When their hands touch, Rey sees Ben’s future, solid and clear: he won’t bow before Snoke.
That isn’t all she sees. It moves so quickly, just flashes of what’s to come: fear, anger, compassion, peace, desire, love—and a need to be chosen, for someone to put Ben Solo first. And through it all Rey finds herself. Fighting alongside Ben, red and blue sabers flashing as they face down their enemies together. Making love and waking in each other’s arms the morning after. Holding their children, a son and daughter whose names Rey can’t know. Both of them take after Ben, with his dark hair and fair skin, beauty marks and full lips. But the girl has Rey’s nose and both of them have her eyes, hints here and there that she’s their mother.
A family. Rey will have a family one day, made with this man she knew only as a monster a few days ago.
In the elevator up to Snoke’s throne room, Rey steps close to Ben, invading his space. She looks up at him and wills him to want her the way he should, the way her vision promised. She’s choosing him, and she needs him to choose her right back.
After Crait, Rey lies awake, thinking of her vision. It had to be a lie, one she should never have believed in the first place. An illusion that the dark fed her, to drive her toward Ben when she should have stayed far, far away.
She holds the broken halves of the Skywalker lightsaber, the weapon she’d scarred Ben with, fought by his side with. She’ll have to rebuild it, fashion it into something of her own before she faces him again.
The next time she sees Ben, Rey has two blades on her lightsaber instead of one. He moves like a feral creature, furious and desperate, giving no quarter and leaving her no choice but to do the same.
He wants to kill me, Rey thinks, and it’s this—the loss of a hope she didn’t know she still held—that weakens her. That sends her to her back on the sands of Jakku. Ben stands over her, the burning point of his lightsaber at her throat, so close that Rey flinches at the hot embers sparking against her skin.
“Ben, don’t do this,” she says. “Please.”
His hand is shaking so badly that Rey fears he’ll slit her throat by accident. His beautiful mouth trembles, brown eyes overwet as he looks down at her.
Then his lightsaber extinguishes, and Ben throws it to the ground. He falls to his knees, pulls off his glove, and holds out his hand.
Rey takes it, holding on so tight that she isn’t sure she can ever let go.
Naboo is like something from a dream, all green fields and blue lakes, a world beautifully alive. Their children play in the grass, tumbling together. Janos tugs his sister’s hair, and Sera pushes him hard in the chest, knocking him over. She’s strong for a five-year-old girl, even though she’s going to grow up to be as tiny as Leia. Or maybe Janos just lets her get in a few blows here and there; he dotes on his little sister too much.
Rey leans against Ben’s chest, taking comfort in the steadiness of his strong body. He’s balanced today, happy even, as he watches their children play. Innocent, like neither of them have been in such a long, long time.
Someday, sooner that she’d like, they’re going to have to tell them the truth, who Ben was and what he’d done. But not today. This is a day for joy, for simple loves.
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