AN: Hello! I apologize for the longer wait for this chapter. I had a crazy stressful week. Anyway, I finished this, so enjoy! :)

Midday arrived slow as honey, but with it came a message to the terminal in Ben's room. It had been so long since he had been called to do something, that for a moment he hesitated and wondered if it was a glitch. But the message stayed bright and blue on the screen, and it was calling to the commander's jacket he wore every day.

He followed the instructions of the message and opened the door to the General's office, before taking a place in the chair across from his mother. Rey came soon after, and Ben half expected the other commanders to follow her, but no-just her.

Leia wasn't telling them something.

"General?" Ben asked.

"I know. I haven't asked the other commanders here," Leia said. "Frankly, its because you're the highest in the ranks." She gestured at Rey, who sat with undone hair beside him. "You took over when I was injured, and you," she said, looking at Ben, "were Supreme Leader. The logistics of your new title were never finalized, but it hardly matters."

"You are the highest ranking commanders the alliance has," Leia said as she leaned onto her elbows, as the insignia on her own jacket reflected the midday sun. "And because of that, I have to ask something of you."

"Anything," Rey said, without hesitation.

Leia nodded. "Good." She waited a beat. "The war may be over and most of the flagger leaders may be dead, but there are still stragglers that want to keep going."

"Rebels," Ben said.

"Exactly," Leia said. "It's almost ironic, the position we're being put in. We're no longer a rebellion, but the government trying to get rid of the rebels."

Through the bond, Ben knew Rey had thought of this-and also knew that her heart hurt because of it.

"What would you have us do?" Rey asked, despite her shuddering soul.

"Our scouts have come back with the first intel since I was taken," Leia said, as though her capture was as mundane as the weather outside. "Ben, you brought troops to Kore many weeks ago. You remember how the farmland was torn up from the fighting."

Ben nodded. It was something he had allowed himself to put out of mind, but every so often the memory of innocent lives being disrupted would come to him on bitter hands and knees in the night. "Some of the families' harvests were destroyed by the bombs."

"We need to be more careful in the future, about which scouts we send. Two of our best scouts were killed in the war, and the intel we just received came from another, someone with less training. This scout was slower, and so the way we act now is more urgent, since the information is coming to us late."

"Something happened with the farmers," Ben stated.

Leia nodded. "Very nearly, yes." She paused to glance outside, and the light pouring through the window swayed across the desk. "A group of flaggers are trying to rally the farmers, trying to pull together a bigger rebellion. They want to pin the fighting on the alliance instead of themselves."

"War is calculated," Rey said, and Ben looked to see her brows furrowed deeply. "What would we want on Kore?"

Leia smiled grimly. "Sometimes logic doesn't matter when people are angry. The flaggers are spreading a tempting message, and unfortunately our intel tells us that some of these farmers aren't willing to let their destroyed harvests go so easily."

Then, Ben remembered something. "We had a clean up crew on Kore. They should still be there. What happened to them?"

The beat between his words and his mother's fell heavy on the desk. The silence thudded and echoed across the walls.

"There's a line of flaggers and farmers outside their ships. They're running out of food and the protesters won't let them leave."

"How long has this protest been happening?" Rey asked fearfully.

"It's been three days now. It started before I was taken, but as I said, we're only just hearing about it," Leia said.

"Do you want us to go to Kore, then?" Ben asked, and Leia nodded.

"It's last minute, I know, but I figured you both would be up for it. I don't want you to bring any troops, because that'll just add fuel to the fire. The farmers will see it as an attack." Leia shook her head. "No, just you."

Finally, they had a purpose again, a mission or orders to follow through on.

Ben could feel Rey's relief, and knew she had been anxious about becoming a civilian once more. The three of them talked for a few more minutes, to go over details and check in with Chewie to make sure the Falcon was ready for flight.

But it was decided.

They had a plan.

* * *

"You realize Chewie's jealous of you, don't you?" Rey asked him as they sat in the cockpit of the Falcon.

Ben flicked a switch and turned to her, surprised. "What?"

"I think he got used to us flying to Falcon together," she responded as she reached overhead to press a button.

The ship started vibrating, lights blinking, as though it was becoming alive.

