AN: Oooh character development time. Are you ready? Hehe

Maybe she was too harsh. Still, it's not like she had time to go back and apologize for being slightly immature, not when there were First Order ships in the sky. Resistance fighters were running from ship to ship like ants, dark uniforms stark against the white snow as they warned the others.

The night was blooming dangerously around them, and Rey worried immediately about the injured, who could not fight themselves.

The Resistance met underneath their ships at last, and they waited for Rey to tell them what to do. Even as the chaos formed around her, even as her troops's hearts were beating in fear, Rey waited.

She thought back to the way Ben had looked at her, just moments ago, neither confirming or denying what she had seen in the sky, not arguing or defending himself or saying anything at all.

She poked at their bond and it was easy because he was still there, in the Falcon. She felt neither fury nor hate, but something gentle within him, a peace and a hope that startled her. Maker, what was happening? Why wasn't he angry at her for what she said?

She stopped testing the bond because it only confused her, and simply thought. Her meager forces against a battalion? Rey stood at the side of one ship, watching the battalion over them. There was something strange about the enemy's ships.

They hung in the sky next to the stars, their presence alone enough to make people scream in terror. But they weren't moving at all, weren't even priming their weapons for fire. What were they waiting for?

"Wait," she said to the soldiers beginning to cock their blasters. "Stay back. Something's not right. They're not attacking."

"What are they doing, just sitting there?" Finn asked, beside her.

She thought hard.

"I called for backup. The Resistance is so small, if we get more soldiers here the base will be left relatively unprotected." She stood taller, fear growing deeper in her belly.

Could this be why Ben wasn't angry with her? Because he knew he would get what he wanted in the end? Because he knew he would be able to destroy the Resistance? Stupid. She was foolish for letting herself believe he was ever trustworthy.

"I have to warn them. This is a trap. They wanted me to call backup so we would slaughter those ships. Maybe there aren't even soldiers in them, just pilots on a suicide run.

"If more soldiers come, our base will be wide open for an attack."

Rey stopped, realizing she had to decide between the villagers and her people. She could either bring her troops back to base to fight alongside the rest of the Resistance, or she could stay here and wait for the possibility that more platoons would come.

When she reached out, stretching her mind to feel the inside of the ships above, she knew her guesses had been correct. There were just pilots in the ships above them, people willing to be sacrificed and to die so that the First Order could defeat the Resistance.

She reached to the ships for answers because she couldn't ask Ben. She didn't think he was trustworthy and didn't want him to be, not when he was the enemy.

She pursed her lips and decided.

"I'll get a message out, but right after that, we're gonna pack up and get the hell out of here. They're gonna need out help."

Her soldiers stared at her, and she saw them waver, looking toward the village.

"We have to fight for the Resistance every day because that's what we signed up to do," she told them, because she knew they needed to hear it. "Today that means leaving these people. We've done so much for them, and later we can do more, but for now our friends need help."

She exhaled, breath white in the cold air. "To your ships. Get ready for flight."

When she turned to run back up the ramp and into the Falcon, she could feel his presence in her mind, a stranger and someone she had known forever all at once. Still she felt no anger in him, even though she knew he knew what she had figured out.

She could hear his steady heartbeat pulsing in her mind as she ran toward the cockpit-passing his flickering form in the common room, passing his dangerously emotion-filled eyes as they followed her. Terrible, how his heartbeat calmed her, how it steadied her hands as she send out the message to keep the other troops at home.

Maybe she had been wrong to say cruel things, but it was true that she had no time. She couldn't allow herself time when there were others whose needs had to be put before her personal flickers of emotion or betrayal.

The galaxies closed and he snapped away from her.

* * *

It was 3:34 in the morning, and Ben was dressing for battle. Boots and cape and belt and gloves and saber.

She had figured it out. He had felt it when she did. But that wasn't a surprise, no. He had counted on that, because it would mean they would be forced together again, this time in person.

Sometime in the past few days, without even realizing it, Ben had decided it wasn't fair for either of them to pretend they could live without the other, could pretend so wholeheartedly that the darkness and the light were as defined as they once had been. Good and evil? How could a person be one or the other?

He was Supreme Leader. She was a commander of the Resistance. It put them in such an impossible situation that the only solution, the only way they could be brought together as partners, was illogical and right at the same time. Because there seemed to be no solution, there was only one.

