virus uploaded to the ship’s systems, he did a scan of personnel on the ship. Ah, just what he needed! Screenshot a pic here, crop there, insert into the “Willy-fy” app…

As soon as Hux finished screaming, “—galaxy will bow to the First Order!” Ben tapped his “Execute” button with a grin.

Every single screen, including the giant ones where the bulk of Storm Troopers were gathered, currently broadcasting Hux’s overly red face, suddenly flashed over to an image of Snoke’s head placed onto an animated, very naked little character, bearing a rather large male appendage swinging around to a fast-paced, obnoxious yet catchy beat.

“Look at my willy! Look at my willy! Isn’t it silly? Look at my willy!”

Ben watched from his commandeered feed as Hux’s proud face melted into wide-eyed horror. One by one, the Storm Troopers broke form, some trying so hard not to laugh, others doubled over. Ben then switched to the other camera feeds and watched as the entire ship erupted into chaos, especially in the control room, where there was absolutely no control to be had at all.

Ben fell against the wall as he laughed himself into silence. “Oh WillyLuvr82, there’s a reason your song was the top hit of 41ABY”

He was about to sneak out of his hiding space to find the engine room when a marching of boots had him darting back again.

“WHO ALLOWED THIS GARBAGE ON MY SHIP?!” Hux screamed, a barely controlled retinue of troopers following behind. “GET THIS TRASH OFF MY FEED NOW!”

“Someone hacked the system!” one of the officers cried. “We’ve tried everything. No one can get control—oh for the love of—look out!”

The officer and Hux dodged for cover while the troopers shot at an army of droids zooming and flailing about, firing haphazardly at anything and everything. Of course, the soldiers missed every damn shot, and the group had to run screaming from a gang of murderous robots.

Ben turned his feed to the control room once again where Hux barricaded himself, leaving his soldiers and officer to face the hacked droids.

Gasping, the redheaded sourpuss gripped a table and pointed at the screen. “FIRE THE WEAPON! KILL THEM ALL! MAKE THEM PAY FOR THIS TRAVESTY!”

Officers tapped screens, buttons, pulled levers. Nothing, absolutely nothing happened.

“FIRE THE DAMN WEAPON!”

“Sir,” an officer said, swallowing and loosening his collar, “the weapon powered down without our command and…the control system is destroyed. It’s…like a virus or something completely destroyed every control program involved. I don’t know when we can get this back up, if we even can.”

The infiltrating nerd grinned as he watched from his hiding spot. “Oh trust me, you can’t. Ah Ben, you really outdid yourself this time. And now for the porn…”

In one more tap, the entire viewport in the bridge turned into a recent naughty fave, and the haunting look of sheer death, terror, and fury on Hux’s face was enough that Ben had to take and keep a snapshot.

He might just frame that one on his wall.

Alright, now that billions of lives had been spared and the entire ship was in chaos, it was time to get what he needed to get out of there. With porn and Snoke’s animated willy dominating every room and hall, it would be easy to slip in and out of the chaos en route to his destination.

~*~

Rey

{Ben, what’s happening?} Regardless of how little time had passed, Rey needed to check in on him. Sure, he may have taken part in saving the galaxy before, but Ben was terribly behind on his training and regardless, was never so cut off from her before.

How could she possibly save him now?

“Shhh, it’s okay.” Kylo held a sobbing Bail, running his giant hand over a black mess of waves. “Daddy’s going to be okay. He’s super smart and gets out of all kinds of jams. You’ll see. He’ll be back home soon.” But as his eyes caught Rey’s, they told a different story. The younger clone brother was just as worried.

So much had changed since their last adventure, yet so much stayed the same. Ben was brilliant but terrible on the battlefield. Kylo was still furious on the battlefield but often kept stopping to fix his hair or bitch that his designer shirt got a lightsaber burn. And Rey? Well, maybe she mellowed out from her pirate ways since that time, but she was still a damn good deadeye shot.

What good could any of it do to help Ben now?

“What’s going on?” Leia called as she scooted to their position outside. The years had weathered her quite a bit, turning her head fully gray, but her smile lines and wise eyes always kept everyone in check and centered amidst chaos.

The curly mop of black hair lifted from Kylo’s shoulder. “I killed Daddy!” Bail cried.

Rey rolled her eyes. “You did not kill Daddy. He is perfectly fine, okay?” She turned toward Leia. “Ben was testing out another dimension, but there was a…miscalculation and the portal shut too soon.”

Real worry set into Leia’s eyes. “Where is he?”

Rey shook her head. “We don’t know, but I’m still in contact with him. Last he told me, he was on some kind of Star Destroyer, said it looked a lot like Kylo’s old one.”

The namesake perked. “What? Did he go back in time?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to try to contact him again.” {Ben? Any word?}

{Not yet,} came the response, {but I can tell you this ship will never be the same again.}

Rey grinned. {What did you do this time?}

{Willy Luvr struck again.}

Oh by the stars, Ben could not stop laughing over that stupid song and video. No adult had been safe from his Willy pranks lately. Han in particular could not take the Falcon out without seeing his own head on a cartoon naked body dancing to the stupidest song ever created. Snickering, she imagined Kylo’s helmeted head on the cartoon body, but Ben sent a different image instead, that of a menacing, disfigured being that looked entirely too familiar.

Yes, she’d seen that face before: Snoke. Not in person, just in data files on Exegol. He was dead long before she came about, but that was clearly him.

{Why did Willy Luvr strike Snoke in particular?} she asked her husband.

{It ’s a whole mess. Can you believe they were about to destroy an entire star system? The seat of the New Republic? They had that much firepower in one shot, like a multi-Death Star.}

{Oh crap, but are you safe? Can we do anything?}

{Well, I wouldn ’t call this safe, but so far I’m okay—uh oh.}

{Uh oh? What uh oh?}

{Ummm …I just met Kylo.}

Ben

Ben had been doing so well skirting in and out of hallways, sending droids ahead of him to clear a passage in frenzied robotic lunacy. Three more turns and he’d reach the engine room.

As he whipped around the first turn, time felt like it stopped. The hallway grew cold, silent, dangerous. Facing him at the other end of the short hall was none other than a helmeted Kylo, a pile of wrecked, sparking droids scattered toward either wall.

Ahhhh crap and a half. Alright, but he knew his brother this time around. He knew what made his younger clone tick, the issues he’d faced, what he endured, what he was dealing with now. He just had to reach the young man as he once did before.

“Who are you?” came the deep, digitized voice.

Ben held his hands up in a placating manner. “I’m your older brother Ben, and I know this may sound crazy to you now, but where I come from, we are best friends and care a lot about each other.”

A moment of silence, then, “I do not have a brother.”

“Oh, right, I mean you’re my younger clone, but we live like brothers.”

Another span of silence. “That is impossible. WHO are you?”

Oh boy. At least his Kylo knew he had an older clone. This could be trickier than he thought. “You’re Kylo Ren, right?”

“Yes. And you are, for the third time?”

“I’m Ben Solo.”

“…No you’re not.”

“Oh no really, I am. Son of Leia and Han Solo—I can show you my chain code if you don’t believe me, hang on a minute—”

“You cannot be Ben Solo.”

“Yeah-no—look, see?” He projected his chain code bearing an image of his goofy grin.

The man in black did not react. “Ben Solo, the offspring of Leia and Han is dead. He was foolish like his father and so I killed him.”

Oh son of a bitch! What kind of dimension was this? He certainly didn’t go back in time, but he was definitely in a world where Kylo was a giant asshole who killed him!

“You killed me?! How could you?! I’m your big brother and I did so much for you! That was very bad!” He straightened, stuck his finger out, and put on his most fatherly, disciplinarian stance. “Bad Kylo!”

Moments later…

“GAHHHHHHH!” Ben screamed as he ran down the halls of the Star Destroyer, Kylo in hot pursuit. Ben jammed his hand into his pouch and threw down one of the little balls that splattered a slippery sheen onto the already glossy floor.

Kylo leapt right over the damn spill!

So much for that working a second time. Ben tossed multiple smoke bombs behind him, but Kylo just burst through them without hesitation or hindrance. How the hell was this Kylo so good? He was mean like his little brother but already seemed to have Ben’s advanced intelligence. Oh great…

Ben skidded around a corner and ohhhh terrific, a dead end! Who the hell designed this ship? Or this story for that matter? No time to ponder that now, Kylo was charging at him like a specter of death in black with his gleaming, badass cross-guard saber lighting him in red.

Ben gripped his Rock Hound blaster and, using everything Rey taught him over the years, shot at his attacker. One shot hit the ceiling, the other the wall, the third the same spot on the wall, and another went…somewhere. Kylo responded by bracing his hand on his hip, welcoming more.

Ben fired again, and this time the shot went straight—until it didn’t. Kylo froze it in midair, then flung it at the wall.

Crap.

Well, that was no good. Ben holstered the gun and kicked his foot out repeatedly to keep his pursuer at bay. Kylo tipped his head to the side, clearly baffled, then swung out with that lightsaber.

LIGHTSABER!

Ben backed up and drew his weapon from over his shoulder. Bright blue hummed into life on the hilt, and oh so help him, Force, let all that training he occasionally did with the kids pay off.

Kylo Ren’s head tipped to the side. “That’s…my old lightsaber.”

“Yeee-ah!” Ben said, waving it around haphazardly. “So you better…you know, back off and be…scared and stuff.”

Kylo shook his head, incredulous. “What the hell are you even doing with it? Have you ever held a lightsaber before?”

“Excuse me! I defeated Palpatine with this lightsaber! Well, technically I used my dyad powers with Rey, but I fought some guards before that!” He paused. “Technically I used mostly used stuff from my gear belt on them—know what, that’s irrelevant—”

“You defeated Palpatine—Palpatine was killed by my grandfather, Darth Vader, and has been dead for almost thirty years!”

“Oh ho ho ho, you don’t know the power of bad writers and directors!”

“…What?”

“Never mind. Look, there’s no reason we have to get violent. Why don’t we just sit and talk and discuss this like intelligent adults?”

“…You have no idea how to fight with that thing, do you?”

“I really don’t.” He put his hand up. “And I’ve been trying for years, believe me. My twelve-year-old and ten-year-old are leagues beyond me and I’ve been practicing—”

“You have children?” A wary surprise filled that question.

“Oh yeah, four actually, I always wanted four.” He deactivated his lightsaber and counted on his finger. “Reayon is my oldest at twelve. Oren Kylo is my second-oldest—”

“Why is he named Kylo?!”

“—he’s just like his namesake, always smashing everything with his lightsaber—”

Kylo shook his head in some incomprehensible discomfort or disbelief.

“—then there are the twins, Bail and Breha, they’re just like me, they’re so cute, they’re the reason I’m stuck here! Well, Bail actually, but it was my fault for not checking his math.”

Kylo Ren shoved his hand out. “You speak in riddles and nonsense!” Ben felt hefty pressure on his mind as his nemesis’ wrist turned. “If you will not tell me the truth, I will just as easily take it from you.”

Ben grinned. “Oh don’t go in my head. You do not want to BE in my head!” He drew up one of his favorite math equations, lines and lines numbers, symbols, and letters. It broke one Kylo before, it would do it again.

Kylo Ren’s head tipped to the side again. “Is that advanced calculus?”

Ben remembered when he fell in love for the first time, when he laid eyes on Rey, and the next four times when his children were born. Was this love once more? From a mind who saw and appreciated the math in his head?

“Yeah,” Ben whispered with a wondrous nod. Who exactly was he dealing with here? This wasn’t the Kylo he knew. Since his enemy was already trying to violate his mind, Ben figured he’d return the favor and dove in just as strong, mayyyybe even a little bit stronger.

What hit him was a maelstrom, a war between Light and Dark, a fight to forget who he was and become something else, dedication to a path that was only hurting him, and loneliness, such deep and utter loneliness and abandonment. There was sharp intelligence, deadly ability, and a deep need to figure out his place in this galaxy.

This was not his clone. This was him! Or at least who he could have been, how he could have turned out.

And then it struck like lightning once more…darkened chamber in shambles and lit in blue…a limp and open-eyed Rey in his arms, though he was seeing it as if from afar this time…Ben pushes his energy into her…she revives…they kiss, awww, how cute! And then…

The rest of the vision, the one he never finished seeing, finally appeared before him. The Ben in his vision smiles, as if for the first time in decades, and then falls, his body disappearing beneath Rey’s hands.

He doesn’t come back. No one pulls him back. No dyad draws him back with their power. He’s gone.

He’s the man standing in front of him.

Kylo Ren disengaged his helmet with a hiss and removed it from his head. Stars, it was like looking in a mirror nearly thirteen years ago, but so much lonelier, so truly sad and broken, but fire, oh so much fire in there to make up for it all.

Plus an amazing head of hair Ben could never achieve in his lifetime.

“What was that?” Kylo Ren asked.

Ben swallowed. “Your future.”

Kylo Ren hardly looked fazed except for a twitch in his eye. “The girl?”

“Her name is Rey, and she’s the other half of your soul.”

Kylo Ren turned off his lightsaber and turned aside. “You spoke the truth. You are not from here, but you are who you say you are.”

“Yes, thank you! And I know I don’t belong here; I just need a few things to get back and I’ll be out of your way…” The image kept haunting him, this Kylo—no, this Ben, falling and fading and dying like so much had around him. Blazing like a signpost in the night, it called out to him and would not let go.

How can I leave him knowing this is going to happen? I have to stop it somehow, save him, save them.

“I don’t need anyone to save me.” Kylo Ren had said it with such robotic coldness, but it did not hide the fear and self-hatred lying below it.

Wait…

Ben’s eye twitched this time. “Did you just read my mind? I didn’t feel you pushing through my thoughts.”

Kylo Ren narrowed his eyes. “I wasn’t, but…”

{Can you understand me now?}

{Yes,} came the thought back at him.

{Holy shit! How did this happen?!}

{I don ’t know. No one but Snoke has ever been in my head like this.}

{Wait, I ’m going to put you on hold a moment, Rey?}

Her bright but concerned inner voice responded, {Ben? I’m here, love.}

Okay good, now… “Kylo, did you hear a woman’s voice in my head.”

“Faint but yes, though I couldn’t make it out.”

Ho…ly…crap. What was happening? “Look, is there a safe place we can go to talk? Figure this out? Sooner or later this ship is going to realize I shouldn’t be on it.

Kylo’s eyes widened. “It was you! You did this! Made a mockery of the First Order and our Supreme Leader!”

Ummmm…. Ben stuck his finger up. “But you gotta admit, it was funny!”

Ren’s eyes turned cold, distant. “The Supreme Leader is wise and you will show him respect from here on out.” Ugh, it was so flat, reeking of the indoctrination this poor guy must have endured for years. Then he softened just slightly, looking aside. “But you stopped the weapon. For that I’m grateful.”

That took him by surprise. “You are?”

Dark eyes flashed up to his. “I wish I was the monster everyone makes me out to be. I wish I didn’t care!” That cold facade dropped to the real man beneath, one who may just feel as deeply as Ben did. “I am constantly torn apart by the Light and the Dark. I wish I could have just let it happen and not have cared. But it would have killed me inside. The pain…the screams…the lives snuffing out in mass extinction…it would have haunted me forever. I tried to stop Snoke, I…” He swallowed. “No matter what I do, I cannot be as cold as him, nor can I be as good and light as my family wishes I was.” His voice dropped to a murmur. “I’ll never be good enough for anyone.”

Ben stepped forward. “You’re good enough for me.”

Kylo scoffed. “You don’t even know me!”

“Don’t I?” It was both metaphorical and a genuine question. Why did Ben feel like he knew this Kylo to the depths of his soul after knowing him such a short time? Was it his naive, kind, giving nature? Was it that they shared so much across dimensions? Did some sort of bond form that connected their minds, giving him access no one else had?

Or was it the knowledge that if not for the actions of his parents, this may have been exactly who Ben would have turned out to be?

None of it mattered. Kylo Ren—Ben Solo—of this dimension deserved to be saved and not meet the terrible fate in that vision. And Ben had to make it happen.

Ben extended his hand. “Let’s figure this out together. Can we go somewhere I won’t get killed in eight seconds?”

Kylo looked at the hand and turned abruptly. “You’re shit on the battlefield. Come on.”

Not quite the feel-good movie moment, but he’d take it.

Chapter Text

As he followed Kylo Ren through the corridors, Ben kept his head lowered and force signature tamped down, just like his brother Ky had taught him. No one said or did anything. Honestly, no one looked their way, as if trained to keep their gaze to themselves or purposely avoiding eye contact out of fear.

Either way, it worked in his favor.

Once Kylo Ren’s quarters were presented, Ben slipped inside and heaved a sigh of relief. Truthfully, he didn’t know if he could trust this version of himself just yet, but it beat facing that redheaded wheeze-bag out there, or creepy Snoke, for that matter.

The door shut, and Ben eyed his surroundings. It was…wow… Boring didn’t quite cut it. Sparse, uniform, entirely too orderly. Where were all the gadgets? Tools? Droids, sexy or otherwise? Glowing fungus? No, nothing but the barest of essentials, all in glossy gray and black, with a few artifacts placed uniformly throughout. Not one poster, comic book, or action figure to be found.

Then, in the center of the room, something caught Ben’s eye and gripped it like a precision clamp. Its overall shape was unmistakable, even if it was mangled and charred.

“Is…is that a replica Darth Vader helmet?” Ben tried to suck in his grin.

Kylo removed his own headgear and flashed his unwelcome twin a sardonic glance. “Replica? Why would I have a replica of my grandfather’s helmet?”

Ben thought of his vast Darth Vader figurine collection and resisted the urge to tell this version of himself to fuck right off. But wait, if it wasn’t a replica… “Did…d-d-d-did this survive all this time? Is that really his?!”

A swell of dark pride filled the younger man. “Of course it is.”

Ben squealed, prompting a sneer of disgust from Kylo. Dancing from tiptoe to tiptoe, Ben asked, “Can I touch it?”

Still staring at him with disbelief and exasperation, Kylo nodded toward it. “Yeah, I guess.”

Ben reached out, thrill and a surge of Dark energy filling him. That was nothing new, and he knew not to let himself go too far with it. Just like when he played in the bedroom with Piratey Rey, he knew how much was for fun and when it was too far.

How could he help himself? The temptation! A real artifact from THE Darth Fucking Vader! His helmet no less! Day Havvens be damned (but not really, because OMG OMG OMG he’s the best!)

As his fingers drew closer, the pulsing Darkness in him responded, so much heavier than he expected. Desire flooded him like never before, and suddenly it felt like all answers to his questions about his place in the universe would be answered with just this one touch, this one—

A gloved hand gripped his wrist before he got any further, and that feeling flashed away as if it had never been there. Kylo stood there with a cold look in his eyes, full of warning, perhaps even a bit of jealousy.

Ben, never to be thwarted from touching a collectible, yanked his arm from Kylo’s grip. “What the hell, man? You said I could touch it!”

There was something brewing in his doppelgänger’s eyes, most of it confusion. “I am the only one who is to receive guidance from my grandfather!”

Yeesh, this guy! Wait… “What do you mean, guidance from your grandfather? Does he come to you as a Force ghost or something when you’re near this? Oh man, he came to me once! I may have annoyed him a little. He seemed kind of pissed. But then he was really nice to me. It was great!”

Kylo’s eyes narrowed. “Your grandfather, also Darth Vader, came to you as a Force ghost?”

“No-no-no, he came to me as Anakin, you know, because he renounced the Dark Side at the end of his life by saving someone he loved, so he went back to being Anakin Skywalker.”