"Jealousy is better than hate," Ben said, but his words weren't harsh. He guided a lever into position and as the ship began to rise, the light of the autumn sun came through the window to cover the entire cockpit with gold. "I'll take it."

With a hint of a smile on his face, and the reflection of the sky on his jacket as they soared higher, Ben reached up and tapped the two charms-his father's and his uncle's. Strange.

He felt at peace.

* * *

An hour into the flight Rey made tea, and for the first time in a while, she made use of the tea bags she had stored in an upper shelf in the cockpit. She took them down and filled two mugs with the steaming drink, and in the deep liquidity of hyperspace, she sat beside Ben to drink it.

It was times like this that she couldn't be afraid, couldn't wonder whether the absence of war would tear them apart, or whether a common goal was the only reason they had been brought together.

When the galaxies quieted and the only thing left was the tethering--that pull between them--she couldn't imagine drifting away from her emotions, only falling into them.

* * *

When they landed and walked out of the Falcon to meet the protestors, Ben knew.

He could see the war on their skin, the way it streaked on their brows and took the form of anger, the way it tucked itself in their curled fingers when their fists struck the hot air, the way it trembled on the grass at their feet and blinded his eyes.

He knew they remembered.

Ben and Rey walked forward, weapons tucked away and blades nearly hidden to the protestors' eyes. Their footfalls didn't make a sound, didn't even reach their ears. The shouts before them were too furious, too loud.

Ben thought he could feel his chest tightening, as though someone was taking a screwdriver and twisting his soul upon itself. He wondered if he should have done more, if he could have done better. Wondered if his fear that Rey had disappeared had blinded him.

No, it hadn't blinded him. He had fought harder because of it. Maybe he was simply weaker than he thought. Maybe even when he thought himself to be strong he was weaker than most.

He should have done more.

"Look! Is that . . ." a protestor said, voice raspy from shouting.

"It's him! And that's--"

"Commander Rey."

"Where are your cannons?" Someone screamed, and the was voice almost lost amongst the war cries. "Where are your soldiers?"

"You forgot your grenades!" Someone else shouted.

The two of them, Rey and Ben, they stood in front of the protestors like two small twigs in a hurricane, like two grains of sand facing the ocean. They stood motionless and still, until they didn't.

"Leave these people be," Rey said. Her voice carried over the waves of people like a skipped stone, echoing and reverberating on every crest.

Shouts responded. One was decipherable. "They destroyed our crops!"

"My children will starve!" Came another voice, tossed over the seas of flesh.

"So will the soldiers in those ships if you don't let them leave," Ben said.

A curse came loudly over the heads, over the fists. Then: "You think I care what happens to these people?"

"They protected you," Rey said, and motioned to Ben. "This man protected you."

"The alliance didn't do any good."

"Then how can it do better?" Ben asked, muscles tightening as he waited for the waves to converge upon them, for the angry mob to come closer and move from their rings around the ships.

The question surprised them. There was a moment of silence.

"You should have kept the fighting off my land," a farmer said.

"The red flaggers brought the fight here," Rey said. "The alliance tried to protect you."

"Should we have done nothing, and let this whole planet be destroyed?" Ben asked.

"Let these people go," Rey said again. "Go back to your homes."

"These people are here to help you, and you're returning the favor by starving them out," Ben said.

The crowds were parting before them, and from the back stepped four troopers, each next to a speeder. Ben could smell the guilt, the fear each armored trooper wore. The troopers came forward, making to run away.

"Hey!" Rey said. "Stop!"

The speeders were starting up, legs swinging onto each seat.

"And let you arrest us?" A trooper asked, speeder growling underneath him. "I don't think so."

Like a bird falling downward through the skies, the speeders shot forward, and not even thinking to talk to one another, Ben and Rey took off on foot behind them. Somewhere behind him Rey was jumping onto a speeder, and Ben started to do the same.

Ben jumped and grabbed the trooper to steady himself, and squinted in the bright sunlight of the planet. It nearly blinded him because it was bouncing off the white armor next to his face, but he steadied himself, and grappled for control of the speeder.

"You're making this harder than it has to be," Ben said, and the speeder swerved sharply left, then right as the two of them fought for the controls.

"You jumped on," the trooper responded sharply, and elbowed Ben's hand with an armor-covered elbow.