Why did the Resistance exist? Because the First Order existed. Against what did the Resistance fight? Against the actions of the First Order. What had the First Order been doing? Killing mercilessly and without reason.

Ben and Rey kept on hurting each other and hurting themselves. She was so undeniably devoted to others, and he was barely beginning to allow himself the luxury of those emotions. It was why he couldn't kill his mother. Why he could kill Snoke.

It was why he couldn't kill Rey. He knew her so inexplicably and wholesomely that the very idea of killing her would be like killing himself. How could he exist without her? Who he was now was because of her. Everything he was depended on her.

Perhaps that was selfish-placing himself on her shoulders like that, and defining himself based off of her. Ben decided he didn't care. It was a great and terrible thing to know someone the way they knew each other, a beautiful and dangerous thing because their connection was invincible.

It wasn't that he was changing for her, no. Who he was now had always been a part of him. He was simply coming home to himself, and figuring out in the process that home meant her.

Ben had had no part in the destruction of the planets. It was always Hux. Hux gave the speech to the soldiers when the weapon launched, while Ben watched from afar and under Snoke's hand let it happen. That had been weak. Maybe now he could be strong.

Her heartbeat was so faint in his mind, like crumbs of their bond tiptoeing through his soul. It was beautiful and it gave him strength.

Perhaps, instead of killing the Resistance, as Hux and Snoke had wanted, he would end the very need for them.

He sent the decoys so that Rey would bring her ships back to the Resistance base. He would bring his own troops and leave them in the sky above the base, and he would wait until she came.

This was to be a new order, not the first, and certainly not the last.

He would show the Resistance fighters the armies in the sky, showing them all they could have, all the power that was hovering above them but would never strike, all the ways that the order under his rule would change-and he would ask them to join him.

If he wanted change, if he wanted to be different than Snoke or Hux, he needed to act like it.

* * *

Four hours felt a lot longer when she was scared. She wanted more than anything to made Leia proud, to do the right thing and be there at the right time. The stars moved slow as honey around her, and she felt like some insect, stuck in amber and unable to do anything.

As they were nearing the planet where the Resistance base was, she could see First Order ships already moving towards them. And there. Waiting in the stars.

Ben's ship.

Emotions threatened to trickle into her actions so she blinked them away. Rey let out a huff and turned her attention to the controls, Chewie at her side.

"Wait for them to attack. Our priority is getting to the ground right now," she said over the speakers.

Slowly the ships trailing behind her followed her to the earth, landing on the strip with ease. Rey stood, switching off the ship, and put a hand to her side, double checking that her saber was still there. It was a habit she had picked up recently. She breathed and they left the ship.

Outside waiting for her was Leia, who looked tired but was apparently healed enough to walk.

"Leia," Rey breathed, stepping forward. "They were trying to trick us. We came as soon as we could."

Leia nodded and opened her mouth to say something, but stopped. She looked away from Rey and toward the horizon.

"Leia?"

"Maker, that's my son."

Leia's face broke as she watched the ship descend from the stars and tiptoe into the atmosphere, unfollowed by the rest of the fleet. Rey turned and watched the great wings unfold as ship landed like an insect on the landing strip. She saw the eyes of the woman beside her change.

Rey watched the thing with hard eyes, dreading the moment she would see him in person again. Then steam was rising as the walkway lowered, as a single figure exited the ship.

Still his betrayal felt fresh.

Blasters cocked and aimed but he did nothing, no hands in the air or act of surrender. He could die, but he walked forward anyway, face blank enough he could have been wearing that mask and she wouldn't have noticed the difference.

Still he was dressed in darkness, and like the ships, his figure was stark against the cloudy sky.

He opened his mouth to speak and shut it again. Ben was looking between Rey and his mother and she could feel the waves of old emotions running from him. Yes, still she knew him.

"My son."

Leia, beautiful tiny Leia, injured fearsome Leia, was stepping forward without her blaster in hand. Soldiers wavered their aim. Blasters lowered. Some stayed out of fear. They couldn't hurt the General, even if it was the Supreme Leader she stood next to.

A small smile. Soft eyes. "Mother."

"Why have you come? I know it's not for me." Leia paused sadly. "You brought a fleet, Ben. Would you kill us like that?"

He shook his head. "No. I came to discuss something with your leaders, and I mean to begin with Rey. The fleet came peacefully."

"You'll have to take that up with her," his mother told him. "I'm not making that decision."

Ben looked at Rey, and spoke her name like he had so many times. Somehow it sounded more real when he was truly there.