The expression fell from Kylo’s face. “Your Darth Vader renounced the Dark Side?”

“I bet yours did too. Didn’t you see the movie?”

Kylo looked like an overfilled balloon ready to pop. “Movie?!”

“Oh by the stars, no one made a series of movies about our family over here? You guys are so boring! Sit down, we have to have a chat about where I come from.”

Ben revealed everything from his family’s history to his present. Kylo Ren listened attentively, though the various twitches and squinting eyes spoke volumes. Much of the past was familiar to Kylo, but Ben’s path and everything that led to where he was now, that just collapsed his expression like a pile of cookies being attacked by four hungry children. What replaced it was equal amounts of fascination and disdain. It was clear he did not care for how Ben led his life, but the accomplishments and his family certainly left an impression. Kylo didn’t have to say a word, but Ben felt it, even had a few images float over to him through their strange new bond.

The man was lonely, and Ben’s life gave him hope, even if there wasn’t nearly enough murder involved.

But now Ben was truly curious. How did this Ben Solo become a murderous rage machine while he himself only built them? “So that’s me. Did my family history ring a bell?”

Kylo stood. “Indeed. But only until the Battle of Endor. What happens after, once my mother has me, that is where our lives take a drastically different turn.”

“So tell me.”

Kylo huffed. “Why do you want to know?”

“Curiosity? I’m loaded with it!”

“Hmph, you want to see if your hypothesis is correct, don’t you?”

“I—well—”

“Could my current path have been prevented if my mother were more like yours? That’s what you really want to know, isn’t it?”

Ben licked his lips. “I am a scientist.”

“With a far more privileged life.”

Ummm… “A really good scientist.”

Kylo shook his head, his perfectly coifed waves rustling about his face. How the hell did he and Ky get their hair that way? Ugh, they probably brushed it every day or something.

Kylo folded his arms behind his back and did not look at him. “Short answer? I heard it too, the voices. From as far back as I could remember. They both haunted and comforted me. Drove me to the Darkness yet welcomed me in it. I would talk about the voices, but all I would see were my parents glancing at one another and then quickly changing the subject. That’s when I knew what I was for them—a problem.”

“I’m sure you weren’t—”

“I know what I was! And how I made them feel! How they made ME feel!”

Yikes! Ben held his hands up. “Okay, okay, sorry. Go on.”

“My mother was too busy trying to save the galaxy and left me in the care of our house droids all day and night.”

Ben smiled. “Oh boy, that must have been fun!”

That’s the only time Kylo actually looked at him, and if Darksiders could shoot lasers from their eyes, Ben would be a pile of ash. “One went crazy and tried to kill me when I was two! I have never trusted another fucking droid since!”

Ben shuddered. “Oh my stars…that’s awful. I don’t know how I would have survived without my Knights of Ben.”

“Your WHAT?!”

“The Knights of Ben, my droid army. And Melanie, of course. She’s the sexy one!”

If Kylo’s head could explode right off his body, it would have happened right then. “WHO OR WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?!”

“Well now that’s just rude.” His voice took on that fatherly tone. “Can we perhaps say that in a different way?”

Kylo clenched his fists, then massaged his brow and drew in a long, cooling breath. “Fuck it, I don’t care. Anyway, the stronger my powers grew, the stronger the voices grew, the more my parents fought about me, making mention of ‘him’ over and over without saying any names. Always so fucking secretive and treating me like the monster they knew I’d be one day.

“And then my mother decided to send me away to train with my uncle. Dad got pissy about it, yet didn’t want to lift a finger to do anything to stop it. He and my mom split, she dropped me off on Yavin IV with Skywalker, and that’s the last I heard from them or seen them. I was ten.”

Ben’s soul lit on fire. “Whoa, hold up. They left you there and never contacted you again?”

Kylo sniffed coldly. “Skywalker said it was for the best, that I would only be distracted otherwise. But honestly, I think he only told me that to make me feel better about the fact my parents dropped off their problem and went back to the lives they wanted.”

Ben shook his head and wanted to say, “I’m sure they wouldn’t…” But they did. Both Kylo’s parents were alive, that much he knew, but neither of them ever came to see how he was? Not even once? Who the hell were these people?! He could never imagine his mom doing that to him. Maybe Dad, but even then, Han Solo would never pass up the opportunity to pick on his own kid. In fact, when his parents brought him home on weekends, Dad would always get his digs in. He was a turd, but he was there. Neither parent ever abandoned him like this.

“It was fine,” Kylo said rather matter-of-factly, as if he’d already cut them out of his heart. “At least my life with Skywalker was more my taste, studying and practice with the Force, with lightsabers and combat. Things that came naturally to me.”

Naturally… Ben’s cheeks prickled with a touch of shame. Even his own kids beat him in saber combat. He cleared his throat but said nothing.

“The voices never left, and I eventually learned they were from a being named Snoke. He pointed out all of Skywalker’s hypocrisies, how he was holding me back, how I had a chance to flourish if I left. But I had loyalty, understand? Skywalker was my hero. He was everything I ever wanted to be. But I would see it, how he stopped me from the full use of my power. Fear, so much fear in him for being a Jedi.”

A wry, slight grin crested his lips. “Then one day I come upon a little news report, one that tells me my mother’s real father was none other than Darth Vader. I find out…not through my own family—” His voice shook with anger. “—but through a damn holovid report, that I am the grandson of Darth Vader. Not even Skywalker had the guts to tell me the truth about my own family!”

Kylo shook his head. “That’s how I learned Snoke was right about all of it. I was already being lied to, already distrusted. The other students at the temple? They all hated and feared me, anyway; you can only imagine the field day they had with that one. What happened next, I will not speak of, but it cut a rift between Skywalker and me forever and drove me to the only one in the galaxy I could trust—Snoke.”

Kylo’s eyes grew dark, and Ben sensed incredible fury pouring from the other man, cold, simmering rage, just waiting for the right chance to boil over.

Ben shook his head. He wanted to ask how anyone could trust Snoke, but then again, how could Kylo not trust him? Who else was there? Ben didn’t know what Luke had done, but it was clear the Darksider had no one else to go to.

“And now,” Kylo continued, “my path is before me. Everything is so clear when before, it was clouded and full of conflict. With more training, I will finally be strong enough to fulfill my destiny, the path always set before me.”

“And that is?”

Kylo turned to him, so cold and haunting. “To be the next Darth Vader. To fill in where he could not. To carry on the legacy that is mine.”

Ben looked at him and felt his heart ache for his interdimensional other self. He really had no idea. “Kylo, Darth Vader is cool, okay? He’s badass. I always worshiped him because he was everything I couldn’t be—powerful, strong, fearless. No one could hurt him, and everyone respected him. I truly worshiped that because I am the complete opposite. But that was not the legacy of Anakin Skywalker. That was Palpatine manipulating someone super powerful in the Force and using him to get what he wanted.

“All grandpa wanted was to have his wife and his powers and do good in the galaxy, and Palpatine fucked that all up. He lost everything that meant something to him and gave the shell of himself over to Palpatine to be his tool in conquering the galaxy. Oh sure, grandpa got a castle on some nasty hot planet. Why he would want a reminder of burning to a crisp, I’ll never know.

“But it was just like with my brother Ky. Palpatine promised him the galaxy but was never going to give him any piece of it that was worth anything. Kylo—” Ben raised his eyebrows in that serious look he always gave to the kids when he had something important to say. “—your legacy is not to be the next Darth Vader. That is a lie told to you by people who want to control you and use you for your powers. Your legacy is to be you, okay? Whether that’s Kylo or Ben Solo or whatever you want to call yourself. You know, deep inside, who you are and what your path is. You walked it at one time, you just didn’t know it.”

Kylo’s face was blank. Then, “LIAR!” He stuck his finger in Ben’s face. “You don’t know me! You don’t know my world! You come from some strange idiot’s universe where everything’s so fucking PERFECT!”

Ben tried to ignore the spray of spit that just hit his face but secretly reached for his sanitizer.

“But this is MY world! And MY path! MY legacy! I know it to the root of my soul! Darth Vader tells me himself! So don’t come to me with your stupid baby garbage you tell your kids. I know what my fucking path is, and no one is going to tell me different!”

Ben didn’t want to mention he had just about this same conversation with his angry pre-teen daughter when she wasn’t allowed to join the Rock Hounds, one of the most ruthless space pirates in the galaxy. Just because mommy got to be one didn’t mean everyone got to be, and daddy had to put his foot down. Maybe a similar approach would work. “Darth Vader talks to you? When?”

“Whenever I touch his helmet. I feel him. I can hear and feel him as if he’s right here with me.”

Stars, this poor guy had no idea he was being fucked with. “What does Darth Vader say when he talks to you?”

“What do you think he says? He wants me to follow in his footsteps, finish what he started as a Dark Lord of the Sith! It is my birthright as heir to his greatness that I need to take up the helm he was forced to lay down and bring a new order to the galaxy!”

“Hmmm…do me a favor, talk to him now. I want to see what he says.”

“I’m not putting on a show for you! It’s disrespectful to him.”

Ben snorted. “Oh, Darth Vader is powerful enough to contact you through the ether but throws a hissy fit if he has an audience of more than one?”

Kylo looked like he was going to just punch a hole right through Ben’s face, but he quieted, placed his hand on the charred helmet, and closed his eyes. “Grandfather…”

Ben felt it, the flood of Dark energy, and he’d felt it before, almost exactly.

And it wasn’t from Darth Vader then either.

Kylo’s head twitched, giving Ben a twinge of concern for the man’s mental health. “He wants me to bring you before Snoke.”

“Ask him if he’s Day Havvens.”

“Who?!”

“Just do it, trust me.”

Kylo sighed and paused, breathing. “He said worry not about Day Havvens, go before Snoke.”

Ben tossed his hands up. “See, that’s proof right there it isn’t your grandfather talking to you.”

Kylo’s eyes shot open. “How?”

“Because the next words out of his mouth should have been, ‘Who the fuck is Day Havvens?’ Kylo…” He put his hand on the guy’s shoulder and tried to ignore the daggers flying out of those dark, lost eyes. “…I’d know that energy signature anywhere. That’s not your grandfather. It’s Palpatine.”

Kylo batted his hand away and sprung to his feet. “You LIAR!”

Ben kept his air of compassion. He really did feel bad for Kylo, knowing what he was going through, knowing where he was headed, and how used he was by all these forces in play. “Kylo, I’ve been there. If not for a choice my parents made, I would be in your shoes right now.”

His face turned so bitter. “At least yours gave a damn.”

Ben didn’t know whether Kylo’s parents truly were as bad as he said, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was how he felt. He was lonely, abandoned, and everyone who claimed his friendship was just using him for his power. It was totally unfair. “Well I give a damn about you. If you’ll let me, I can try to help you connect to your grandfather, your real grandfather, Anakin Skywalker. I don’t know why he hasn’t come for you yet, but let me help you.”

“Why would you help me?” Kylo growled through his clenched teeth.

“Because you deserve better. Kylo Ren—” Ben knew he was taking a risk with his next words. “—Ben Solo deserves better.”

Kylo flinched, then softened, for just a moment, so very briefly, before he snapped back into that mask of rage. “Ben Solo is DEAD!”

Ben stepped closer, putting himself at risk, he knew, but he had to establish trust. “Whatever name you bear, I’m here to save the person you are in your heart, which is so much greater than all this Dark and Light bullshit. And unlike everyone who is either out for your powers or obsessed with your legacy, I don’t want anything from you except to see you free of all this shit.” He smiled. “To see you smile, and mean it. And live the life you’re meant to live, the one you’ve been denied all this time.”

That face softened again, then snapped into something even harder than before. “You’re full of LIES! ALL OF IT is a LIE!”

“Kylo, I watched my brother grow from a cast-off warlord primed by the Sith since birth into a healthy, happy, vibrant young man who became a beloved actor and superstar, all while keeping his Dark powers. Now if he can do that, then know you have hope for the life that you want. You can have the love and happiness you’ve always wanted from people who won’t abandon you when things get hard. And I will help you, if you’ll let me like he did.”

Kylo glared at him. “What do you get out of it?”

Ben shook his head. “Nothing. Just the satisfaction of knowing you’ll be okay. People always tell me I care too much for my own good, and maybe that’s true, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop now.” He reached out his hand. “Will you let me at least try? See if together we can set this all straight and lead you to your true power and happiness?”

So much distrust filled his eyes, but there was warmth somewhere in all of it. “Must I dress like you in the process?”

“As long as I don’t have to dress like you. That thing looks itchy.”

“…it is a little itchy.”

Ben smiled. Kylo didn’t, but there was a bit of amusement in there. Ben clapped his hands together. “Great! Now, let’s go find your girlfriend!”

Kylo’s face crumpled into incredulousness. “My girlfriend?!”

~*~

Ben gripped the armrests of the seat on the Upsilon-Class Command Shuttle, the damn ship they were using to get to Takodana. Kylo sat up front, commanding, while some complete boob flew the craft.

After another wobble, Ben swallowed the flooding saliva in his mouth. “Can you PLEASE fly this more smoothly? Some of us…” He swallowed again. “…get motion sickness.”

“Shut up,” the pilot growled. “I’ll fly the ship how I stars-damned wanna fly it!”

Ben sucked in a breath. “Like crap?”

“Why you—”

“Knock it off,” Kylo said, his voice leaving no room for discussion. “Both of you.”

Ben sat back and cleared his throat, breathing, trying to stabilize himself with as much mental math as possible. The ship shuddered again, and damnit, he never appreciated his father, the expert pilot, as much as he did now. “If Han Solo can fly a freighter smoother than this, who the hell put you in the pilot’s seat?”

The man in question turned. “You little shit—”

“I did,” Kylo said, his helmeted head turning. “And don’t mention that man again.”

Stars, what a pain in the ass this was all going to be. How was Ben supposed to save Kylo when he had this much animosity toward his family? Not that it mattered, because this shitty pilot was going to get them all killed.

After another bump, Ben sucked in a cry and really could not take it anymore. “My child is ten years old and can fly a starfighter better than you can fly a damn shuttle. What cereal box did you get your credentials from?”

“That’s it!” The pilot shouted. He jerked the controls to the right, and the ship flipped sideways.

That did it.

Ben stared at a saved video projected from his comm, anything to keep his mind off the mess. He warned the pilot. Over and over. Well, maybe he insulted a few times. Stars, was he turning into his father in his old age?

Regardless, the officer in the seat in front of him was the secondary victim of the stupid pilot. The guy was still cleaning his suit after Ben heaved all over it. Thankfully Ben had packed his patented SOLO-Yuck, a cleansing spray that dissolved odors on contact. The officer was appreciative, after threatening a few shots to the face.

And there was Kylo, looking at him in disgust, and not just because the ship was now stinking like barf. It was something far deeper, a disdain Ben had felt all too often in his life, now being reflected to him by his younger lookalike.

At least Ky looked at him with pure rage when they first met. That much Ben could tolerate. This look of, “How could you be so powerful” kept striking a nerve Ben had long thought gone.

Kylo finally stepped over, and Ben’s tension ramped up. Before he heard how awful he was, he quickly headed it off. “Look, I tried to warn the guy. Why didn’t you fly the ship? I’m sure you’re a hell of a better pilot. Grandson of Vader. Son of Han Solo. Can’t tell me you’re—”

“A motion sick disaster who can’t fly a ship?”

Ben buried his nose in his animated show. “Shut up.”

Kylo slowly paced in a semicircle behind him. “You have the same credentials. What is your excuse?”

Ben screwed up his face as he spoke. “I’m a genius. I don’t need an excuse.” Back to the video.

“Incredible.” Kylo continued his panther-like motions. “You claim to have beaten Palpatine in your world. Explain how.”

Ben grunted. “I never said I did it alone.”

“That much is obvious.”

“Oh ha ha, so I’m not you, okay? I’m the ultra-nerd mess of a version of you, okay? I’m not so perfect with perfect hair and perfect command and can use a lightsaber without falling on it.”

“…Don’t tell me—”

“Shut up!”

A moment of silence befell them. “Just tell me how, with all…this…you were able to defeat Palpatine.”

“I needed Rey, the other half of the dyad. Do you know about dyads?”

“Some. I’ve read a little.”

Ben turned. “A little? Well I’ve read the book seven times. I even memorized the index, thank you very much. Can you do that, Mr. ‘I’m So Perfect and Dangerous’?”

More silence. “I’m not perfect. Far from it.”

Another weighted silence, but Ben could feel this one. Kylo really did feel far from perfect, maybe just as far as Ben felt himself. Then the Darksider started pacing once more. “Explain the dyad as you know it.”

“Well, it’s truly one soul so powerful it has to exist in two physical beings. The powers and personalities complement one another, making a whole from two separate existences. It’s said they’re created by the Force when something big and dangerous is about to happen, as a weapon in the physical world against something that could destroy creation and the fabric of the Force itself. Through the bond, we can share thoughts, powers, even pass objects to one another. It’s like we live in a shared dimensional space alongside the universe itself.” Ben raised one eyebrow. “You catch all that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because usually people glaze over by the second sentence. Even Uncle Luke.”

Kylo’s body tensed. After some time passed, he spoke again. “Even he could not comprehend it?”

“I don’t know. Every time I started talking, he’d be all, ‘Shut up Ben.’ ‘We know, Ben.’ ‘When are your parents picking you up again?’” Ben huffed and rolled his eyes.

More silence. “Your parents picked you up from the Jedi Temple?”

“Oh yeah, weekends. My mom insisted on it. Uncle Luke thought it was stupid at first, but then after a few months, he couldn’t wait to see me go. Weird…”

The huff that came out of Kylo was both disgusted and incredulous. “Your mother insisted on it? And your father flew there to get you?”

“Oh yeah, why wouldn’t he?” Ben was met with a cold stare as his answer and felt like an asshole mixed with an idiot. An idiothole. “Um, sorry. I forgot.”

The Darksider quickly changed the subject. “What did you use to defeat Palpatine in your world? How did you deal the final blow?”

Ben sighed. “It wasn’t like that. Our power…it’s like magnetism, polar opposites, but on a grand, universal scale, creation and destruction driving one another.”

Kylo nodded. “Makes sense. If it works the same way in this universe, then I am destruction, which would make this girl, Rey, creation.” He shook his head. “How could creation defeat someone like Palpatine? None of this makes logical sense.”

“That’s just it though, you’re thinking too small. All the Jedi and Sith do is get lost in opposites. You’re not full Dark just like Rey isn’t full Light—”

Kylo turned sharply toward him. “Don’t you dare say that! I have given everything to the Dark Side! There is no Light left in me!”

Ben grinned slightly. “We’ll see.”

“No you won’t.”

“I’ve heard this once before. From my wife, actually.”

Kylo tilted his helmeted head. “She’s the Darksider?”

“Or so she thought, before she realized what it really meant to be a dyad, a force of creation and destruction, a mini-universe. I represent the mathematical backbone of all existence, its primary instruction, and she represents the force that makes it all come into being, and to which it returns. Like maglev technology, the poles drive one another, the power strengthening in a central cosmos, a power so strong and bright, it rivals the beginnings of creation, both destroying all in its path and creating something new and beautiful in its place. Palpatine couldn’t escape the vortex we created, and he burned to dust in the primal power we rose. That’s how we defeated him.”

Kylo didn’t move. “The two of you are that powerful?”

“Eventually. But it required us to work together, understand one another, really form a bond and open up who we truly were. I know you say you’re solely a Darksider, but there’s so much more to you. When you’re ready to embrace it, the power will follow.”

Kylo stared at him a few moments more, then turned and walked back to the head of the ship.

