Be With Me - Reylo (TRoS alternate ending)

Chapter One

Rey was dead. She knew she was dead. She didn't really mind. It wasn't so bad. She had fought with everything she had, and now she was gone. And that was alright.

No one's ever really gone, Luke's voice whispered in her mind. But she really did see to be dead. How she was still thinking, she didn't know.

Everything was black, with little memories emerging in her mind like pinpricks of light.

It was the galaxy, she realised. She was looking at the galaxy, all that life spread throughout the stars, and here she was, floating among it all.

~

Ben heard her fall to the ground. He was desperately clawing his way up a cliff face, his body aching and his leg stabbing with pain, and when he stopped to bite his tongue and hold back the agony in his leg, he heard the two lightsabers clatter to the ground, and the quiet thump as her body followed.

Rey, he tried to call out through the Force. It had never worked before when he had tried, but now he couldn't even sense her. It was like the entirety of what made her who she was, her history, her spirit, her smile, her everything; it was all gone.

He threw his hand up and grabbed the final ledge, hauling himself up.

Groaning, he stumbled to his feet. Upon seeing her body, so soft and broken he tripped again, dragging himself towards her.

In a well thought out, but rather poorly executed manoeuvre, he managed to pull her into his lap, her arms and head lolling, her eyes unseeing. It broke his healing heart. His vision narrowed, and Ben could barely see. His father had loved him, but Ben had destroyed him. His mother was with him, but he knew in his heart that he would never see her again. The scavenger, who had been the first to call him Ben, the first to see through the mask, both external and internal, she was finally in his arms. It had been too long. He had been a monster, she was right about that. But the only reason he was here, breathing, and so very much alive was because of her. She had wanted, needed him to become Ben Solo, and it had made him realise that it was what he wanted and needed too.

He gathered the body of the last person who loved him into his arms and held her to him.

She smelt of blood and dirt and sea water, but underneath it all was a scent that felt like coming home. It was her, and even in death she was beautiful. She was still a scavenger, but she was so much more. Ben rocked with Rey in his arms, holding back the fear that was tearing through him; how could he be Ben without her? She meant so much more to him than he had ever let on, and she had healed him, she was merciful and just and everything a Jedi should be-

She healed me, he thought. If she can do it then I can too.

Letting her down slowly from his embrace, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, placing his filthy, shaking hand onto her belly.

She was warm.

Another deep breath.

He thought of what he wanted; her, alive and smiling and Rey.

In his heart, he knew that it would take too much of the Force to bring her back. He would die, but she would live, and if he was lucking, if he was very, very lucky, then he might just get a few moments with her.

He poured himself into her, every happy thought, every moment he could conjure up, everything that meant life, all of it. It went into her. Into that still warm, broken little body.

With his eyes still closed, he did not see her move, but felt a warm hand on his.

It couldn't be real. It was a figment of his imagination, like his father on the Death Star wreckage.