"Rey?"

She kept her guides up, kept her brows furrowed as she held his gaze. "I don't understand. I'm not the General."

"You're a commander, a leader. I want to talk to everybody, but first-you. I think you'll like what I have to say," he told her as Leia looked between the two.

She met Leia's eyes, then looked at Ben again. "Fine," she said shortly. "Come with me."

* * *

She shut the door to her room loudly behind them, and folded her arms. She shook her head. "What's going on?"

"I've never seen your room in person," he replied.

"Ben, why are you here? I've asked you to join me and you never agreed." She paused. "You brought a fleet."

She had started out with her arms folded defiantly in front of her, but now the position seemed more weak that defiant. Maybe her words were bringing back those feelings of betrayal. She let her arms drop.

"I don't understand," she told him.

He nodded, watching the orbs of light float around them. "You think I betrayed you."

"What should I think instead?"

The words weren't meant to be a true question, just a comment, but he answered anyway, facing her and coming closer.

"You know Hux," he began. "He has the second highest title in the First Order. If I left, and chose to join you, then the title of Supreme Leader would fall into him. He would do terrible things to the galaxy. I can't let that happen."

She watched him warily as he came forward, kicking herself for wanting to trust him. The tone of his voice, the feelings radiating through the Force, all of it made her want to believe she had been wrong. She held herself still.

"I can't join the Resistance, and I also don't want to kill it. I don't want to rule the galaxy if I'm not going to make the right decisions, and it seems like the only way I can make sure everything that happens is good is if I'm Supreme Leader."

She hesitated. "Since when do you want to be good?"

"Do you remember what I told you? The past, the definitions of good and evil, the Jedi and the Sith, it's all meaningless. The idea corrupts people and changes them. It corrupted me."

"You're no longer corrupted?"

He smiled. "Ah, but don't you remember? We corrupted each other."

She raised a brow as he spoke her words. "Good and evil?" She prompted.

"I want to be better than Snoke, and that's why I've come here. To you."

"I'm no one. How can I help you?"

He sighed. "You know that's not what I meant. You mean something, even if your parents were fools."

She paused, eyes finding his. The words were so short, and maybe she should have found less meaning in them, but the way he said it made her anger fade.

"I want to be better than Snoke so that there's no need for the Resistance. I want to make the right choices as a leader so that my mother, the General, won't see fit to fight against me. I want the Resistance at my side."

He stopped. Cocked his head. "I want you at my side," he murmured.

He stood there waiting for her to say something, like he had waited in the throne room. This time there was no outstretched hand, nothing reaching toward her but his words and his eyes.

"We keep doing this," she whispered sadly.

"It's-"

"Tearing me apart," she finished for him.

"It's different now," he said at last, "knowing you're real."

"I was real before. Just a galaxy away."

"Still," he said.

"Still," she said.

She looked at him and could feel herself being pulled in like she had many times before. She was so aware of what was happening and knew she could fight it, but she was tired of fighting.

"It's gonna be hard," she told him.

He nodded. "Yes. But you won't be alone."

He fell back into weeks-old promise and because she knew him, she knew he did it to reaffirm everything that had happened. You aren't alone. Neither are you.

"I haven't said yes."

"You did," he told her, "in your own way."

Rey smiled, then realized something. "I think I owe you an apology. Many of them, actually, the things I said to you-"

He held up a hand. "Don't. It was an impossible situation."

He was being strangely kind, and it unnerved her, but hadn't she already seen this side of him before, many times over?

"I'm sorry anyway," she told him.

He nodded. He knew.

Then. "I'm going to have to talk to Leia."

"She loves you. She'll agree too."

"Come with me?" He asked.

Rey gave him a small smile and opened the door. "Let's go."

Maybe she agreed too quickly, but the offer he had made could change things for good, and she could live with that. Besides, the bond between them would swallow her whole if she didn't agree.

When they stepped out of her room and walked down the hallway, stepping side-by-side, all she felt was security and contentment. Just as his heartbeat thumping through the bond had calmed her earlier, his steady footsteps beside her erased most of her fear.

It felt like something new was happening, and yet like a repeat of old memories-of an old fool killed instead of her, of another's saber in her hands, of fighting side-by-side with someone and winning an impossible fight.

Being with him, as his partner, that was the only way she could ever find peace.

AN: Do I sense the hints of a slow burn? Oh my, how chancely. (Also yes I made that word up)