~*~

The accompanying shuttles and TIE fighters suddenly darted ahead, the shuttles diving to the surface while the fighters got in formation. By the time Kylo’s command ship reached the area, the TIEs were blasting some sort of castle while troopers fired their weapons on the ground.

Ben sprung out of his seat, horrified. “What the hell are they doing?! What is this?!”

Kylo said nothing.

“Call them off! CALL THEM OFF!”

“It is standard procedure,” was all Kylo said, all business.

Ben got in his helmeted face. “Not anymore! I told you, we’re here to find Rey and get her on board with the dyad, not trash the place. Now call them off!”

Silence.

“NOW!”

More silence, then, “One more word out of you, and I’ll shut you up myself.”

Ben didn’t know where it came from, maybe more of his father was seeping in than he imagined, but his response was to get even further in Kylo’s face and say, “I’d like to see you try.”

Waves of anger poured off the Darksider, but the man neither said nor did anything. Ben had enough. If Kylo wouldn’t do the job, then Ben sure as hell would. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d impersonated a Kylo. He stormed to the instrument panel, pressed a nice, labeled button that said “Intercom”, then screamed into the grated square. “All forces, pull back!”

Shots immediately stopped. The TIEs turned and headed up high, and the Storm Troopers ceased their attacks.

Kylo stormed forward, shoved him aside, and screamed into the speaker. “ATTACK AT ONCE!”

Ben equally shoved the other. “I SAID PULL BACK!”

Shove. “ATTACK!”

Force-shove. “I am the real Kylo Ren and I say PULL BACK! This other man is an impos—” Ben hit the wall. Ow.

“YOU WILL ATTACK AND ATTACK NOW! I AM THE REAL—” Kylo got shoved even harder than he shoved Ben.

As they neared the ground, Ben could see the TIE fighters flying in circles, out of formation and accidentally firing on one another. Below, the Storm Troopers turned to the right, turned to the left, drew their guns, pulled them back, then finally tossed up their arms in confusion. If others attacked them, they’d attack in return but then ducked behind cover at the next command to pull back.

Kylo pulled out his lightsaber and swung. Ben would never be able to explain how, but in split seconds, he reached over his shoulder and drew his own, meeting the blazing red with his shining blue. Had Rey finally worn off on him after all these years?

“This is my ship,” Kylo growled, pushing against Ben’s saber, his muscles way stronger. “These are my troops, under MY command! They will do as I say and no one else!”

Ben pushed back with all the pathetic strength in him. “You don’t need to do this! You don’t need to attack them! We’re supposed to be getting on Rey’s good side. This looks really bad and is the worst way to get a date!”

Kylo pushed even harder, and Ben was losing ground as the blazing weapons grew closer to his skin. “I am not here for a date! I am here to do my master’s bidding!”

Ben clenched his teeth as he strained his muscles against his attacker. “Your…master…sucks!”

“And you are an idealistic fool who doesn’t know a thing about my life but thinks he can fix me when I don’t need or want fixing!”

Well, that wouldn’t be the first time he was accused of that one. Still. “You don’t know what I saw! I’m trying to save you! Save the both of you!”

Kylo leveraged all his weight against his saber, the weapons starting to singe Ben’s skin. “I don’t need you to save me.”

Ben could feel the Darkness pouring off his lookalike in waves so heavy, they started to permeate Ben’s own being. There was a sudden desire to blast Kylo against the wall and end him in a quick swing. One, hydrogen, atomic mass 1.0080, electron configuration 1S¹. Two, Helium… Ben continued going through the periodic table of elements until the feeling passed.

The last thing he wanted to do was kill the man he had come to save, but Kylo didn’t seem to be nearly as interested in being so kind.

Well, time to pull out an old favorite. It worked once on his own brother. Ben swung his leg up and kicked Kylo right in the crotch. A metallized, “GWAHFF!” spewed from the helmet, and Ben was easily able to shove off the red lightsaber.

Ben grinned and swung his in a circle. “Now, next time you go—”

A sudden roar echoed right before Kylo charged at him, his Dark powers radiating way worse than before. Ben screamed and ran for the open hatch. He leapt off the ramp and skirted between confused Storm Troopers, some fighting against those on the ground, some fighting each other, all in disarray. He looked back briefly to see Kylo still on his tail. Damn! Ben sped around debris and into the trees, hopeful his many years of running gave him an advantage over the furious Darksider behind him.

In fact, he ran until something hit him like a brick—the urge to sneeze. “BLAH-HOO!” Ah crap, Kylo was sure to find him now! And he didn’t have his allergy meds! Oh what a day to be in nature without his meds and not one pharmacy in fifty parsecs. “BLAH-HOO!”

He wiped his nose and turned, sure he’d given his position away, but alas, no Kylo to be found. Maybe he finally gave up.

Damnit, this was not going well! How was he supposed to save the guy who didn’t want to be saved and just sent troops to blast a place before even knocking on the door and asking nicely?

Maybe the kick in the crotch wasn’t such a good idea. There were non-violent ways to do things, and Ben was so much better at those. Ugh, he better go back and apologize.

{I don ’t want your stupid apology!}

Damn. {Kylo, seriously, we got off on the wrong foot, but I know we can—}

{Save it! And save yourself! I don ’t need you.}

Ben felt the connection between them slam shut. Double damn. Well, he was nothing if not persistent. Hopefully he could retrace his steps and find his way back to—BLAH HOO!

~*~

Ben finally made it to the edge of the forest just to see a stream of starfighters coursing toward him. The open ground full of Storm Troopers erupted with blasts, and Ben was having none of that! He pulled a tube out of his belts, tossed it onto the ground, and pop! There was his patented SOLO-Tent, perfect for the battlefield or any natural area where a hint of wildlife might be. Impact and tear resistant, it withstood many acts of Ky Solo in its development and determined to be safe during all explosive attacks!

Ben dove in, slipped on his SOLO-Phones, noise canceling and twins-approved, and waited out the barrage. Through the clear viewport, he finally saw the Storm Trooper shuttles and TIE fighters pull out.

He hated to have to leave, because it was the first time he finally stopped sneezing, but there was still work to do. He had to catch Kylo before he left! After unsealing the door, Ben charged out, running as fast as he could toward the shuttle—

—only to see it lifting up, its wings spreading.

{Kylo! Wait! You forgot me!}

{No I didn’t!} was the last response before the bond clamped down.

Great. Now what was he supposed to do?

Chapter Text

Han

The battle was over, Takodana in shambles. The Resistance arrived, but that young woman Rey was gone. Taken by a man Han Solo last knew as a child.

His boy. The kid he should have never let go. The kid he should have been there for. How did it all end up like this?

Amidst the chaos of the aftermath came a sight he hadn’t seen in ages—his wife. His heart still leapt when he saw her, as it always did, even after being apart for so long. He thought it would have fizzled or changed by now, but no.

He should have been there for her, too.

Han grinned lightly at her. “You changed your hair.”

Leia smirked. “Same jacket.”

“No, new jacket.

Chewie headed toward Leia, and they shared a hug and some words. Shortly after, his old friend said he’d wait for them on the ship and headed up. That left the two parents to face one another and discuss the most painful part of their past.

“I saw him. Leia, I saw our son. He was here.”

“Hi guys,” said a deep voice from behind. Both spun and…it was unmistakable. So much older…actually, a lot older than he expected, but he’d never forget the eyes of the boy he left behind so long ago. Wait, wasn’t he just carrying Rey onto that ship?

The giant of a man with silver threads in his pure black hair took one look at Leia and smiled. “Mom!”

Leia gasped, and in moments Ben had scooped her up into his arms, spinning her with his hug. How could this be? Was the helmeted man in black robes someone other than his son?

Han caught the surprise and joy on Leia’s face right before Ben abruptly put her down, his fingers to his mouth.

“Oh my stars,” said the tall man covered in belts and gear. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Leia grasped his hands. “No Ben, it’s okay. I’m just so glad—”

The younger but not so young man spun around. “No, no, it’s not—” He turned back, pain in his eyes. “I’m not your son.”

Leia blinked. “Nonsense—”

“No, it’s true. I’m sorry. I mean—I’m from another dimension, where my mom looks just like you, and I’m stuck here, and damn, I miss her, I miss them all and I just let myself get carried away…” He shook his head. Sorrow in his eyes. “I am Ben Organa Solo. But I’m not your Ben Organa Solo.”

Leia reached out and closed her eyes. The Force. Guess that would be the best way to tell, because Han sure couldn’t. Yeah, the kid looked happy, exuberant, bright, and energetic—everything his son never was. But look at him! Leia’s eyes and Han’s facial shape. How could he be anything but? Han didn’t know shit about dimension nonsense. Maybe his kid got knocked on the head by the girl and rightly deserved it.

The expression fell from Leia’s face, and he knew without asking. “He’s telling the truth. I feel him, but I feel our Ben too. They’re different, not very different, but enough.”

“I feel so bad for this,” Ben said. “But if all goes well, I think I can get Kylo back for you, I mean your Ben, whatever.”

That brightened Han’s spirits. “How?”

“It’s going to take time, but first I have to get back to him, get back on that First Order ship. Maybe you could take me there, Dad—Han! I mean Han, sorry…” He grinned. It was ridiculous, innocent, and toothy.

Han rolled his eyes. “I can’t just go flying up there with: ‘Oh hey, special delivery!’ This is something that has to be planned out. Besides, we got bigger problems. Saving our son may just have to wait.”

“Saving your son may just have to wait?!” Ben’s hands were on his hips, and damn if it wasn’t like looking in a mirror. “There wouldn’t be a supernova that could stop me if any of my kids were in trouble. I know where your son’s path leads. I’m trying to save not only his life, but the fate of your galaxy, okay? So save your snark.”

Now Han’s hands were on his hips. “I’ll snark whoever I want to snark, kid. My ship, my rules.”

“Oh yeah, here comes mister ‘I’m the best pilot in the whole galaxy with my twelve parsecs’ and all that crap.”

Han leaned toward Leia. “I don’t really sound like that, do I?”

She tipped her head from side to side. “Eh, maybe a little.”

Ben crossed his arms. “Well you have your mission, I have mine. I have to save Kylo before he gets himself killed, and then I have to get home because my family misses me, and I miss them. Plus, I have a big presentation due in three days, and I am not missing the chance to secure a massive investment!”

Han blinked. “I’m even more confused than before—presentations?”

“Yes! I’m an inventor and a genius and have three PhDs and I have my whole big company—I swear to the stars, you never pay attention to anything I do!”

“I only met you five minutes ago!”

“…riiiight. Sorry about that.” Another goofy grin.

Leia wrapped her arms around herself. “Then it’s true…I stopped training as a Jedi because I sensed Ben’s death at the end of my path. Put my lightsaber away and refused to touch it ever again. What’s wrong? What’s going to happen to him?”

“All I know is that Kylo and this girl named Rey are a dyad in the Force, and they will go up against Palpatine. She will die fighting him, and he will revive her, but it will cost him his life. I managed to save myself and my Rey from the same fate; I have to do the same for him. I can’t leave here knowing where his path leads.”

“Palpatine? My brother said he was dead. Vader killed him.” She still refused to call the man her father.

“Ohhh, wait till you hear all about this. It’s a long story, though. Can you get me a cup of milk and we’ll talk about it?”

Han frowned. “Why are you, a full-grown adult, asking her for a cup of milk? You can get it yourself.”

“Shut up, Dad!”

“I thought I wasn’t—” 

“Sorry, sorry, force of habit. I just…it just tastes better when my mom gets it for me.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

Ben turned to Leia. She looked right back at him, then pointed at Han. “I’m with him, are you fucking serious?”

Ben’s mouth crumpled into a squiggle. “Fine, I’ll get my own milk. Can you at least get me a pillow so I can lie on your lap?”

“Lie on my lap—are you kidding me?!”

“Hey, even at my age, my mom gets me a cup of milk while I grab my pillow so I can lie on her lap and tell her about all my problems. Why is it so wrong to expect the same while I’m here?”

He only received stares in return.

“I am so telling my mom about all this!” Ben stormed off in a huff toward the canteen.

Han continued to stare after him. “What in the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know, but if he’s from another dimension, what the hell is the other version of me doing over there?!”

~*~

Ben

While riding in the Falcon toward the Resistance base, Ben related his story, what he knew of Palpatine, and the dangers Kylo faced, with no pillow or lap, thank you very much. Sheesh, Not-Mom wasn’t nearly as warm and toasty as his real one. AND he had to get his milk himself. And it did taste funny! Stars, did he check the date? Oh well.

He learned Han had already met Rey, and she was taken by Kylo onto the command shuttle. Ah, good! Some alone time for them would probably work wonders now that Kylo knew they had to form a relationship. Finn didn’t seem so thrilled. He was frantic, but Ben assured him Kylo would never hurt her.

Again, Finn wasn’t so sure. Friends could be like that. But even though Kylo was keeping him well out of the bond, he could feel that the Darksider was pleased on some level. That meant things were going just right!

After landing, his not-parents took him to the war room, full of screens and equipment and high ranking who-what’s saying what-who about the First Order and this and that. Ben got bored and headed off toward where C3PO and BB-8 were discussing something.

Leia walked in just as he did, and both regarded a projected map. The gold droid stepped before her. “General, I regret to inform you, but this map recovered from BB-8 is only partially complete. And even worse, it matches no charted system on record. We simply do not have enough information to locate Master Luke.”

Leia sighed. “I can't believe I was so foolish to think that I could just find Luke and bring him home.”

Ben regarded the projection. “Well, just because you’re missing a piece doesn’t mean it can’t be triangulated. Get me access into the mapping system. I’ll figure it out for you.”

Not-Mom smiled. “I appreciate that, but we’ve had all our experts on this. If it was that easy to do, we would have done it already.”

Ben pulled the multidriver from his belt and twirled it in his hand. “You underestimate my power.” He drew his finger over the smooth surface of the data console, touched her blinking LEDs, and stroked her switches and buttons. So beautiful. A work of art. “I can’t wait to get inside her.”

“’Scuse me?”

Ben wrapped his arms around the console. “Give us some alone time. I’ll get what you need.”

Leia wasted no time scooting out of there, BB-8 and C3PO hot on her tail.

Ben opened the panel, connected the wires to his comm, and brought up all the star system mapping information available. This he compared against all the other map data he had about his own universe and the others he had visited. There were always some differences, but where there were multiple overlaps, he could decipher the missing information. A little math here, geometry there, and ah, the missing piece filled right into the empty space.

Ben snorted. “Not enough information. There will never be a day while I walk in my size fourteen boots. Oh Not-Mom!” He left to seek her out.

Outside, he saw the two old war heroes talking. “You think I want to forget him?” Leia said. “I want him back.”

Ben’s heart ached for them. He remembered how hard it was when Ky came home, how he made such progress, but any setback sent him right back to his violent ways: when Ky thought they were sending him away and he came after them with a lightsaber, when his first girlfriend ghosted him and he wound up being arrested, when he learned his brain condition combined with his Force capability was causing him to become violent while asleep and he hurt someone he loved. It took so much effort to get him stable, but it was so worth it when he was able to overcome those challenges and become the incredible man Ben’s kids—and the galaxy—loved.

As for his own children, the adults all worked hard to give them what they needed, so they never felt compelled to denounce the family and live a life of cruelty as was in their bloodline. Ben couldn’t imagine losing any of them to some creep who would convince them the Solos didn’t love them.

“We can still save him,” Leia said as Ben approached. “Me. You.”

“And me,” Ben added, startling the two from their conversation.

Leia smiled. “We appreciate the help. You have to know it’s…really our responsibility to make this right.”

“I know, but you could always use some help. When my brother Ky came home, it took all of us in our own way to get him on the right path. And it was hard. And there were so many times we slipped, or he slipped, but we kept being determined, kept at it, because we knew his heart was good. He’d just been poisoned since birth. There was a lot of healing to be done. Let me help you with that.”

Han nodded. “We do appreciate it. It’s just…been so long. I don’t know how we can do this. Maybe we need Luke—did you figure out that map?”

“Oh yeah, that was an easy one. I can lead you right there buuuuut…maybe you don’t need Luke after all. I mean, with all this First Order stuff going around, don’t you think he’d already be out here helping? Unless he’s being a dick. A total dick. A giant fucking king kong mountainous irrefutable unholy—”

“We get it!”

“…dick.”

Han leaned in, annoyed. “Got it. Anyway, Luke’s not like that.”

“Pfft.”

“What’s with the pfft? You don’t know him.”

“Well, somehow I doubt he’s a hell of a lot different from mine, who tried to kill me with his lightsaber when I was ten!”

Leia gasped. “Luke would never do that. Not our Luke.”

Han crossed his arms. “And why would Luke come after you like that?”

Ben blinked. “Okay, I maaaaay have blown up the Jedi Temple with my chemistry kit, but it was all his fault! He scared me and I dropped the wrong thing!”

Han took one look at him, gathered his arm around Leia, and said, “I think we’re on our own here.”

“No!” Ben called after them as they walked away. “No, I’m right here! Not going anywhere! Right here! Unless you get me to Kylo. Can you get me to Kylo? Are either of you listening to me?”

~*~

Back in the war room. Boy, if they wanted to get rid of Ben, they sure knew how—boring him to death! On and on they went about the First Order, then started talking about the giant star-system-killing weapon again. Wait, that much he knew about.

“Weapon? I disabled that. Infected it with a nasty virus. That thing won’t run again, believe me.”

The group looked at one another before Leia spoke. “Our intelligence says they’re planning to fire it again. On our star system, no less.”

“What?! But that’s impossible! I totally wrecked that software and destroyed the backups! In fact, every time you try to access the files, porn blasts all over every screen in the ship. I made sure of that one.” He grinned.

Everyone stared at him.

“What? It really pisses them off, I’m telling you.”

Leia gave him one more look before shaking her head. “I don’t know what to tell you, but it’s back online.”

Impossible. Who could have gotten past his virus? That was the worst he’d ever created, formulated during a special time when the new head of the Intergalactic Science Council called his recent article trite and lacking substance. The man needed counseling after Ben unleashed that one. No, something wasn’t right.

Han shrugged. “Okay, how do we blow it up?” Everyone looked at him. “There’s always a way to do that.”

Leia nodded. “Han’s right.” On she went along with the rest, all planning some big ‘Blow up the Super Duper Death Star’ moment. Ben knew if he could just get over there, he could disable it again in no time. He just had to GET THERE.

Then Finn said, “I can disable the shields. But I have to be there, on the planet.”

“We’ll get you there,” Han said.

Ben threw his hands up. “Oh, when I ask you to take me over there, you give me some snarky crap about it, but when HE says it, suddenly it’s ‘We’ll get you there!’ I swear, you never believe in anything I do!”

Snap Wexley pointed his finger. “Who the hell is this guy?”

Han shook his head. “Long story. Come on you, and Big Deal over there. Let’s get this thing rolling.”

~*~

At least this Han was as good a pilot as his own father. Ben was nervous but not terribly nauseous for once. Things were going well as they neared Starkiller base, except for that whole weapon thing. But Ben was sure he could get that offline in no time yet again, give the rest of the Resistance time to destroy it for good.

Software or not, such a terrible thing did not need to exist.

Finn turned to Han. “How are we getting in?”

The seasoned pilot kept his straight expression. “Their shields have a fractional refresh rate. Keeps anything traveling slower than light-speed from getting through.”

Finn’s eyes nearly sprung out of his head. “We’re making our landing approach at light speed?”

That was about the time Ben’s stomach flipped over. “Oh stars. Please don’t do that. That sounds really bad.”

