Be With Me - Reylo (TRoS alternate ending)

Chapter Three

Ben had been trying for hours to reach her. It was damn near impossible, he realised, to force (no pun intended) their force bond into being. He had tried everything, calling through the Force, isolating himself completely (that one wasn't particularly hard given the circumstances) and generally trying altogether to not want to see Rey, hoping that that might kick start a conversation.

Maybe I should just take my shirt off, he thought, only partially joking. Joking was a new term he was experimenting with. He hadn't really had the opportunity to joke for many years, being so consumed and conflicted by everything all the time.

Despite all this, Ben couldn't for the life of him figure out where she was.

Not that he really knew where he was either.

His take off in the TIE fighter had been dodgy to say the least. He had almost been taken out by pieces of falling Star Destroyer multiple times, and barely made it out of the system, following hopefully behind the very last of the Resistance ships. After that, he had barely made it to Jakku, before his ship ran out of fuel and he was stranded.

It was ironic, he thought, that he ended up here. Where Rey had grown up all alone. Maybe it wasn't ironic, maybe it was fate. They were a dyad after all.

Of course part of the term dyad meant that he and Rey were both light and dark, together, but the recent developments on Exegol and the ruins of the Death Star proved that neither of them were wholeheartedly good or evil, so to speak. He had become Ben Solo again, and killed Kylo Ren, but that did not stop him from using and being part of the dark side as well as light. The point was they balanced each other out, meaning they could never beat each other, and that they were only truly complete when reflecting one another.

But it didn't seem like any of that mattered because he couldn't find her. He kicked the scrap piece of metal near him in anger.

See, he thought. Still dark.

He was in an ancient Star Destroyer from the wars his parents fought in and won. It had long since been stripped for parts to sell, possible by Rey herself, but it was some cover from the aggressively blazing sun, and was relatively calm and cool.

He sat down, and tried to breathe. As he became more centred, it occurred to him that maybe the force bond was closed for ever. Snoke initiated the link between the two of them, or so he said, though Ben had his doubts about that, given that they were a dyad. Two that were one. Perhaps the connection was inevitable, or perhaps Palatine, the creator of Snoke, had been the creator of their bond, and now that he was dead...

Maybe Ben was wasting his time here. There was no point in him being on Jakku, mediating. He should be looking for her, atoning for the crushing pile of actions weighing his shoulders down.

He sat there a while longer, closing his eyes and allowing the Force to flow through him. All of it, not the light, not the dark; the balance. As he was doing this, Ben felt calmer, and from the depths of his memory swirled a phrase, a series of phrases, a combination of light and dark. Something he had read long ago in a long forgotten book.

There is no light without the dark

Through passion, I gain focus

Through knowledge, I gain power

Through serenity, I gain strength

Through victory, I gain harmony

There is only the Force.

He repeated it in his head, over and over until he was one with the Force, and he was floating, just barely, off the sandy metal floor and he was present, in space.