* * *

"You don't need to run!" Rey told the trooper in front of her, trying desperately to stay in the seat as the speeder jerked from side to side.

"I hate the alliance!" The trooper shouted. "Dammit! Get off!"

The speeder dropped sharply in a ninety degree turn, and then Rey's cheek was parallel to the grass. She cried out and then kicked a pedal in the back, sitting up and forcing the seat to right itself.

They were upright for a moment before the trooper jerked the front of the speeder up. Rey grabbed tightly to the seat and then the armor of the trooper before her, and didn't fall.

Around them the grasslands were becoming a mass of monotonous color: gray-green and yellow-brown. In the grass there was nowhere to hide. There was simply the fight before her.

"Stop the speeder!" Rey tried again.

"I'd rather die!" The trooper responded curtly, and tried to head butt her with his mask.

Rey had seen it coming, had felt his move before he made it, so when his mask came sharply back back back and toward her temple, she leaned first back then forward around the trooper himself to grab one of the handlebars and-

-kick the trooper off.

Behind her there was a dull thud, and the trooper was washed into the monotony of the grass.

Rey pressed a pedal harder, and as her hair whipped behind her like a flag of her own she leaned into the wind. She sped up and shot across the field, through the blinding sunlight that characterized the planet and almost reminded her of the dunes of Jakku.

She was a foot behind Ben's speeder now, and she could hear the tell-tale spurts of his ignition.

"Get off!" She yelled at him, and pulled her speeder to his left.

"What?" He yelled back, and tried to accelerate, but the engine started to smoke.

"It'll explode!" She yelled. "Get on!"

She veered closer and slowed down to match the sputtering speed he was going at, then inched forward on the seat.

"Now!" She told him.

He leaped and landed behind her, and scarcely had his arms wrapped around her waist when the speeder he had been moving on gave a last shudder and exploded in a cloud of fire and smoke.

Ben laughed.

"You could have died!" she yelled into the air, into the wind that seemed to be flooded with white light.

"I'm okay," he responded, and she could sense the smile on his lips without turning around.

"Damn you," she said half-heartedly, and the sunlight and adrenaline made her smile too.

"Bring them back to the Falcon!" Ben said, voice tumbling into her ear, chin brushing on her shoulder.

"Already going for it," she said, and turned softly to the left to force the remaining two troopers and their speeders back toward the farmlands.

One of the troopers looked behind him and realized they were catching up, then tried to turn the opposite direction. But they were in a valley, in the armpit of a towering hill no speeder could travel up. The trooper hesitated for a moment, but a moment was hours at the speed they were traveling at, and Rey was at his side in an instant.

"You don't have to run!" Ben said to the trooper as they hovered side by side, soaring through the grasslands.

"I'm a flagger," the trooper responded. "I won't give up anything."

The trooper flipped a switch on his speeder and the engine started smoking, the metal thing sputtering. Rey made the connection, realized the trooper whose speeder Ben had taken must have done the same thing.

They were red flaggers. They embraced death. They had no fear of it.

So with a snap of a lever they had no problem doing what they did.

"Rey!" Ben yelled in her ear.

"I know!" she said, and the speeder beside them was tick-tocking like a bomb.

She veered away and breathed harshly. BANG! The trooper was dissolved into shrapnel with the speeder he had ridden on, and up ahead, Rey could see the last trooper's speeder smoking too.

She shook her head. "What's happening?"

She said it so softly that in the wind she knew no one could have possibly heard her words. But Ben knew her, so he knew her thoughts by the way her shoulders dropped a fraction, the way the muscles in her back relaxed in sadness.

"I don't know," he murmured into the wind, and she couldn't hear it either, but she felt the words and the weight of them and carried them around her neck like the key to the chest back at base.

Tick tick tick tick BANG!

She breathed harsh and loud and the wind didn't hear it, the sun didn't realize it, but Ben did. She knew his brows were furrowing in shock and the terribleness of it all, that guilt was beginning to eat at him as well as it gnawed at her.

Back to the Falcon, back to the protestors who called them killers, back into danger, they flew.

There was nothing but wind and fear and bright light before them, nothing but shrapnel and smoke and adoration for a red flag behind them.

Ben held on tighter, warmer. He knew her and what she needed.

She thanked the Maker for that.

AN: New flagger things are happening oohh. Feedback?