Han briefly shrugged. “Got any better ideas, smarty-pants?”

“Yeah, anything but that!”

“Sorry kid, but if you don’t have a better, useful idea, then just hang on.”

“You don’t understand. I get motion sickness. Bad. Really bad. And I forgot my meds, as well as my allergy meds, my sleep vitamins, my eye drops—”

“Alright Chewie, get ready.”

“Oh no. No no no no no, please, no please, I beg you—”

“And now!”

The Falcon was suddenly right above the forest, careening toward the thick stands of trees. Violently shaking from numerous obstacles smashing against it, the ship then heaved upwards, back down, up then down again, slamming against everything and its grandmother, before skidding in the snow and finally stopping right before the edge of the cliff.

Han heaved in breaths. “Everyone okay?”

Chewie gurgled positively in response.

“Probably,” Finn said.

Han glanced slightly backwards. “Kid?”

Ben vomited. Everywhere.

“I’m sorry!” Ben said as the group trudged through the snow, leaving him behind.

Han growled, “This jacket was new.”

“Poe just gave me his,” Finn muttered.

Chewie’s long rambles and cries assured everyone that vomit was exceedingly hard to get out of long hair.

“Hey!” Ben said. “You never told me we were going to dive in at light-speed! I would have come prepared!”

Han turned. “If I knew you were going to hurl all over us, I would have left you behind!”

“You need me!”

“That remains to be seen!”

Ben grumbled as he stomped through the snow. “I told you my SOLO-Yuck would neutralize it in no time. By the time you get back on the ship, it will be like new.”

“I don’t need your crazy inventions!”

“HEY! My inventions are the top sellers in my galaxy! You think I made my billions making crap?”

Han spun to a stop. “Billions?”

“Uh, yeah? I got a mansion, multiple corporate buildings in different star systems, my own space station for experiments, the works! And whatever I don’t need, I donate to planets affected by all these stupid wars. Maybe I can’t keep down lunch, but I can make a damn good product for the common disaster. And cups that stay hot or cold for twenty-four hours. And a machine that eases labor pains without compromising the health of the mother or baby.” He smiled. “That was hard-won research, but the product is a hit!”

The old hero regarded him for a while. “You couldn’t be the farthest thing from my son if you tried.”

Ben shifted. “Our circumstances were different. My family suppressed my powers until I was an adult, granted, without telling me, but still. With no hope of using my powers, I focused on my intellectual pursuits. We’re not…that terribly different, just had our own particular circumstances.”

Han nodded, then waved them on. “Come on. Sooner we get this done, the better.”

Snow. Everywhere snow. Now that they crashed halfway across the damn planet, they had to walk to the access point. Trudge more like it. Snow was fine for the very few inches they got per year on Chandrila, good for kids to play in, then back inside where everything was temperate and happy. His brother, Ky, loved to ski on Hoth, but he could keep that stars-forsaken planet to himself.

Ben reached into a pouch and pulled out a handful of flappy items. “Does anyone need foot warmers? I have foot warmers.”

Han turned, as if already tired of his antics. “No one’s stopping to take off their boots for foot warmers. Put it away!”

“Ah, joke’s on you! These are applied on the outside of the boots! I mean, really, who wants to take off boots in the snow? Think about that.”

Han glared. Chewie glared. Finn looked like he was praying for patience.

“Look!” Ben strung one around his boot. “In thirty seconds, toasty toes. Dry too. Let’s see any other footwear company make that claim! SOLO-Toasty, also available in bulk supply for those times when you just can’t stop to put on your winter boots!”

Han glared. Chewie glared.

Now Finn glared. “Are you seriously trying to sell us your inventions while we’re in the middle of trying to save our friend and stop a genocide?”

Ben shifted. “We can negotiate after. Just saying.”

Han leaned in toward Chewie. “Those could come in handy.”

Finn stared at his own buried feet. “Us Storm Troopers could probably have used them, too. Does seem kind of handy.”

Ben smiled and clapped his hands once. “When this is over, I will give you such a discount! I’ll get the invoice prepped in the meantime.”

“In the meantime,” Han growled, “we are focused on the damn weapon!”

“Right! Right…carry on.”

The grizzled smuggler shook his head. “You sure you saved the galaxy in your world?”

“Well…I had help.”

Han turned and started walking. “A lot of it, I imagine.”

Oh that fired him up. “HEY!” All three turned to look at him. “I put up with enough of this crap from my own father. I’m not going to take it from you too! Yeah, I had help, but I’m also the one that devised the plans, created the chemical substances that slowed down the enemy, hacked all their systems so they couldn’t function, disabled Star Destroyers in the most hilarious ways possible, and took down Palpatine by following a math formula I came up with. And on top of that, I saved my brother from not only death, but his past and his terrible path in life. I saved my wife’s life when she had a genetic disease primed to kill her. By doing that, I saved billions of others across the galaxy. So maybe I just look like a weird nerd to you who really wants to make quota next quarter, but I’m also a damn hero!”

That was the first time he ever said it about himself and meant it. Also, it the first time he really stood up for himself besides telling off his dad. And it felt good. All of it felt good.

Han gave him a pained look and swallowed. “Looks like your parents raised you right. To be like them.” He turned and kept walking.

“Well, my mom, yeah. My dad…he’s a work in progress. But I guess…” It was then he realized the statement was less about him and more about Kylo. Damn. Ben had to make this right somehow.

After seeing a line of walkers, they ducked behind a structure. Han leaned toward Finn and asked, “What was your job when you were based here?”

“Sanitation.” Flat. Not proud, but plain and direct.

“Sanitation? Then how do you know how to disable the shields?”

“I don’t. I’m just here to get Rey.”

Han looked like he would chomp on Finn’s entire head. “People are counting on us. The galaxy is counting on us!”

“We’ll figure it out.” Finn snapped his fingers. “We’ll use the Force!”

“That’s not how the Force works,” both Ben and Han barked in unison.

Ben shook his head. “We don’t need him to do it. Get me an access panel and I’ll get it done.”

Han shook his head. “You sure? You also said no one could get past the stuff you did in there earlier, and now here we are.”

“Hey! They clearly have someone with more brains than the usual sock puppet they have running these things, but no one, and I mean no one, is going to outsmart me when it comes to systems. All we need is an access panel and a few bottles of Hyper-Fuel.”

Han blinked. “What’s Hyper-Fuel?”

Ben clenched his hands into fists and screamed at the sky, “NOOOOOO!”

Chewie growled for him to shut up and twhacked him on the back to drive in his point.

“Ow! Quit it, Uncle Chewie!”

~*~

“Well, what the hell else do you have around here for a caffeine boost?” Ben spat as they traversed the Starkiller base corridors.

“Caf,” was Han’s short response.

“Oh, great. Because I love a cup full of charcoal with cream and sugar.”

“I’m going to give you a cup full of my foot in your ass if you don’t quiet down! We’re sneaking in, not marching in a parade.”

“Shut up, Dad!”

Han stopped. That time, it really seemed to hit him hard. Ben suddenly realized his mistake. “Sorry, I know I keep doing that. I have to say that to my dad at least fifteen times a day. Even now at forty-three.”

Han recovered and huffed. “I’m starting to see why. Come on. We got to find you that control panel before the whole damn star system gets vaporized.”

Ben straightened his belts and pouches. “Heh. Yeah. No pressure there.”

After slipping through a few more corridors, Finn pointed to one sealed room. “Here, I think there’s a console inside. I remember having to empty trash from here once and getting a very snippy officer. But how are we going to get in? They’ve surely locked out my passcode by now.”

Ben snorted. “How are we going to get in. Pssht, step aside.” He hooked up his comm to the access panel. “Work your magic, key-gen.”

Han rolled his eyes. “Let me just blast it.”

“Like I said at the outside door, all you are going to do is give away our position to the rest of the ship. I mean seriously, think before speaking.”

Han leaned in toward him. “Maybe I ought to just blast you instead.”

The door slid open. Ben disconnected his comm and did a sliding victory dance as he entered the console room. “I’m the best you got,” he sang, “can’t get any better—”

Chewbacca lunged at him. Ben leapt with a small yelp and sprung across the room into a console seat. With an innocent grin, he quickly drew out his multidriver and worked at the console.

Han and Chewbacca stood just inside the door, weapons at the ready, while Finn was focused anywhere else. Ben got the console open, connected some wires to his comm, and brought up the access screen on the console.

“How long is this gonna take?” Han asked.

Ben huffed with snarky pride. “Key-gen’s got me already in. Let me bring up the security system and—the fuck?” ACCESS DENIED glared in red across the screen.

“What’s wrong?” Finn asked.

“I’ve been kicked out as soon as I got in. Let me try again.” After a few moments of fiddling, he smiled again. “Boom, now let’s get here…on to the weapons system—shit!” ACCESS DENIED. “Locked out again! What the fuck?”

Chewbacca roared for him to hurry it up. Ben clenched his teeth and growled, “Do you think I’m taking a vacation here?” A bark from the Wookiee made him jump in his seat. “Quit it Uncle Chewy! I’m trying to concentrate! Something, or someone, keeps locking me out as soon as I get in.” He connected once more, and right as he was bringing up the weapon’s menu, he was locked out again. “Stars-fucking-damnit! What the hell is going on? I never have this much trouble!”

There was so much pressure. Billions if not trillions of lives were at stake, and all he had to do was something he’d done thousands of times and yet couldn’t seem to keep whoever was thwarting him out of the way. Damnit, he couldn’t think, nothing was clear. Without Hyper-Fuel, his mind just could not kick into overdrive, into that beautiful space of clarity.

Without caffeine, he needed some kind of adrenaline rush. Something that would really pump his system.

Ben turned to Han. “I need you to insult me.”

Han stared at him. “Why?”

“Apparently my father’s an ass, but an ass I’m used to, and without him getting me riled up, I can’t fuel my creativity in these situations, so.” Ben waved him onward. “Insult me.”

“I've…got nothing to insult you for.”

“Oh come on PLEASE! I NEED it! See? I’m whining. Whining annoys you, doesn’t it?”

“A little.”

“So come on! Call me a little girl in a giant man suit. Tell me I’m afraid of shoes—”

“What the—why would I say you were afraid of shoes?!”

“It’s just, when I found out the bacteria and fungi that can inhabit—it brought about one of my best disinfectant formulas—that’s besides the point—just go crazy! Go deep into your sheer disappointment in me and let loose!”

Han sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “What disappointment? You came here, were respectful to me and Leia, kind to everyone, you’re trying to save my son. You’re annoying, but compared to what we’re dealing with, that’s hardly a drop in the bucket. What is it me in your world is so disappointed about?”

“Oh—” Ben started ticking off the items on his fingers. “—well, I used to spend all day in the basement conducting experiments, but that was for my business, I prefer working at home. Oh! And I was on my holopad all day instead of working on the Falcon, but again, I like running my business from home. I didn’t really like going to the big facility. Too spacious, too many people. Oh, and I was a virgin and never had a girl touch me except in disgust until I was thirty—”

“Why were they disgusted?”

“Oh, because I like science and math and computers and was scared of everything and wasn’t a hero like my parents.”

Han just seemed more frustrated by the moment, rubbing his face now. “Why the hell wasn’t your father helping you with any of it? Taking you out on the town? To cantinas?”

“Oh! That’s because of my terrible anxiety. See? Lots of stuff to work with!”

Han tossed his hands up. “All I see is a smart kid who needed a little extra help and instead got hammered by everyone around him! You run a major corporation, and your father is disappointed?!”

“Well he didn’t know it then—”

“My kid is out there murdering thousands with his lightsaber, and that idiot other version of me is disappointed in YOU?!”

Ben brightened. “Yes, yes! Use that! Use your anger! Anger gives you power!”

“If anything, I should find that numbskull father of yours and kick his ass myself!”

“YES! YES! Now turn that on me!”

“You’re a good kid! And he treats you like shit because of it?”

“Okay, see, this isn’t working now, you got to turn it—”

“How would he like to have MY kid? Breaking shit in the house, throwing things at us with the Force, attacking other kids—”

Ben snorted. “Honestly, his dumbass would probably have thought ‘That’s my boy!’”

“You want me to insult you?”

Ben nodded. “Yes. Please.”

“Well here are my insults. Why the hell haven’t you kicked that son of a bitch in the head and showed him who the hell you are?!”

“I can’t just go kicking my dad in the head!”

“And why the hell not? Because it’s wrong? Because it’s not math?”

“Oh, go RIGHT to the math! Just because you can’t do it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it!”

“What the hell are you doing not kicking his ass every time he opens his mouth! I don’t care how old we are, we deserve it! Now you man up, stop being a little baby about it, and tell your father to fuck off, or I’ll kick your ass myself!”

“SHUT UP, DAD!” Ahhhh, finally! He felt the flow! The anger! The energy! Everything fit into a beautiful harmony once again!

Ben pulled Han close. “Thank you.” And with that, he turned back to the console.

But even as his hands worked furiously at the formulas, one thing lay heavy in his mind. All I see is a smart kid who needed a little extra help and instead got hammered by everyone around him! While that was very true for himself, it was also true for this dimension’s Ben. And just like his own father, this Han wasn’t seeing it for his own kid either.

Finn couldn’t stop moving, antsy. “How much longer?”

“Just let me concentrate,” Ben said. “I’m almost there.”

“Can you just…concentrate faster or something?”

“I’m sorry, would you like to hack into the security system of a massive weapon? Or would you like to zip it?”

Finn gritted his teeth. “We are running out of time—” 

“FN-2187,” said a stately yet terrifying female voice. A mirrored storm trooper stood in the doorway, her gun aimed. “What a pleasant surprise.”

Ben got locked out one more time, and his fury spilled over through his entire being. Darkness, the likes of which he hadn’t touched in ages, flooded through him. He spun, gripped Phasma in a tight grip with his power, then flung her across the room. She landed with a thunking crash of metal and did not move. He picked up her weapon with the Force and crushed with a simple grip of his hand.

Then he simply spun back around to his console. “I am trying to concentrate.”

Han, Chewy, and Finn stared, dumbfounded. “Holy shit,” Han remarked.

Finn nodded. “What he said.”

“Ah!” A smile finally sprung on Ben’s face. “I’m in and blocked out whoever keeps fucking with me. Now to upload the nastiest virus I know. This may take a little while, but it will be done before they charge it enough to fire.”

Han nodded. “Good. Good. Hey, let’s get rid of chrome-dome over there before she gets back up. Uh, kid? I take it if anyone else comes in here, you’ll—” He waved his hand and made a splat sound.

Ben waved him off. “Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Busy.”

Han led the other two out of the room.

Chapter Text

With Ben’s virus having dismantled the shields and the weapon, Starkiller base shook with blasts from the Resistance starfighters. Ben, feeling mighty good about himself, left the console room. The other three had been gone a while, and he debated whether he should link back up with them or seek out Kylo like he planned in the first place.

He closed his eyes and felt through the Force, looking for his interdimensional twin. Ah, there he was, but there was also…yes, a Light, so bright and familiar. Rey! They weren’t far from each other. Find one and you find the other!

The quickest path was back outside in the stupid snow. Just up ahead, he saw the group with Rey. Stars, she looked so much like his wife, and yet different, gentler, maybe a bit sweeter. When he first met his Rey, she was like a walking firestorm of sexy. This one was clearly tough but didn’t have that same aura of someone calmly walking away from an explosion. He wondered what Kylo thought of her, whether his heart was fluttering like Ben’s had back in the day (and every day thereafter.)

Han and Chewy then took off in another direction. Ben debated following them but instead felt an unmistakable pull toward her. He jogged as best he could through the foot-sucking snow and caught her and Finn as they were about to reenter the base.

“Hey guys,” Ben panted, “the shields are down and I just—”

Rey took one look at him, shrieked and started pounding the crap out of him with a stick.

“OW! OW! QUIT IT! YAHHH!” Ben flailed his hands and tried to run, but she was merciless in her pursuit. He then had no choice. Ben grabbed Finn from behind and hid. “SAVE ME!”

“Monster!” Rey shouted, still trying to whack him.

Finn waved his hands in both his and Ben’s defense. “This isn’t Kylo Ren!”

“Like hell!” Again, she tried to take Ben’s head off and only caught Finn’s arm.

“Ow! Would you stop? I’m serious! This may look like Ren, but he’s from another dimension or something. Like a good version of Ren from some other plane of existence.” He turned his head. “Right?”

Ben stuck his thumb up. “You got it!”

“So please, just…no more beatings, okay?”

Rey finally stepped back, fury still on her angelic face. Ben rose from behind Finn and smiled. “Awww! You look just like my Rey when I first met her. Damn I miss her right now.”

Rey raised her brow. “Your Rey?”

“Yeah! In my dimension, we’ve been married for thirteen years and have four kids. She’s my dyad in the Force, just like you and Kylo. And hey, if you’ll let me—” He waggled his brow. “—I can hook you up with him. You guys will be ready to face Palpatine in no time.” He grinned.

Rey grimaced. “Eww! I don’t want to hook up with him, ever! Dyad? Palpatine—what in the galaxy are you talking about?!”

“I’ll explain everything—wait, did you say ew?”

“I won’t go anywhere near that monster except to kill him!”

Ben bit his lip. “Ohhhhh boy, this is not at all how me and my Rey started. You two are in worse shape than I thought. Don’t worry, I’m sure once the two of you sit down and calmly get to know each other, you’ll see you have plenty in common.”

Finn stuck his finger up. “Or, you know, don’t. That’s also an option.”

Ben spoke through clenched teeth. “Not for saving the galaxy, now zip it!”

Rey leaned in. “Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not hooking up with anyone. I have things I need to get back to, and they don’t include Kylo Ren! Han and Chewy went inside to set charges and haven’t come back out yet. The only ones I plan to meet up with are them, so come on.” She headed toward the doorway.

“B-but the dyad!” Ben spluttered. “The Force! Palpatine—”

“Follow my lead or get lost!”

Ben jolted, then smiled. “Heh, just like my Rey.” He zipped behind her and Finn through the doorway.

~*~

When the three reached the inside platform, they could see Han down below on another level, halfway across a bridge, facing Kylo. The space was perilous and creepy, black and lit in red, with a chasm sinking down to oblivion below.

Ben had to give his Not-Dad and twin credit. No way in hell he would have crossed that narrow-ass bridge.

“Oh no,” Rey whispered.

“No-no, this is good,” Ben said. “They need to make amends. If Kylo can just connect with his family again, he has a chance of coming back home. He’ll be so much stronger and ready to face Palpatine, you’ll see.”

“He doesn’t exactly look like he’s interested in making amends,” Finn said.

Ben reached out with the Force, felt his doppelgänger. “No…no you’re wrong…he’s…he’s feeling torn apart, torn between the Light and Dark…Snoke has such a hold on him…there’s so much pain…but hope! There’s hope in there, I can feel it.”

“I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it,” Kylo said from below. “Will you help me?”

“Yes,” Han said.

Kylo pulled out the hilt of his lightsaber, looked at it, and offered it to his father. Han gripped it.

Yes, Ben thought, hope filling his heart, if he can take this first step, he can take the rest, and he’ll be safe. Both of them will.

There was a pause as Kylo remained holding onto the lightsaber, and somehow, things suddenly felt colder, darker. In that moment, Kylo’s eyes grew ominous, and then Ben heard inside his head, {He must die. It’s the only way.}

Oh no!

He could feel it as if it was his own hand, holding onto the lightsaber, purposely pointing its ignition end toward his father, wavering but also knowing there was no other choice, no other path to end the constant pull in two directions. His thumb moved as if reaching for the trigger, and—

“NOOO!” Ben screamed and shoved out with his power.

Kylo flew off the bridge, his lightsaber arcing down with him as he plummeted to the abyss below.

Ben bit his lip. “Oh my stars, I just killed myself!” As Han screamed for his son, Ben leapt over the guardrail and dove straight down after Kylo. Wing command, propulsion 100 percent! Oh thank the stars he continued development on his boot rockets since his first adventure. Connected right to his thoughts projected from his comm, he no longer needed to call out the instructions.

“I Need a Hero” blasted as blue fire coursed from the rockets that emerged from the sides of his boots. His body straight like a dive into the pool, he sailed past a screaming Han and gained on Kylo. Once in the proper distance, Ben reached out with his power, so much stronger than the last time he pulled a rescue like this, and grasped onto the younger man. Drawing him in while blasting toward, it wasn’t long before Ben could wrap his arms around him and pull his parachute cord.

Kylo gasped as Ben caught him, his face even whiter than before. But he said nothing, only clutched Ben, tightly and fearfully. Made Ben wonder if there was still a little boy in there that had to grow up way too soon.

Wing command retreat, propulsion 0 percent. The rockets turned off, dismantled themselves, and retracted into his boot gear, giving the two men a slow drift toward the platform near the bottom. Once his feet touched, Ben set Kylo on his own and gathered the drifting fluff of the parachute.

“What’s with the music?” Kylo asked, sucking in breaths.

Ben mashed the parachute fabric in his hands. “Inspirational! Like it?”

“No.” {Maybe.}

Ben winked. “I heard that.”

Kylo huffed and whipped around, arms crossed. “Asshole.”

“Wasn’t intentional. I don’t know why the Force is connecting us. Getting tired of having more than my own thoughts in my head. It was crowded enough before with my own mental zaniness. Then I had Palpatine, my brother Ky, Rey, now you—oof, the list is endless. Parachute?” He held out a dongle of waxy red.

Kylo blinked. “What?!”

“It’s edible! Great for rescues. I updated the flavors to include grayple and meiloorun.”

“…You eat the parachute.”

“Yep! Pretty clever, huh?”

Kylo threw his hands up. “What GALAXY am I in?!”

“I named it 8008. I know that looks like boob on a calculator, but I promise, it really is the next one I mapped after 8007.”

Curious dark eyes regarded him. “You visited 8008 universes?”

“Wellll…not exactly. Many I just peeked into and decided it wasn’t something I wanted to visit. Did you know there’s one universe where us and Rey are cats?”

“Cats? Really?”

“Yeah, I started sneezing the second it opened. Cataloged and closed that one right up.” Ben sighed. “Enough about this. You wanna talk about what happened up there?”

Kylo crossed his arms even harder. “No.” He then felt around himself. “My lightsaber—”

Ben pulled it off his belt and held it up. “This? Easier to catch than you were. You can have it back when you tell me what happened up there.”

Kylo bared his teeth. “Or I can just take it back from you by force!”

Ben merely raised one eyebrow, daring him. Of course, he really hoped his bluff would work because he was ready to just blast his boot rockets and sail right back to the top if Kylo made one move toward him.

Kylo stared daggers at him, then stormed over to the wall, leaned against it, and moped as deep into himself as he could. “You would never understand.”

“Understand? You think you’re the only person in the multiverse who ever wanted to stab his father in the chest with a lightsaber? I considered it thousands of times, believe me!”

Kylo looked up. “Really?”

“Oh yeah, every time he called me a whiny manbaby, daddy’s little princess, the walking wall of accidents, when he took a paternity test because I’m so different from him, when he left me behind on every adventure just because I barfed in his stupid ship every single time—the list is endless!”

Those tight arms across a broad chest loosened a little. “Your father sounds like an asshole.”

“Oh, he is, no doubt. You know, even my brother pushed him off a bridge. Nearly killed the old bastard if I hadn’t jumped after him like I just did you.”

“Stars, really?”

“Yup. It was to mess with me, but later, everyone, even Uncle Chewie, admitted they all wanted to push him off a bridge at some point.” Ben leaned his elbows on his knees. “So what made you want to off yours?”

After some silence, Kylo spoke. “It wasn’t like that. Granted, I hadn’t seen him since I was ten. He never came to visit me, nothing. Maybe once or twice I got a letter to my comm, but that was it. Up there? All I could think about was how old he had gotten; how many years had passed. I…wanted to not care. I didn’t want his presence to affect me, but…” He closed his eyes. “It was like being a kid again, in the body of the person I had to kill to become what I am now. I couldn’t let that happen. Snoke wouldn’t let me let that happen.”

Kylo looked up. “Don’t you get it now? Han Solo is a temptation away from my true calling. Killing him would have finally solidified me in the Dark Side. But you took that away from me! Now I’m still going to be torn apart, and Snoke is going to torture my ass for failing yet again! You didn’t save me, or Han! You just prolonged our suffering!”

Ben stood. “Kylo, Snoke may have told you all those things, but killing your father would never have done what you hoped. You’d be even more broken than before. Listen, you were not made for one side or the other, and that’s okay! That’s exactly how you have to be in order to fulfill your true destiny as a dyad in the Force, leaning to the Dark but never being solely within it. Understand?”

“Maybe that’s the way it works in your universe, but it’s not in mine!”

“Really? Exactly what page of the dyad book you read says otherwise?” Ben tapped his foot and raised his brow, waiting.

Kylo turned away. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Exactly. When you read the book seven times, come talk to me about what it says. Now, speaking of dyads, you finally met Rey, huh?” Ben rubbed his fingertips together. “Tell me what happened, all the juicy details. Are you in love yet? I was so in love when I met mine. Is she a flaming badass with guns and everything?”

“…She had a gun.”

“Nice! Hell of a shot, huh?”

“Nnnnope.”

“Oh, well, no one’s perfect. So, what did you say? What did you do? Your dad said you carried her onto your ship—” Ben muttered, “—leaving me behind—” Then back to his usual voice, “I told him not to worry, that maybe she fainted or something—gotta be the hair. I am so jealous!”

Kylo rolled his eyes, incredulous and exasperated.

“I knew you wouldn’t hurt her or anything, because you’re destined to be together. So what happened next? Sparks? Hearts?”

“…I had her put in restraints and interrogated her for the map.”

Ben blinked. Then, “YOU WHAT?!”

“Just because you think—”

“THAT IS NOT HOW YOU TREAT A GIRL! THAT IS NOT HOW YOU TREAT REY!” Ben crossed his arms. “BAD KYLO!”

Said man stuck his finger out and stepped forward. “Say that again, and I will rip your face off.”

“Do you not get what’s at stake here?! She is your dyad! She is your other half! The other half of your soul! Not only do you need her to save your universe, but she is also your perfect match across the entire galaxy! Why the hell would you treat her like that? No wonder she attacked me when she first saw me. Can’t believe you’re worse with girls than I was at your age!”

“Hey! I’m not bad with girls!”

“You restrained and tortured her!”

“I never said I tortured her. I interrogated her. I reached into her mind to find what I was looking for when she refused—”

“YOU DON’T DO THAT EITHER! STARS!”

“Well she forced me out! She turned it around on me, got in my head—fuck! I didn’t like it! I got enough shit with Snoke in my head, my grandfather—”

“Palpatine, you mean—”

“Shut up! She shouldn’t have been that powerful. She’s way stronger than she knows.”

Ben then witnessed something he never expected. A pink bloom crossed Kylo’s cheeks.

“I’d never encountered someone who was that strong outside of Snoke and Skywalker,” Kylo continued. “And her power…there was Light, so much of it. Strong but soft at its core. It touched…it touched a part of me I didn’t expect. Tried to wake it up. I had to pull out. I couldn’t let her go further.”

That confirmed what Ben felt, too. Piratey Rey felt different. Her core was tempered, balanced by Light but always leaning Dark. This Rey was tough as nails but warm and bright like sunshine. Fascinating.

Ben sighed and crossed his arms, thinking. “Alright, so we’re off to a rough start, but we don’t have to let it ruin things. It’s clear I’m going to have to teach you how to relate to a woman, so we don’t make matters worse.”

Kylo looked around. “Here?”

“Hm, true. They’re going to blow up the weapon soon. That might be a problem. Better get this back to you.” He tossed his protégé the red lightsaber. Said protégé was surprised but grateful. “Alright. Crash course. First, no more capturing and interrogating, got it?”

Kylo sniffed. “Whatever.”

“Make yourself as welcoming and harmless as possible. Let her feel she can come to you any time. Be open and listen to her. Be a friend, not a fiend.”

“Stars, did you just literally say that out loud?”

“Hey, it’s in my bestselling book!”

Kylo looked up in exasperation. “StaaaarrrRRRSS!

“Now, the next thing you want to do is make sure you appeal to a woman’s senses, her mind and heart. Whatever you do, don’t insult her and then try to play it off like it’s a compliment, got it?”

Kylo shifted. “I guess.”

“Women love intellect, so always have a good few math formulas on hand to solve in front of her. And if you can defeat an enemy using math, physics, or chemistry, do it. They love that shit. Oh! Nothing is sexier to a woman than naming newly discovered elements after them.”

Kylo narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure about this?”

“Uh, duh, I’ve been married to my Rey for thirteen years. I think I know what I’m talking about! Oh, have you ever heard of Holo-dancer?”

~*~

Rey

Rey barely had time to process anything that happened. In a few short days, her life transformed into something she would only vaguely dream of while scavenging parts, imagining herself as part of the great war that left so many rusting skeletons in its wake. Now she was halfway across the galaxy, lightsabers were talking to her, the great Han Solo offered her a job on his beloved Millennium Falcon, she was kidnapped by some creep that turned out to be hot with great hair—yet was still a creep, then joined by an older version who constantly muttered about calculations and encouraged her to marry the creep.

Now, both of them could be dead. The creep fell off, or Han pushed him (his own son?) or the nerd pushed him. Somehow, Kylo fell, then Ben leapt in after him with rockets on his feet. She hoped that was a good sign, though she really could do without the creep who kept sticking his Force where it didn’t belong.

Creep.

Wherever they were, Han was frantic, screaming his son’s name over and over. Maybe he heard something, because he finally made his way back over the bridge, signaling Chewbacca to set off the charges. Rey and Finn backed out of there and waited for the two heroes on the outside.

The blast thundered from within, and the ground trembled. Shortly after, Han and Chewie jogged over.

“Is Ben okay?” Rey asked. Fuck the creep, even if he was hot.

“I think so,” Han said between breaths. “I think the nutty one yelled they were okay. Hard to tell over the music playing.”

Finn flinched. “What music?”

“I don’t know. Kid dives down and music is blaring along with him. You don’t think he was playing a theme song for himself, do you?”

“Who would even do such a thing?”

Rey smiled. “I think it’s kind of charming, actually. But nutty, yes, definitely nutty.”

Finn slipped in front of Han as the elder man was turning toward their ship. “Hey, what happened down there? On that bridge?”

Han didn’t look at him, but he was silent for a moment. Then, “None of your business, Big Deal.”

But Rey was certainly curious as well. For a moment, just a moment, she could swear the creep turned into something…not creepy. He was sad, tremendously sad, broken even. And so very human, no longer the monster that hunted her in the forest. She wondered who that person was in there beneath the many masks.

“Let’s get to the ship,” Han said. “We can help the Resistance blow this place to smithereens.”

Rey just started following him when something compelled her to stop. “No. Not yet. Not without Ben.”

A pained look crossed Han’s face.

“The nerdy one,” she clarified. “For sure. We can’t leave him here, not with them. You’ve seen him. He’d never survive any of this chaos, or on a First Order ship. I’ll go find him, and we’ll meet at a rendezvous point.” She eyed the area. “There, at the edge of the woods. It will give us some distance for a safe landing. This place is crawling with TIE fighters.”

“I’ll go with you,” Finn said. “You know. Safety in numbers?”

Rey nodded. “Fine. Got that, Han?”

The old war hero raised his brow, impressed. “Got it. Meet you in fifteen. Just be careful. I don’t know what kind of state my son is in, but it doesn’t look good. He could be dangerous right now.”

Rey huffed. “Let me worry about him.”

~*~

Ben

Back at the bottom of the shaft, Ben took the last chomp of his parachute since Kylo wasn’t having any. “Look, we still have a chance to fix all of this. Just follow my lead, and I’m sure we can get everything going back in the right direction.” He pressed his hand against the button on the wall to open the exit hatch. Nothing happened. “Cripes, does every door in the place need an access code?” He turned to Kylo. “You mind?”

The man in question stepped over. “We had an assessment of our security recently. Was found to be rather lacking, so we had a lot redone. Apparently not strong enough since you were able to hack into everything.” He waved his hand over the security sensor. The panel only flashed red. He waved again. Nothing. “What the fuck?”

“Huh, why would someone be trying to keep you inside a pointless chasm? Never mind. I’ll get it open.”

Kylo ignited his lightsaber. “I can get the fucker open, too. Out of my way.”

Ben held his hand up. “Patience, my friend.”

“I don’t have any!”

“That goes without saying, but please, let me do this my way.”

“We don’t have TIME for your way!”

“Time-shmime. This is about the pure joy of it.” He pried open the panel and connected his passkey generator to the nodes beneath. As he punched in commands, he smiled. “Nothing quite like the superior feeling of thwarting every obstacle in your way.”

Kylo turned off his saber. “I can understand that.”

“And looking at all these lines of code? Ohh, makes me so fucking horny.”

“I…what?”

Ben finally got in, only to have the code he just found not working a second after it did. “Damnit, what’s going on?” He typed in a few more commands into his generator. “I never have this much trouble.”

“Maybe you’re losing it.”

Ben scoffed as he looked back. “I can lose my hair, its color, an occasional erection, and every single one of my multidrivers, but I will never lose my genius edge.”

“These are all things I didn’t need to know.”

Thwarted again, Ben knew he had to hardline it. He scraped a few wires and wrapped the ends of his own onto them, completely bypassing the coding system, and pressed the button. Finally, the door slid open.

“Finally.” Ben shook his head, disconnected his equipment, and stepped inside—

Just to wind up face to face with himself once more.

He turned around and Kylo was still behind him, all perfect hair and just as much confusion. When he turned back, yep, there again. No, a little different.

This Ben wore glasses, and his shorty, choppy hair was blond. Blond?! Gawd that looked odd, yet he was also curious about trying it for himself. The man was dressed in tan and orange and looked like any other back-end worker on the Star Destroyer.

Kylo lumbered forward in that angry way of his. “Who the fuck are you now?”

The blond man didn’t move. “I’m Matt. I’m a technician.”

“Why the hell do you look like me?”

Matt’s eyes flashed up to Ben’s, and the corners of his mouth turned up. “Ask him. He knows.”

Ben pointed at the man, himself, back and forth. “I do not know who the hell this guy is. Never seen him before in my life. Except in the mirror. Are you somehow another one of us?”

“Another one of you. Sort of. Interdimensional traveler. You can’t think you’re the only one.”

Ben blinked, then smacked his forehead. “Oh! That makes a lot of sense. Hey, cool, nice to meet ya! Wish I could stop and chat, but we’re trying to destroy this weapon, stop some mass murders, you know, and save this guy. Want to join in? We can always use another technician.”

Matt smiled. “Thanks, but I’m busy too. Was nice meeting you though, Ben.”

“Same here! Take care!” He waved Kylo on and made his way around the tech and down the corridor.

“It was cute of you to attempt to disable it in the first place,” Matt called from behind.

Ben stopped dead in his tracks and turned slowly. “Cute of me?”

The blond smiled. “I was surprised someone got past my password scheme. Nice little video of Snoke you had there. Funny. And I was impressed you were able to disable the weapon so efficiently. Quickly. I guess I finally met my match after all this time.”

Ben’s skin turned to ice. “You’re the admin of this battle station?”

The smile turned wicked. “I’m the master behind it all. The design of the weapon. The code. Every code. Throughout the First Order. On all the Star Destroyers. I made this all happen, Ben.”

Ben turned fully around. “You made this? This giant star system obliterator?! WHY?!”

The smile fell. “You dare ask me why? I would think you would get it.”

“Get what?”

Matt paced slowly, his eyes never leaving Ben’s. “That feeling? Of powerlessness? Come on. Only another genius could break my code. And only another genius would get why having the ultimate power in the galaxy is the only cure.”

Ben held his hands up. “Whoa. You’re not just a traveler like me, are you?”

Matt rubbed his nose. “I was. Once. And now I’ve found my calling.”

“Murder is not a calling!”

Kylo held up one finger. “I disagree.”

“NOT NOW!” Ben stepped closer to Matt. “Look, whatever is going on, talk to me, let’s figure this out. But don’t do this. Don’t salve whatever pain you feel by taking it out on innocent people.”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “Innocent?” He smiled, looked about. “Tell me if this feels familiar. You’re in a busy place. Work. School. Anywhere. You know you’re the smartest person in the building, maybe even in the world. And you try to be with others, right? That’s what we’re primed to do, right down to our very genetics—be social. So you do. You try. And what happens?”

Ben shook his head. He knew, but he needed to hear what Matt had to say about it.

“Nothing. Right? You are invisible. I walk through this entire battle station, and no one sees me. I do the bidding of Snoke himself, but do you think General Hux even looks at me? Sees me standing right in front of him?” He nodded toward Kylo. “Think he does?”

The Darksider glowered. “I would have felt you on the Force if you were like us.”

A grin. “Do you feel me now?”

Kylo grew silent, and Ben joined him. He couldn’t feel Matt either. Why was that?

The technician stepped forward. “I look just like you and you don’t even see me. None of them do. Not us, Ben. We, who make the galaxy go around, who have created everything they consume and use, we are no heroes to them. We are nothing.”

Ben shook his head. “That’s not true. You’re right, I did think that way at one time, but not anymore. My life has shown me differently.”

“Oh. Well good for you. All my life has shown is that to feel like I even exist, I have to be the one with the power.”

Ben slowly made his way forward, his hand out. “It doesn’t have to be that way. Join us, okay? Let me show you that life can be so much more, the galaxy, even the universe can be so much more. And you don’t have to hurt anyone to do it.”

Matt smiled one more time. “I wish I could stay and chat, but I have a weapon to get back online. I look forward to our next meeting, Ben Solo.”

“I can’t let you—”

Matt whipped his hand, and bright sparks of different colors flashed on and off in a dazzling strobe that threw off every one of Ben’s senses. He instantly drew a shield of power around himself until he reoriented, then reached out with the Force to grab hold of his new nemesis.

Damnit. Gone.

Ben released his shield. “Oh great. Just what we need, an evil me on the loose. Listen let’s—” He looked around. Kylo was gone. “Oh son of a bitch!”

Chapter Text

Ben finally made his way out of the building and into the snowy darkness, icy flakes pelting his heated cheeks. Damnit. He had to find Kylo or Rey. Neither were safe at this point, and both needed to get on common ground. He reached out with his senses…feeling…

A blast of orange scared the living shit out of him, and the thundering boom that followed sparked him into a run. He looked back briefly to see the Resistance X-Wings and the Falcon bombing the weapon.

He waved one fist in the air and shouted, “Go get’em!” Then he screamed after another blast was close enough to send a wall of heat his way. Screw this. The forest was the safer bet.

As he trudged through the snow, glad for the SOLO-Toasty warmers on his boots, he came upon a figure lying motionless. “Oh shit.” Ben dove to his knees and found Finn unconscious, bearing a giant burning gash across his back. “Oh shit. Oh stars. Damn, if only I had my Knights of Ben with me. But at least I have this.” He pulled a larger pack from his belt and placed it on the snow. It sprung open, all wires and tubes, paddles, the works.

He sprayed Finn’s wound with his patented wound sealing spray, then set his—also patented—SOLO-Healer onto his new friend. The system quickly grasped onto the man, ran a red laser scan over the wound, then set to repairs. The tubes injected fluids and solutions to revitalize him, while tiny robotic hands tended to the damaged tissue.

Finn would be okay in time, but now Ben was worried. The only one who could have done this would be Kylo, and that meant he was dangerous yet again. Ben had to find him, get him to calm down, then find Rey.

Onto his feet once more, he slogged through the snow, following wide footsteps and his own senses. Finally, in the distance, he saw the flashing of blue and red.

Lightsabers.

Battling!

SHIT!

Ben poured all his energy into his leg muscles. Kylo and Rey were fighting! And she had never held a lightsaber before—oh shit shit shit!

{Kylo! Quit it! Don ’t hurt her! You NEED her! And she’s so sweet and cute—DON’T HURT HER!}

~*~

Kylo Ren

Kylo was fed up with all this shit: fed up with that nerdy Ben, whoever the fuck Matt was, the traitor, and now this girl running from him, thinking she had any right to his lightsaber. That weapon had been in the hands of his grandfather and may hold the key in its Force memories of how he finally turned fully to the Dark Side.

Besides, anything that belonged to his grandfather naturally would go to him. It was simple inheritance. And she went and stole it!

He would have it soon. She fended off a few strikes, but she didn’t know what she was doing. There wasn’t enough fight in her. That she was supposed to be his dyad in the Force was laughable.

His nerd-twin really needed to stay out of his way and out of his head.

{Kylo! Quit it! Don ’t hurt her! You NEED her! And she’s so sweet and cute—DON’T HURT HER!}

Really? What, does he show up when summoned? All you have to do is think of him and he appears? What the hell was it going to take to get rid of him?!

Then again, Snoke did command him to bring the nerd before him. He couldn’t ignore a command from Snoke. Bad enough he was probably going to be tortured for failing to kill Han Solo. Maybe he could bring both the girl and the nerd. That would make up for his failure.

To be fair, the damn nerd caused his failure!

Kylo fended off a sad attack by the scavenger. Hurt her? Please. He just wanted to test her, and get his lightsaber, and bring her before Snoke. Once he got close enough, he could knock her out like he did before. This time, he’d keep her asleep until they got to Snoke’s ship. Couldn’t risk her escaping again.

The ground rumbled, and in the distance, trees fell into a growing crack in the earth. Rey panicked right at the edge and turned back, only to have him strike at her. Ah, nowhere to go, held back by his lightsaber against her stolen one. There was no escape.

Panic in her face. So fearful. So out of her league. So…

—she ’s so sweet and cute—

So…

—sweet and cute—

Damn…

Make yourself as welcoming and harmless as possible. Let her feel she can come to you any time.

Maybe the nerd was right about some things. He did have a successful marriage to pull from, unlike Kylo’s own parents. Maybe a different approach is what he needed. Why force anyone when you could get them to come to you?

That’s what Snoke did to him, wasn’t it?

He softened his gaze, pouted his lips, and tossed his head back to get his hair behaving in the snow. Turning on his best Lando Calrissian impression, his voice low and suave, he said, “You need a teacher.” His eyes roved her up and down, and he blinked slowly. “I could show you the ways of the Force.”

One eyebrow shot up on her face, and she made some sort of confused squeak. Then she blinked, surprised. “The Force?” She said it so sweetly, cutely, just like Ben said. Shit, she was adorable. He hadn’t paid attention before, when she was just a means to an end, but now as she stood there, with her eyes closed, deciding, surely dreaming about what life would be like with him, oh, he could see it. Feel it. Power rose in her, and it felt good to behold, to bask in.

Her Light.

It was so…entrancing…soothing.

Her eyes opened, so strong and determined, so beautiful, she—

Rey shoved him off and went on the attack. Shit, she actually was skilled! Maybe not specifically in saber combat, but she knew how to move, how to strike. Her footwork was amazing, and she had fire in her gut like he’d never seen before. It all caught him off guard, forcing him to defend himself against fast, agile strikes.

The ground shook again, and she slashed him in the arm. She didn’t even let him recover as she got him in the leg. Shit! This was way more than he expected from her.

She grabbed hold of his saber hilt, shoving it away, and he should have been far stronger than her, but that Light, it was empowering her, strengthening her by the moment. Enough of this! He wasn’t about to get cut open by someone with no experience. Snoke would really have his ass then.

Kylo shoved her off and readied to swing—

“KYLO NO!” It was that fucking nerd again! How did he find them—

Hot, searing agony slashed from his chest, up his neck, and across his face. FUCK! Oh fuck fuck fuck, she got him good. He slammed on his back onto the snow, knocking the wind out of him. Scrambling, he forced himself up, forced himself against the horrific pain cut across his right side, and saw her standing there.

Furious. Powerful. Triumphant. Lightsaber still blazing. Fabric of her outfit fluttering in the wind. Wearing a look that dared him to get up and try again.

It was…glorious!

Ben ran up to her side and gasped, hand to his mouth. “Oh shit! Hang on. I have some more wound sealer spray and may have another—GAH!”

The ground heaved again, splitting between Kylo and Rey, Ben on her side. Damnit. There would be no retrieving them now. Not like this.

Stars, was he in for it.

Ben waved from the other side. “I’ll find a way around! Just hold still. Try to apply some pressure to the bleeding in the meantime!”

The ground split further. The scavenger grabbed the nerd and pulled him away.

Damn. Ben was right. She was his dyad. Did he even dare explain this all to Snoke?

Kylo decided against it. If a dyad was as powerful as Ben said, maybe that was just an ace he could keep in his pocket for the right moment.

The ground cracked open even more. The planet was falling apart. He had to get back on the ship, if he could only fucking get up.

“Relax,” said an all too familiar voice. Kylo turned at once to see Matt standing there. The blond hair and the glasses really made him look like shit. The man knelt and spritzed his injury. “This will start sealing the wound, protect it from infections. The rest will require some corrective surgery, I’m afraid. Until then.” He took a pack from his vest and removed a kit full of tubes and wires.

“The fuck is that?” Kylo growled.

“Field wound kit. Something I would have patented if I was back in my universe. Now you get to benefit.” He knelt and applied the various components.

“Why are you helping me?”

“Because we both want the same thing. How better to achieve it than with each other?”

“Oh? And what makes you think you know what I want?”

“You’re a Darksider. The thing Darksiders crave the most is power.” Matt smiled.

~*~

Ben

“We have to go back and help him,” Ben said as Rey yanked him onward. “I think you really hurt him.”

“Well he deserved it.”

Ben sighed. “Look, I can’t get the two of you married if you don’t get on the same page—”

Rey turned sharply. “What makes you think I want to be with him? He destroyed a village on Jakku, kidnapped me, forced his way into my thoughts, attacked me and Finn, and nearly pushed me over a ledge before making some ridiculous offer—”

“Whoa, what offer?”

Rey continued to pull him along as trees fell all around them. “To teach me the ways of the Force.”

“Wait, how did he say it? All nasty or—” He waggled his eyebrows. “—smooth as Uncle Lando?”

“I don’t know your Uncle Lando! And I don’t know how he said it—who cares?!”

“Look, I just need to know if I got through to him or not.”

Rey sighed and paused. “It was…quiet, smooth…intriguing, I guess.”

“Were you almost tempted?”

After another pause, Rey yanked him again. “I don’t know. Maybe. Who cares? I’m not like him. I’m not going to be like him, and I don’t want to be taught anything by someone like him.”

“That’s great! Oh, this is turning out perfectly!”

Rey flung her free arm in the air. “You make no sense!”

“No, listen. You’re his polar opposite in the Force, so of course you don’t want to learn from a Darksider. But you were intrigued. That’s a connection right there, and we can build on that!”

Rey stood in front of him, teeth bared, fire in her eyes. “I don’t WANT to build on it! Now come on. We’ve got to get Finn and get out of here before we fall to our doom.”

“Not necessarily. I have more parachutes—”

“JUST COME ON!”

~*~

Ben stared out of the Falcon as explosions rocked the planet. The weapon was confirmed destroyed, from what he’d heard, so that was good. Kylo wasn’t answering him, possibly unconscious, but now Ben had no idea how to get back to him. Maybe he’d convince Not-Dad to seek his son once more.

Before then, they had to get Finn to some bacta treatment. Apparently, the medical officers had no faith in Ben’s patented invention that won prizes from the top doctors in his home-universe. That turned into a huge argument over the comm system and eventually, Not-Mom had to intervene. Whatever. All that mattered was that the poor guy recovered.

Rey didn’t say much, just asked for some space. He imagined it all must have been so overwhelming, to go from mere survival and scavenging to fighting for your life on a planet falling apart against a man you apparently can’t stand who’s supposed to be your other half.

Yeesh, thinking back to his beginnings with Piratey Rey, he had it easy!

Speaking of, he really needed a connection. {Sweet honey muffin, you there?}

He could feel his Rey’s presence even across dimensions. {I’m always here. Where were you? You kept cutting me off, saying you’d get back to me.}

{I ’m sorry. Things are crazy, and I’m not yet sure how to fix it. So there we were…}

~*~

Once Finn was stable, and the group was safely in hyperspace, Han turned toward Ben, looking about as amused as his father usually looked after things went foul. “I can see my son survived, though after what she did to him…” He nodded toward Rey. “Now, you want to explain what the hell happened on that bridge?”

Ben lifted an eyebrow. “Can you be more specific?”

“You think I don’t know it was you? I saw what you did to Phasma. I know you have power enough to shove my son to his doom—what the hell were you thinking?!”

“Hey! I jumped in after him, didn’t I?”

“He was about to give up the Dark Side! He was handing me his lightsaber—he was finally coming home! Why the hell did you have to interfere?”

“What—are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m damned serious! That was our one chance, and you—”

“Saved your life, you dumbass!”

The glare Han gave him made Ben tremble in a way his own father hadn’t made him in ages. “What did you call me?”

Ben leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Kylo was going to go with you, yes. But I felt the shift in him. I heard his thoughts. He was going to kill you.”

Han stared, face paling.

“I knew what he was about to do, and I couldn’t let him do it, not to you, not to himself. Understand? Killing you would either entrench him further into the Dark Side or break his soul, take your pick. I did what I had to do. Just glad I had the strength to do it. And, well, upgraded those rockets because they were not nearly as fast the last time I wound up in this situation.”

“Last time?”

“Yeah, my brother Ky—well, he is my clone, and wasn’t quite my official brother yet—he shoved my dad off a bridge to get back at me. I had to dive to save him, just like I saved Kylo. So, you know. I’m used to it.” He grinned. “Of course, like I said, rocket upgrade. And parachute upgrade! New flavors! Nothing says safety like my patented SOLO-Chute! You know, the Falcon could always use a good set of flavored parachutes.” Ben gave him a hefty wink.

Chewbacca groaned, and Han replied, “I’m just as confused as you are.” But then he softened. “You saved your father, just like that. Like you saved my Ben from the fall.”

“Exactly. I know you were worried, but you didn’t need to be. I’m way more capable than I look.”

“And…I guess you saved me, too. Thank you.”

Ben smiled. “You’re welcome.”

“All these…hacks and gadgets and patented whatnot, you’re pretty handy to have around.”

“Heh, I try. I mean, for so many years, I just couldn’t live up to my legacy, having hero parents and all. No one really thought much about me, and if they did, it was usually negative. Then I finally had a chance to show the galaxy what I could do. I guess sometimes, the galaxy really does need a nerd.” He grinned.

“Hm, guess so.”

It was weird, but Ben swore he saw real pride in this Han’s eyes. Usually, he had to pry a compliment out of his dad with a crowbar. But here it was, genuine and offered freely. Almost creepy. But in a good way. Was there a good creepy?

Han grew serious once more. “What did you mean about hearing Ben’s thoughts? Sensing each other, I get that. I’ve seen that. But sharing thoughts?”

“It’s something between him and I here in this universe. It’s like we’re somehow vaguely merged. The only other one I share thoughts with is my dyad in the Force, and at one time my brother Ky, but that was during the final confrontation with Palpatine. After he was defeated, that connection was gone. Only mine and Rey’s remained.”

“That what I have to look forward to?” asked Rey from across the room. “Get my thoughts invaded by that fool.”

“Welll…maybe he’ll learn to behave by then. He’s a work in progress. I have to get back to him.” He turned to Han. “Speaking of, when do you think is the next time you can get me out there?”

Han looked up at the ceiling in exasperation. “We can’t just go flying out to First Order Star Destroyers looking for my son! One minute you’re a genius, and the next I want to bat you.”

“Well, you can’t go back to Mom—Not-Mom—Leia—stars that feels weird—and say, ‘Whoops, missed our chance. Ah well, screw’im.’”

“We missed our chance because you pushed him off a bridge!”

“I did it to save your life!”

“You could have just pushed him backwards away from me!”

“I…Well, I didn’t think of that! Ever think of that?”

Chewbacca yelled at them both to stop arguing already. Ben crossed his arms and pouted. Han did just about the same.

Then Ben grinned. “Almost felt like home for a minute there. I can’t have one conversation with my dad without arguing.”

“Why, because you come up with wild and dangerous schemes with no thought how to achieve them?”

“No, because he’s an ass.” He smiled. “But it did feel good for a minute there.”

Han huffed, then he smiled. This did feel all too good. And it was wrong. Kylo should be in his seat, smiling with his dad, not Ben.

The super-genius cleared his throat. “Alright look, I’ve got to get back to Kylo, save him from himself.” He wasn’t even about to bring up Matt, not until he figured out what to do with him. Then again, with no Force signature, he was far less a danger than Kylo, Snoke, or Palpatine. “I get that you don’t want to just fly me there for…reasons…but I have to do something to save him before I can go home.”

Han leaned against the wall. “How exactly do you get home?”

Ben sunk his fingers into his silvering hair and scratched his head. “To be honest, I’m not sure yet. My family has the machine that I used to get here, but they have to source more illutium to power it through the fabric of the universe. My dad and Uncle Chewy are getting some from my backup stores. But besides that, they don’t have the calculations for the vergence fields to get me right where I am now. One false move and they could open a portal somewhere dangerous. I can’t put them at risk like that. Best idea would be for me to build a machine here, calculate for my home world, and get back that way. But I haven’t had the time since all this happened, and I’d need a source of 147 deca-measures of illutium.” He raised his brow. “You wouldn’t happen to have any handy, would you?”

Han stared at him. “Sorry, I’m all out.”

“Hm, too bad. Maybe in our travels we can pass by the planet Xorvo in the Harfold Star System. It’s way out in wild space, but it’s where I get mine when my dad can’t get any on the—” He coughed into his hand. “—market.”

Han smirked.

“In the meantime, I can start to build my own machine. Alright, I’m going to need a heap of scrap to source some materials and a parts printer with a metal feed. Where can I get my hands on that?”

The elder man continued to just stare.

Rey smirked from across the room. “Looks like you’re building two things.”

Ben sighed. “Just point me to the scrap heap. I’ll figure it out.”

~*~

Back at the Resistance base, Ben tinkered with some tools and shards from the scrap heap. Leia entered the room and shut the door behind her. Han, Chewbacca, Rey, and C3PO looked up expectantly.

Leia’s face was troubled, which probably wasn’t unusual lately, but the tension in the air was palpable. “We had a great victory, and everyone is celebrating, those left anyway…” She paused, took a breath, then looked up once more, ever the general, ever continuing forward despite the constant horrors around her. “But it’s clear if the First Order was able to build one weapon of that capacity, they could build another.”

Ben fumbled his tool. Matt… He had forgotten how his blond bespectacled twin was the engineer behind that horror.

“We need to take out Snoke for good. With him out of the picture, the rest of the First Order will fall. But our Resistance soldiers…they’re all afraid, and with good reason. Snoke is the most powerful Dark Side dictator since Palpatine. It’s the past come to repeat itself. They need assurance, Jedi assurance.”

Han nodded. “Luke.”

“I don’t know why he’s cut us off, but at least we now know where he is, thanks to Ben here.”

Ben waved his tool without looking up. “Always happy to help.”

“I think someone needs to go there and convince him to come back to us. Just knowing he’s available and on our side would do so much for morale, maybe boost our numbers.”

“We’ll go,” Han said, “me and Chewy.”

Rey stood. “I must go, too. I can feel it.” She gripped the lightsaber. “It called to me back at Maz’s castle, surely so I could bring it back to its master.” She smiled. “Must be such a pure and holy blade to have been in the hands of such a Jedi.”

Ben snorted into a laugh and buried it in his arm.

“May I ask what’s so funny?”

“Do you have any idea of the history of that—nah, nah, never mind. You need it. Keep it on you.”

“I don’t need it. It belongs in the hands of a Jedi, and I am certainly no Jedi.”

“It belongs in the hands of anyone who can wield it. Besides, didn’t you say it called to you? It wants you, not him.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“Look, Luke sucks, you’ll see.”

Leia turned defensive. “Now just hold on. You never met our Luke. You have no right to talk about him like that.”

Ben shrunk, as he always did when getting scolded by Mom, even if this one was Not-Mom. “Well…look, I’m just saying, if he’s alive and knows you need help and is just sitting somewhere picking his butt and not doing anything when the galaxy needs him, then he probably sucks here too.”

Han huffed. “And if we follow your logic, then you’re an evil pain in the ass because our kid here is.”

Ben stayed quiet a moment. “Touché.”

Leia sighed. “Let’s not dwell on who is what where. Go to him, see what’s happened, and try to get him to come back home, too. We need him more than ever.”

“Got it,” Han said. “Rey, you’re in. What about you, kid?” Chewbacca roared and ranted, making Han wave to get him to calm down. “Yeah yeah, I know. Chewy says you can only come with us if you’re not going to puke again.”

Ben merely grinned, his brow already upturned in apology.

~*~

“No, this is a total mistake!” Poe Dameron shouted, chasing after anyone who would listen, but mostly Leia. “We had a good victory, and we can have more! But we can’t do it alone. We need Solo and the Falcon. We need a Jedi that’s here and now on our side. And we need someone with Ben’s intelligence—you can’t just send them all away to look for some legend!”

To her credit, Not-Mom was as tough as nails as Ben’s own Mom. “And I need you to trust my judgment and my orders!”

“We finally have an advantage and you’re letting it all go! The First Order is going to retaliate after that skirmish. We need everyone we have available to be ready for them!”

“I know that already, thank you.”

“Would you listen…”

Ben was thankful Poe followed Leia out of the room. He was getting sick of hearing the guy run his mouth, especially at his Not-Mom. Even if she wasn’t Ben’s real mother, it still got right under his skin.

Rey gathered the few things she needed and spent the rest of the time helping to pack the Falcon with supplies. Ben grabbed whatever he could think of that would be handy in building the machines he needed. Everyone was busy, trying to concentrate, trying to think, and here was this guy, coming back around again, arguing relentlessly.

Han waved for Ben and Rey to board, and just before she was about to step onto the ramp, Poe stuck his arm out in front of her. “Rey, listen to reason. Your place is here, helping us directly.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I’m not the Jedi you think you need! That’s who we’re going to get—”

“If Luke Skywalker was of any use to us right now, he’d already be here. You are here, and you are just as good as he is in my book.”

“I barely know a thing about the Force!”

“Something is better than nothing, especially when it comes to the First Order. Come on, we need you.”

Rey sighed and pushed his arm. “I will get us what we need. Now out of the way.” Ben followed behind her as she made her way up the ramp.

Poe softened his voice. “Let Han and Chewy go if they have to, but you two? How can you leave us when we need you the most?”

Ben finally had to step in. “There are things we have to do that are beyond what’s going on here, and may very well be key to stopping this war.”

“Yeah, like what?”

“Um, you don’t need to know everything, thank you very much.” Especially not about his weird bond with Kylo and the whole dyad thing. “Just trust that we know what we’re doing.”

“That’s not good enough—”

“Well too bad!” Rey barked. “If Leia says we go, we go. She’s in charge, not you. And she’s the only one that needs to know what we’re doing.”

Ben grinned. This Rey had real fire in her, just like his own!

Poe raised his brow. “What about Finn, huh? You just going to abandon him like that?”

Rey froze.

“What about when he wakes and sees you’re nowhere to be found? How do you think he’ll feel then? He cares about you, and you’re just running off on him—”

“Don’t!” Her voice was hefty with emotion as she stuck her finger out toward him.

The hurt in her voice, the tremor in her muscles only Ben could see, using that word—abandon—after everything Rey had been through, it made him angry…so…very angry. While his mouth geared to tell Poe off, something else took hold, something foreign but not so much, as if someone familiar was coming through him.

Ben reached out with the Force and snagged Poe in a chokehold, even going so far as to lift him off the ground. The rage, the Darkness, it poured into him, but not from his own source. No, this…it belonged…to Kylo Ren!

“Ben!” Rey shouted.

He immediately dropped Poe, the Darkness disappearing in an instant, the anger along with it. As the pilot coughed and gripped his throat, all Ben could feel was horror.

“I’m sorry!” Ben reached out, but Poe only pushed himself farther away, his feet digging into the dirt. “I’m so sorry! I don’t know what happened!”

A few more Resistance members came over to see if he was okay, Leia filing in as well.

“What the fuck?!” Poe barked, his voice strained.

Ben waved his hands in apology. “I didn’t mean it, I swear! I don’t know what came over me! I’ve never done that before!” But then he realized he had. Phasma. But it was for a good reason then. What was his excuse now?

“What happened?” Leia asked.

Poe quickly answered, “He fucking choked me with his powers!”

When Leia’s eyes flashed to Ben, he thought he would shrivel up and disappear. Even if it wasn’t his mom, the terror of upsetting her hit him just as hard.

Ben shook his head. “It slipped.” He said it in such a small voice, the best he could muster. “I never would have done that—I never have—I don’t know what happened!”

Rey stomped down the ramp. “I’ll tell you what happened. Poe wouldn’t shut his mouth and mind his own damn business and rank, and he went too far and—” She pressed her lips together. “What you said hurt. Hurt enough that even Ben knew it. You deserved exactly what you got, and you’re lucky I didn’t do it myself! Come on, Ben. We have work to do.” She gripped his hand and pulled him up and into the Falcon.

The last thing he heard from the crowd below was Leia saying to Poe, “I told you someone was gonna knock you on your ass one day if you kept running your mouth.”

But Ben didn’t feel good, or triumphant, or excused. He felt horrible. Without a word, he buckled himself into one of the passenger seats to wait for takeoff. There, he wrapped his arms around himself, agonizing over letting that happen. How? And why?

Rey sat across from him and buckled herself. “You alright?”

“I don’t know how I can be after that.” Ben’s ice-cold fingers trembled. “I’m not like that. I’m not that person.”

“Well, I’ve only known Poe a short time, and he’s good folk, but he’s also a complete ass when he wants to be. Don’t beat yourself up over it. He’ll live.”

“But all these years, I’ve controlled the Darkness in me. When it rises, I feel it, I know it, I know how to use it and how to keep it from going too far. This just…rushed through me, out of my control, like I was someone else.”

Han hit a few switches. “Like my kid.”

The thought made Ben feel even colder. “I don’t know how this is happening. The shared thoughts, now this? Then again, I’ve never been in another dimension as long as I have this one. Usually it’s a few hours to look around and that’s it. I can’t…I can’t lose myself in this, become the one person I tried so hard not to be.”

The Falcon was silent. So much weight lay heavy in that one sentence, for him, for them, for the entire circumstance. Finally, Rey smiled and patted his arm. “I’ll keep you in line.”

Ben felt her Light exude from her very being. It softened that hurt he held toward himself, softened the fear, dulled out the sharpness and the pain. He had always been everyone else’s Light. For once, he got to feel it turned back toward him.

A few star systems away, on the Finalizer, Kylo Ren lay in medical bay, recovering from his plethora of wounds. In his bitterness, anger, and fear of what would happen next, something soft seeped through his soul. Light…gentle and kind…fell like a soft blanket of snow upon him.

It almost made him smile.

Chapter Text

“Ugh, this place doesn’t look too good for someone with knees like mine.” It sounded like Not-Dad.

“I will seek him out.” That was Rey. “And I’ll bring him back to the Falcon.”

Were they on Ach-To already? Ben never felt them land or even enter the atmosphere. He wanted to ask what was going on but felt terribly groggy. His lips refused to move while his mind raced at a thousand measures an hour.

What the heck happened?

The last thing he remembered was trying that Hyper Fuel Not-Dad said he found on the base. It was sweet and sugary, but nothing like the glorious power of his favored trash drink. And instead of feeling sharp and ready to finish his parts printer, he just felt like curling up in one of the bunks.

There went Rey, down the ramp and off the Falcon, and he couldn’t muster the energy to go with her. Not that he really wanted to see their version of Luke; he just wanted to make sure the jerk didn’t treat her poorly.

Despite Not-Mom’s insistence this Luke couldn’t be an ass, Ben knew better. All Lukes were jerks. Time would prove him right.

Speaking of time, he wanted to know what it was and couldn’t move his arm to reach his comm. Lips still not working, he groaned as loud as he could so someone could hear him and help.

“Looks like Sleeping Beauty’s up,” Han said.

What the hell time is it, and why am I so tired? he thought as he groaned, not that he expected to be understood.

We should give him that drink all the time, Chewy gurgled.

“Eh, he’s bound to catch on sooner rather than later. Too smart. If only he could hold in his lunch, we’d have a damn good crewmate.”

Ben’s lips finally started moving. “Wut dink?” he moaned.

“The one that kept you asleep so you didn’t barf all over my damn ship like last time.”

Assholes! “You fucking drugged me?!” It sounded more like, ‘You vuvm dug me?’

Han finally turned toward him. “I wasn’t taking any chances. You got all those fancy doodads and hoohas, whip up something that keeps you from yacking in my ship and I won’t have to drug you!”

“Shuh uh, Dah. Assole.”

When Ben could finally get to his feet, he gave the two a nice long lecture on ethics and laws and threatened them with his entire legal team if they ever pulled that again. Neither paid attention to him, which was even more infuriating.

“And furthermore,” Ben barked, “why the hell did you let Rey go off on her own to face Luke? If you were too lazy to go yourself, you should have at least had her wait until I got up!”

Han looked back at him. “You’ll see how lazy my foot is when it’s wedged up your ass if you ever call me that again.” He turned back around and shrugged. “Rey’s a big girl. She can handle herself. Besides, it’s Luke. He won’t put her in any danger.”

“Luke IS the danger!”

“Maybe in your world, but in mine—”

“Yeah yeah yeah, where is my gear? If I’m going to face him, it will be with my entire arsenal.” He started attaching his belts.

“Now hold on, what do you mean by arsenal? I don’t need you starting some kind of war—”

Ben pulled one item out of its holder. “My hat.” And another. “My parasol.” And another. “Sunscreen.” One more. “And anti-Luke spray.”

“What in the hell is anti-Luke spray?!”

“I have it on good authority he hates the smell of Barabel fruit, and this is loaded with it. You know. In case he starts his crap.”

Han squinted at him, then shook his head and turned back to the console. “Well, you’re wasting your time. Rey will be back soon with him and then—”

A stomping grew louder up the ramp, then they heard Rey shout, “Some hero!”

“He disappointed you?” Ben asked, voice flat with sarcasm. “Oh no. I’m shocked.”

“I hand him the lightsaber, and he tosses it behind him. Tosses it! I told him Leia sent me to ask for his help, and he just barricaded himself in his hut and won’t respond. I found the lightsaber, thank the stars. But now what are we going to do?”

Han stood. “Come on, Chewy. Let’s show the girl how we convince people in our neck of the galaxy.” Chewy growled in agreement, and the two headed down the ramp.

Ben looked at Rey. “Are you alright?”

“What? Yes, of course, I’m fine. Just a little…”

“Disillusioned in the whole Legend of Luke Skywalker thing already?”

She shrugged. “Maybe you were right about him being a jerk.”

Ben placed a hand on her shoulder as they exited the Falcon. “Nine times out of ten, I am quite right when it comes to most things. And that remaining one is when I wind up in an argument with my wife, which I will inevitably lose.”

Rey chuckled. “Wife. Right. Are you okay, by the way? I didn’t know they had drugged you until I tried to wake you. I wouldn’t have let them do that if I had known.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that. Nothing I hate worse than finding out my safe foods or drinks aren’t safe at all. Next time I’ll use my patented SOLO-Yum, a food tester that lets you know everything in what you consume before you consume it. Great for allergies or finding out they put mushrooms in something when you can’t stand mushrooms. Didn’t think I’d have to use it on items handed to me by supposedly trusted sources, but here we are.”

Rey smiled at him. “You truly are a never-ending source of wonder.”

“Ah, you don’t know the half of it. Wait till you see…” And then he realized he needed to stop making it all about him. “But you know, Kylo is pretty good, too. Really good. Did you know he can do advanced calculus?”

“And why would I care?”

“Ummm…because calculus is hot?”

Rey merely laughed and charged onward. “Come on. I want to see what happens when those two confront Luke.

~*~

When Ben and Rey finally arrived at the hut, they saw the door knocked off its hinges and the old Jedi looking miserable beneath the glares of Han and Chewy.

“Listen you little shitass,” Han said, his hands on his hips, “you were always calling me out for looking after myself when everything was going to shit, well I’m doing the same to you now. Cut the crap and get back out there! My son betrayed you, I get that. I can’t change that. But that doesn’t mean you just give up and mope forever in this dump.”

Luke merely shook his head. “Han, I have my reasons. Just let me go. I’m no good to any of you out there.”

“Well we’re no good without you! And Rey here? She needs you more than any of us does. If you can’t be the damn Jedi we need, at least teach her to be one.”

Now Luke looked far more irritated as he looked up. “I already told her, I can’t—” The words died on his lips as his blue eyes met Ben’s.

Said nerd snorted and crossed his arms. “See? I was right. He’s a total jerk. In fact—”

In a fraction of a second, Luke reached out his hand and cried, “NOOO!”

“GAAHH!” Ben flung into the air, quite unceremoniously to add, leaving him flailing, grasping for purchase and trying not to land on his head. By some miracle (or training with Rey all those years) he was able to use his powers to right himself and land on his feet, albeit with a bit of stumbling.

He tossed his hands up. “What the hell, Uncle Luke?! You are a jerk! I knew it, in fact—”

Luke’s hand was out again, and this time he snatched the lightsaber off Rey’s belt, eliciting an “Oi!” from her. In seconds he was airborne, his old lightsaber aflame, diving at Ben with eyes equally full of fury and terror.

“GAHHH!” Ben ran for his life, that old fart in hot pursuit, which was rather surprising given his grizzled appearance. Ben was still sure no one would outrun him, but his forties brought a new ache to his knees he hoped he could cure with an invention he hadn’t finished yet. “Damnit Uncle Luke! Why are you always trying to kill me?!”

“Fight back!” Rey called, hands around her mouth.

Ben pulled his lightsaber from behind his back, ignited it, and stood strong. Luke took one hard swing and whacked the damn thing out of his hand in a second, sending Ben back to running for his life. “You see what happens when I fight back?!”

Ben circled around the hut and slid in behind Rey. “Hide me!”

“Hide you? Are you joking?” Unlike Pirate Rey, this one whirled away from him and drew her staff. “You don’t get anywhere by hiding.” She tossed him her weapon. “Here, since you couldn’t use your own.”

Ben tried to catch it and failed. As it bounced uselessly against the stone ground, he took off once again to a string of curse words from Rey. Yeesh, she was a mean one too, but not like his wife. His Rey would have devoured this Luke and finished with a fine cupcake made by Mom. This one expected him to defend himself! Someone clearly didn’t know him well enough yet.

Back to running for his life, he suddenly remembered he had an ace in his pocket. He pulled out a sprayer and pumped a few shots into the air.

Luke stopped and crinkled his nose. “Uck! Is that barabel fruit?”

“Ha ha! Take that, loser!”

Luke charged after him again. “I’ll show you a loser!”

Ben squawked and sped off once more. Apparently, he was going to have to make that sucker stronger. Just when he was sure the old Jedi was gaining on him good, he heard Han bark, “LUKE!”

That stopped Ben’s pursuer in his tracks. Gasping, the elder man looked down at the lightsaber in his hand, turned it off, and dropped it. Shame crept over his face.

“That isn’t even who you think it is,” Rey said. “He is Ben Solo, but he is not from this dimension. He is not Kylo Ren.”

Luke finally looked up at him. “I’m starting to get that. What does she mean?”

Pissed, Ben drew his lightsaber back to his hand. “Exactly what she said.” He hooked it behind his back. “I travel to other dimensions and got stuck in this one. I’m trying to find my way back while also keeping the me in this world from getting himself killed. And let me tell you something, I am so tired of being chased with a lightsaber by Uncle Lukes.”

Luke narrowed his eyes. “Why couldn’t you fight back?”

Ben lifted his hands, glowering. “Because I suck, okay? Thanks to you suppressing my powers as a kid and Mom and Dad allowing it. I suck. You happy? You happy to hear I suck? But I’ll tell you something I don’t suck at.” He counted off on his fingers. “Math, science, technical engineering, chemistry, and mineral collecting. I also have it on good authority I’m an awesome father, husband, and brother, so screw you!”

Luke’s expression didn’t change. “You are definitely not my nephew.” He eased, shoulders slumping. “Someone want to explain to me exactly what’s going on? In full detail?”

Han crossed his arms. “I got a better idea. Why don’t you explain why you went after him like that when you thought he was my son?”

The island fell silent, Luke merely staring at Han with equal measures abject fear and shame.

“Ooooooh,” Ben sang, “you’re in trouble. You’re in trouble.”

~*~

“You’re a damned hypocrite!” Not-Dad shouted as he stormed out of Luke’s hut. Then he spun back around. “And I get what he did was horrible, inexcusable, and downright evil, but assuming this Ben was my son, you didn’t even give him a moment to talk, apologize, anything. You just went right after him. I don’t know where the Luke Skywalker I remember is, but he’s sure as hell not here right now!” Han spun back around and charged toward the Falcon.

“Not coming, huh?” Ben asked, polishing his multi-driver. “Gee. Shocked. So shocked.” He looked up. “Am I allowed to say Luke sucks now?”

“Knock yourself out,” Han muttered, stomping up the ramp to his ship.

Ben leaned toward Rey. “We’re wasting our time here. But we don’t need him. Just give me—”

“Oh no.” Rey stood, her staff in hand. “I’m not letting him get out of this that easily. I need answers, and I’m not leaving without them.”

“You want me to—”

“No, please, just stay back with Han and Chewy. Don’t take it the wrong way, but Luke clearly is thrown off by your presence. Let me handle him. I’ve dealt with worse in my time.” She charged off in pursuit of the haggard old warrior disappearing over a hill.

Stars, she may not be a space pirate, but she’s still tough as nails. Love it. Just hope she can soften up enough for Kylo. Ben sighed. Better get to work on building a parts printer so I can build my machine.

Ben walked back onto the Falcon and into the cargo hold that held crates and crates of all kinds of interesting junk. He’d already finished the core internal components and now was going to build the framing. A rod here, plate here, bendy L-shaped thing there, it looked horrendous, but it was coming together quite nicely.

Just as he’d welded the top and one side onto the bottom plate, a sudden darkness filled him. Anger…such anger and…humiliation…frustration…desperation…like he was on the edge of a precipice and ready to explode.

Alas, you are no Vader. You are just a child in a mask.

Ben didn’t know where those thoughts came from, only that they enraged him beyond belief. He gripped the handle of his multi-driver and smashed it into the frame, over and over and over again, until all those emotions refined into a laser-like fury, with only one thought in mind—DESTROY!

Ben gasped, and it was gone. As suddenly as it came, it had completely passed. Now he was left with a sore arm and a wrecked frame.

“Damnit!” He tossed his multi-driver. Everything was going fine! Why did he…

No. Not him.

Kylo needed his help more than ever. He took off for the lounge. “Da—I mean, Han?”

“What?” snapped the elder Solo, a very familiar bottle in his hand. Correllian whiskey. Great. Though, interestingly, this was the first time Ben had seen it since he’d arrived in this dimension. His own father would have downed three gallons by now.

“I think Kylo needs me more than ever. Can we please just take a detour to drop me off?”

“First of all, his name is Ben, not putting up with this Kylo shit, and second, the only thing that kid needs is his father to set him straight.”

“If you confront him alone, you’ll get yourself killed. That much was already made clear.”

“Oh and what, you’ll survive? You ran from Luke and hid behind a girl half your size—”

“So what? That’s not the first time, and I did quite alright defeating Palpatine after, so what’s your point?”

“This wasn’t the first time?!”

Ben placed his hands on his hips. “I’ll have you know my wife thought it was kinda cute. A little sad, but also adorable. She told me herself.”

Han leaned his head back on the couch. “We have got to get you back to your crazy ass world as soon as possible before you get yourself killed in this one.”

“Not without helping your son! Well, that and after getting a shitload of illutium because I’m going nowhere without it.”

Han sat up. “Now that can more easily be arranged. Tell you what, after I’ve—” He shook the bottle in his hand. “—let this run its course, me and Chewy will take a little detour and see if we can’t find some of this stuff for you. I don’t want anyone to trace back to this island, so I want to get some distance first before I call my contacts. I have the feeling Rey’s gonna need a little time to get through to that asshole brother-in-law of mine, anyway.”

“Oh, great! If you need me to go with you—”

Han held his hand up. “The less time you spend on my ship, the better until you get that barfing under control. We’ll go. You stay here and keep an eye on her. Have the feeling things aren’t going to go the way she hopes.”

~*~

Ben was cozy in his SOLO-Tent warmed by the SOLO-Heat 2000, drinking something he wished was Hyper-Fuel but tasted more like sawdust. He really needed to contact the Hyper-Fuel company and collaborate on a powdered version for his survival gear series.

Felt like it did nothing but rain on and off on this stupid island. Cold. Wet. Dreary. Desolate. Stars, he missed home. Cuddling up with Rey on the couch, kids piling on top, Mom’s famous soup warm in his hands while Kylo baked some incredible dessert whose scent permeated all his senses. Dad being a twat. A cabinet full of Hyper-Fuel.

He sighed. Hold out just a little longer. I’ll be home before you know it. Rey and Kylo will fall in love and be ready to do their dyad thing, and I could just go home in peace knowing all will be well.

His thoughts were interrupted by stomping, followed by, “Where the hell is the Falcon?!”

Ben popped his head out to find a damp Rey standing there. “They went off to see if they could find a source for the mineral I need, but they won’t be gone long. Everything okay?”

“No, everything is not okay. I can’t believe this is the supposed Luke Skywalker. Know what he tells me? ‘I will not train another generation of Jedi. I came to this island to die. It’s time for the Jedi to end.’ Could you imagine? End the Jedi?”

The Darkness in him gave a little tingle of pleasure, but he internally shushed it. “Told you. You ain’t getting anything out of him. But don’t worry, I left a little surprise for him in his hut. One thing I know, there’s nothing a droid can’t fix.”

“What exactly did you do?”

“Stuck R2D2 in there. He’s a wonderful little smartass. If he can’t light a fire under the old grump, nothing can.”

Rey sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

“Hey, you wanna come in? It’s warm and I have some instant soup from my own supplies. My mom and Kylo helped me with the recipe, so you know it’s good.”

Rey stiffened. “Kylo?”

“Not your Kylo. My Kylo. I should probably just call him Ky so we don’t get them mixed up.”

She stepped into the tent and shook her head. “He’s not mine. Tell you that right now.”

“Well, give it some time. Here, sit, try this.” He poured half of the collapsible pot into a bowl and handed it to her with a spoon.

“Thank you.” Once the spoon hit her mouth, she hummed in delight and smiled. “Oh, this is good! Like really good!”

“My mom is the best cook ever, followed only slightly by my brother. It’s so weird. He used to be a vicious killer, a warlord, not unlike your Kylo, but he’s changed so much and became an actor and cook and he’s an artist too, and—well hell, it’s just amazing how he turned out once he got from beneath Palpatine’s claws. And he’s still a Darksider, but he doesn’t let it rule him.” He smiled. “Gives me a lot of hope for your Kylo.”

“Wish you would stop saying that, ‘your Kylo.’ I don’t want anything to do with him.”

“Give it time, give it time, you’ll see.”

Rey flashed him a look that told him to shut the hell up and now, and so he obliged. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything! I’m a wealth of knowledge across many scientific and mathematical sources. In fact, did you know—”

“I don’t quite mean that. I just…you are supposed to be Kylo in another dimension.”

“Yep!”

“See? Right there? I don’t think Kylo would ever respond with ‘yep!’ Why are you so incredibly different?”

“We didn’t start off so different, really. In fact, up until a certain age, we were almost identical, meaning that I was hearing voices too, telling me all kinds of creepy things, and my powers? Full Darkness. And dangerous. My mom told me how once, when I had to go to bed and couldn’t stay up to watch the galactic science awards, my eyes went completely dark, like I was some other person, and seconds later, every glass item in our house shattered at once.”

Rey’s eyes widened. “Oh my stars.”

Ben rubbed his arms. “Gives me the shivers just thinking about it. So they had my powers suppressed, and boom, voices gone, those powerful urges gone, and I was able to focus on my scientific pursuits. I just wish they would have told me instead of sending me to the Jedi Temple to look like an idiot. Hmph, Skywalker blood and couldn’t move a pencil without applying two magnets and using opposing poles to do the job for me. Which I did once. Uncle Luke was pissed.”

“Is your Uncle Luke like this one? All grouchy and useless?”

“Well, yes and no. He’s more a grumpy smartass who thinks he’s a lot funnier than he is. But when we all needed someone versus Palpatine’s giant army, he showed up.”

Rey turned toward the door. “Think there’s hope for this one?”

“We’ll see once R2 gets through with him.”

A few hours later, after Rey had gone to her hut to sleep and Ben was still trying to drift off, he heard her door fly open. He sprung out of his oversized cot and peered out the door of his tent to find Luke standing there in her doorway.

“Tomorrow at dawn,” the elder man said, “I will teach you the ways of the Jedi and why they need to end.” With that, he whipped around and returned to his hut.

Ben lay back down on his cot, smiling and satisfied. Never underestimate a droid.

~*~

Meanwhile, the Resistance had been through the wringer. After the attack on their ship, many of their leaders were gone, and Leia was hanging on to life by a thread. Admiral Holdo took over, which had apparently pissed off Poe Dameron, no shocker there. Holdo kept being annoyed by his mouth but does not contain the power to Force-choke him like Ben so eloquently did.

Alas, between Poe, Finn, and Rose, they have devised a plan to get onto Snoke’s ship to disable the light-speed tracking mechanism. All they need first is a master code breaker, according to Maz. Once they realize they’ll have to seek one out on Canto Bight, they cannot help but equally agree:

They wish they had nerdy Ben Solo with them right about now.

~*~

Rey

Rey rose at the hint of morning light shining through the tiny window of the stone hut. She sat up, wondering what Luke would have in store for her that day, seeing as he barely and begrudgingly agreed to teach her something, including why the Jedi needed to die.

Great start to the day.

At least the island was temperate. No dusty dryness and extreme heat, blistering sun and scouring sand. Instead, everything was so full of life: the land, the roiling sea, even the air itself was fresh and filled her lungs with abundance. It rained on and off constantly, and even that was refreshing and joyful, that water could just pour down from the sky at any given time, to cleanse and refresh, quench. It was amazing.

Before her, the path lay so open and new. Wonderful things were happening, as well as dangerous and deadly. But something was happening in her life. Finally. Her greatest fear was living a life of nothing, of growing old and having nothing to reflect on but having been a scavenger, scraping along just to survive, never having lived. In a few short days, she’d lived more than she had her entire life.

Now she was about to—

She wasn’t alone.

Ben was on the other side of the hut, looking at her in surprise.

“Ben!” She sighed and wiped her face. “You startled me. What are you doing in here?”

The man’s eye twitched. “Do you mean that nerd?”

What…

And then she saw it, the hair tossed to the side and neatly combed instead of shoved back in floppy mess. The tight black uniform instead of the baggy black shirt and fifty belts. The scar. The scar!

Rey immediately drew her weapon and fired, not hesitating. Kylo had come all the way to the island to kill her for sure! He—

—was gone. Completely disappeared.

Rey ran outside her hut and looked around. Nothing. Then as she turned again, there he was, just as surprised.

Kylo reached his hand out to her. “You will bring Skywalker to me.”

She could feel him attempt to get in her head and did not give him purchase.

Kylo retracted his arm, clearly feeling rather dumb for the attempt. “Can you see my surroundings?”

“You’ll pay for what you did! To Finn! For what you almost did to your own father—”

“I can’t see yours. Just you.” His eyes were wide, fascinated.

So, this was new to him, Mr. ‘I can show you the ways of the Force.’ Certainly new to her, too. Was this that dyad thing Ben wouldn’t stop yapping about?

“Is he there with you?” Kylo asked. “The nerd?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Keep him there. Wherever you are.”

“He’s far more interested in getting back to you. Maybe I ought to send him myself just to piss you off.”

“I’d rather just see you.”

Rey didn’t have enough time to be taken aback, for Luke had already made his way over.

The Jedi pointed at the hole in her wall being fussed over by the resident nuns. “What’s that about?”

Kylo was gone. Rey scanned the landscape, but there was no trace. “I was cleaning my blaster, and it went off.”

Luke nodded toward the very out-of-place tent. “Is ‘not-really-our-Ben’ up yet?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Good. Come on.”

~*~

Ben

Another turn of his multidriver and boom! Now that was one ugly but very useful parts printer! He just needed a good supply of liquid stroborium and a few barrels of the needed chemicals and polymers, and he was set to start building whatever he needed in this desolate universe that lacked such perfect specimens of science.

The ground vibrated beneath him. Tremors followed, moving on to full shaking. It unnerved him for just a moment before he felt it, strong and powerful in the Force—Rey! Raw and untamed, it was glorious to feel, to sense. Such Light! And then, such incredible Darkness.

It pulled at his own, drawing it forth, filling him with a desire for power he hadn’t felt in a looooong time. As he tried to rein it in, something else joined. More Darkness! More craving for power! For ultimate supremacy! To create but also to destroy!

{Ben?} called Pirate Rey across their bond. {What’s happening? Do you need me?}

{I think our twins here are exploring the depth of their power, and I ’m getting caught in the middle. I could use a boost before I try to take over the galaxy!}

{Hold on …}

It was only moments, but he was suddenly imbued with a Light so powerful, it cut the connections of Darkness. He sucked in a breath, glad to be free of whatever had just hit him.

What exactly was Not-His-Uncle Luke doing to the poor girl?

Ben released a deep breath, shook himself out of the previous tension, and was about to get back to his work when an anomaly in his environment caught his eye near the tent flap. It was white. It was round. It had duck legs and feathers and big, black eyes.

“Brrrp!” the creature cried and holy fucking shit, the damn thing had fangs! FANGS!

“FffffffuuuuUUUUUCK!” Ben coiled into himself, wondering what the hell to do.

{Ben! What ’s happening now?! Why are you so scared?}

{There um …there’s um…a thing…a thing in my tent. A thing in my tent!}

{What kind of thing?}

{A fuzzy, round, who-gives-a-shit-what-it-is, GET IT AWAY FROM ME!}

{Send a mental picture.}

He did.

{Alright, now send a real mental picture. I doubt that thing is eighty measures tall and swallowing starships.}

{ …fine.}

He could feel Piratey Rey sigh from across their bond. {Ben, it’s a porg. We came across them in one of our raids. Harmless.}

{No NO! NOT HARMLESS! It has faaangs.} Ben nibbled at his already non-existent nails.

{It eats fish. Of course it has fangs.}

{Nothing with fangs—}

{Ben, trust me, they ’re harmless. Our ship got infested with them for a while and they never hurt anyone—}

{INFESTED?! INFESTED?! OH MY STARS! I—}

He blacked out.

“Ben? Ben? You alright?”

He woke to see Rey kneeling over him. “What happened?”

“You tell me. I found you this way. Are you ill?”

No, he felt fine. Then why was he on the ground—

THE PORG!

Ben leapt to his feet and yanked out his lightsaber. “Where is that fucking thing?!”

Rey leapt back. “What thing? What is wrong with you?”

“That thing! The fuzzy fang fucker that got in my tent!”

“A porg? They’re harmless. They’re all over this island—”

“Ohhhh no, oh HELL NO!” He clicked off his lightsaber and sat with his parts printer. “Before I even build myself a go-home machine, I need to build a porg repeller.”

“They…they really are harmless.”

“Do me a favor.” He tossed her a canister from his gear belt. “Spray the entire opening area of the tent for me.”

“Why, what is this?”

“Disinfectant. Antiviral. Antibacterial. Antifungal. Pesticide, because those things probably have bird lice or something. Just your all-around kill-everything spray before I get one microscopic thing on me.”

Rey licked her lips. “Sure.” She made sure he saw she was spraying thoroughly.

That’s about when he could finally relax and set to building his repellent. “How’d it go with Captain Grouch?”

“Oh, yeah, well, he taught me some things.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, like how to sense the Force, how it doesn’t belong to the Jedi or anyone else, and how I guess I’m already a terrible student since I went right to the Dark and didn’t try to stop myself, as if I’d know how.”

Ben waved her off. “Meh, Dark, Light, it’s all good.”

“He certainly didn’t make it seem that way. Said, ‘I’ve seen this much raw strength once before, in Ben Solo. It didn’t scare me enough then. It does now.’ And then took off.”

“Pfft, coward.”

“Why aren’t you bothered? You’re certainly no Darksider like Kylo.”

“No, but I can channel it at will.”

“And stop yourself?”

Ben paused. “Usually. I have to reconnect with my true self to do it. It’s too easy to get sucked in. There’s a…pleasure in it. It can be hard to resist.”

“Yes…I got that same feeling.” She sat on one of his stools. “Why haven’t you offered to teach me anything, seeing as Luke avoids it any chance he can get? I figured you’d jump at the chance. Kylo did.”

“Oh! Well…yeah, see, the thing is…”

Rey lifted her brow. “What?”

Ben pointed at his nearly complete parts printer. “You see this? This I’m good at. Force stuff?” He shook his head. “I can tell you the knowledge behind it. I read the books several times, and then several more times. But I only ever got good at it once my Rey arrived and my powers came into play. And even then, I forget I have them half the time. And when I do remember, it’s usually because something’s trying to kill me and it clicks in my head out of desperation.” He tapped the tip of his driver onto his lip. “I do recall my Rey trying to get me to meditate. Maybe you should start there.”

“Alright, how? Besides just sitting there and feeling stuff, because I already tried that today.”

Ben remained silent. “You know, what’s important is that you really just…I mean you just…”

“You have nothing.”

Ben’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t. Really. Kylo might though.” He smiled.

Rey growled. “Like I need to be learning anything from him. How is some kind of Darksider supposed to show me the ways of the Jedi?” She paused. “Why did it call to me like that? The Darkness? It wanted to show me something.”

Ben gently set down his multi-driver. “There’s…probably something you should know. I told you all about the dyad thing—”

“Over and over.”

“Heh, yeah. Well, there’s something about my Rey that applies to you too, and I guess it’s better you know about it now rather than find out later, especially seeing how the Darkness pulled at you.”

She leaned forward, eyes wide. “What is it?”

“It’s about your lineage. Your parents—”

“You know my parents?!” It was so hopeful, so heartbreakingly hopeful.

“I…don’t, not personally. My wife’s parents were space pirates, but so was she, and you’re not, so that’s already a shift. But I do know where at least your father comes from. Rey…don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a Palpatine.”

She continued to stare at him, then snorted and chuckled. “Right.”

“No, I mean it. Palpatine is your grandfather. That’s why the Darkness calls to you. It’s him calling to you.”

Rey chuckled once more, then stood, turning abruptly. “This is some stupid joke.”

Ben rose and stepped closer. “It’s not a joke! It sucks, but it’s true—”

“I don’t need your truth!” She stuck her finger at him. “And I don’t need this crap right now. There’s no way in hell my mother or father were ever related to Palpatine, so just toss that out of your head.” She charged outside.

“Rey—”

“Don’t follow me!”

Ben sighed and plopped back down on his chair. Great. He was supposed to hook up Kylo and Rey, and now they were both pissed at him. But she had to know the truth! There was a reason that Darkness called to her!

The shock of it must have been too much. It was understandable. Uncle Luke didn’t like finding out Grandpa Vader was his father, and Leia still refused to call the man by that moniker. No one likes finding out they are related to the most awful man in the galaxy.

Except him and Kylo of course!

Ben heard a squawk, and his eyes darted to the corner of the tent. Another set of giant, black eyes on a round fuzzy body stared back at him. “Brrrp?”

Ben pressed his lips together. “Fuck.”

~*~

Rey

Rey stormed out of his tent and into the rain. Cold splashes dripping down her scalp and skin had a rather instant, calming effect on her. It was so refreshing. Water just falling out of the sky to clean, quench, and cool all in its path, crystal clear and free for the taking. She wondered if people outside of Jakku ever considered how lucky they were for such a gift.

Palpatine…what a foolish idea. Perhaps it was true in Ben’s world, but in hers, there was no way. Everyone knew the old emperor died on the second Death Star. The end.

Well…could he have had women? Concubines? Devotees? Stars, possibly even slaves. She supposed it was possible in some roundabout way, but then why was her family just a group of poor scavengers on some remote desert planet? Was it to hide that lineage?

No, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t possibly be. It couldn’t—

She felt a presence and turned, just to see Kylo standing there. Great.

He tilted his head. “Is this what that nerd meant by the dyad bond? That we’d be able to do this?”

“Evil snake, you lost! I found Skywalker!” It felt good to yell at him, get her frustration out on someone who deserved it.

He looked miserable that she wasn’t engaging in his conversation. Or because she called him an evil snake. Either way, good! “Did he tell you what happened? The night I destroyed his temple?”

“I know everything I need to know about you.”

“You do? Ah you do. You have that look in your eyes, in the forest, when you called me a monster.”

“You are a monster.”

Kylo stepped closer, serious and without a hint of hesitation. “Yes I am.”

Rey blinked, confused. Was he proud? For a moment she thought so, but then something else lay in his eyes—a pain she didn’t know but could feel just by one twitch upon his face.

Then poof, gone. Just like before. Weird though. For the briefest moment, she almost missed his presence.

Ben better not be right about that damn Palpatine thing…

Rey took her further frustrations out on a rock formation. She practiced with her staff every day. You couldn’t let those muscles weaken, nor your senses, not when your life depended on it. Maybe now even more so.

She glanced over at her pack to see the lightsaber. Maybe it was time to retire the staff and move on to a more powerful weapon, one suited to her apparent Jedi type.

Jedi…she hoped…

After a few warmups, getting familiar with the shaft, she swung it for real. It felt good, right, elegant even. Something inside her surged, and she swung hard, direct, and cut through the rock formation. The result sent boulders tumbling down and crashing into one of those fish-nuns’ carts. Oh great, they were pissed at her again. How did one make up with fish-nuns?

When she turned, she realized Skywalker had been watching her. He turned toward a hill, and she had to follow.

Over the hills of green and stones of deep gray, she kept tail on him until he slipped between the thick roots of a massive tree. She climbed over the tangle that dug itself into the ground and found the opening that wasn’t readily visible at first.

What lay inside stopped being a mere tree and became something out of a dream. A temple, its atmosphere holy, pure, distinct. In the center on the floor was a mosaic of a being, half-light, half-dark, beneath a mere inch of water. Something strummed at her inside as she stared at it, chords of meaning, remembrance, familiarity.

Was this an emblem of the dyad Ben kept talking about? Two become one? Light and Dark?

Hmph, impossible if she was a Palpatine. Absurd. Where did he even get that idea? Was his wife, herself in another world, really the child of such an evil lineage? Did that make Ben the Light?

Nothing made sense, and she grew even more confused, agitated. That’s when Luke finally spoke.

“Lesson two. Now that they're extinct, the Jedi are romanticized, deified. But if you strip away the myth and look at their deeds, the legacy of the Jedi is failure. Hypocrisy, hubris.”

Why was this guy always disparaging his own kind? “That's not true!”

“At the height of their powers, they allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create the Empire, and wipe them out. It was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader.”

Rey stepped closer. “And a Jedi who saved him. Yes, your father was the most hated man in the galaxy. He caused so much death and destruction for many years. But you saw there was conflict inside him. You believed that he wasn't gone. That he could be turned.” Yes. No one was ever really gone. There was always a chance to turn. Even if it was possible she was related to Palpatine, that didn’t mean she had to become like him.

Luke continued. “And I became a legend. For many years, there was balance, and then I saw Ben, my nephew, with that mighty Skywalker blood. And in my hubris, I thought I could train him, I could pass on my strengths. Han was…Han was about it, but Leia trusted me with her son. I took him, and a dozen students, and began a training temple. By the time I realized I was no match for the darkness rising in him, it was too late.”

“What happened?”

“I went to confront him, and he turned on me, bringing the hut down on me and knocking me out in the process. He must’ve thought I was dead. When I came to, the temple was burning. He had vanished with a handful of my students and slaughtered the rest.”

Rey’s heart sank. Whatever connection she felt with Kylo, that burnt to a crisp right there. What was Ben thinking? How could she ever fall in love with someone who did that?

Luke continued. “Leia blamed Snoke, but it was me. I failed. Because I was Luke Skywalker. Jedi Master. A legend.”

“The galaxy may need a legend, but I need someone to show me my place in all this. And you didn't fail Kylo. Kylo failed you. I won't.”

Luke chuckled softly and shook his head. “With the way you went right to the Dark? No. I will never repeat my mistake.” With that he stormed out of the tree-temple.

That statement, how she went right to the Dark, pissed her off even more. With a cry, she kicked at the water in the dark side of the mosaic, as if she could somehow destroy what lurked in her, defy it, ignore it and only focus on the Light.

But the water just filled right back in.

Balance.

What if it was all wrong? What if Luke was wrong? The Jedi were wrong? Maybe Ben was right all along, that a dyad meant balance between two strong sides, not sacrifice of one for the other.

But he was still damn wrong about her feeling anything for Kylo.