End of the Beginning (A New Hope Series)

Chapter Eleven - Resurrection

Dusk had just crept over the island when Ben felt her presence. He sighed. She was searching for him again. Ben hesitated and began to look for her. It had only been a few days after he'd entered the afterlife that Ben realized he could see and, to some extent, interact with the land of the living. When he found her in the black cave, he felt a sudden depression clasp around his heart. Ben's chest tightened as he felt her desperation. Ben reached out, trying to let her know he was near and that he was there for her but he had little avail. Unlike Luke or any of the other Jedi, Ben could not appear to anyone or enter the living realm, even as a ghost. But what bothered him almost more so, was that there were also times when he could not interact with the other Force ghosts.

   Luke had come up with the theory that Ben had not fully passed on through the world between worlds yet and that it would take some time before he could interact with both the living and the dead. Obi-Wan suggested that perhaps Ben had not been experienced enough to pass between worlds. Qui-Gon thought that Ben's inability to pass between the realms was because of his and Rey's dyad. He said that because Ben and Rey were one and death had separated them, Ben had lost his other half, therefor making him incapable of passing until Rey joined him in death. And if that were the case, then Ben would be waiting for a long while. Mace Windu determined that this was punishment for Ben's crimes while he was Kylo Ren. But it baffled the rest of the Jedi as to why he could not appear to Rey as a ghost of the Force. Ben sighed.

Though he could not yet make himself known to her or come to her as a ghost of the Force, he could offer her some comfort in his presence. Ben saw her in the cave, calling to him, her voice broken and pleading. Her hand occasionally flew to her stomach but Ben paid no mind to that small detail. Instead, he focused on her appearance. She looked so fragile and weak. There were dark circles under her eyes from a lack of sleep and she was very skinny due to a lack of nutrition. He could feel her pain and her sorrow. The emptiness and loneliness she felt. Why did she return to this place? Did she not remember how alone she'd felt last time she came here? Rey let out a small cry in pain and ran to the side of the cave and threw up. Ben winced at the sound of her retching. Was she sick? Or was she making herself sick from the grief? Ben felt extreme sorrow upon seeing her like this. Rey was broken, and there was nothing he could do to comfort her.

Walking over to her side, Ben reached out to lay a hand on her forehead, but his hand passed right through her. Ben grimaced as Rey groaned and gasped for breath. She raised one hand to her stomach and the other to her mouth. Ben winced. She was very malnourished and in desperate need of a proper meal. Ben sighed as he looked down at her. He longed for nothing more than to take her into his arms and hold her. To wipe her tears away and tell her that everything was going to be alright. He wanted to be able to whisper softly that she wasn't alone and that he would never leave her, but most of all, he longed to tell her he loved her. Ben felt a sharp pain stab into his heart. But he could never tell her such things. He couldn't help her, and he couldn't comfort her.

Rey walked back to her things and began to pick up the items that had fallen out of her bag. The first thing she picked up was a black piece of clothing. She lifted it to her nose, burying her face into the material and Ben noticed it as his sweater. The one he had worn the day he'd died. Rey had kept it? Among the other articles that had fallen from her bag were his father's dice and his mother's lightsaber, as well as Anakin's lightsaber. Why had she kept all these things? Ben walked over to Rey's side and saw a lightsaber hilt that he did not recognize. He looked closer and made it out to be part of what once used to be her staff. Ben's brow furrowed in bewilderment. She had made her own lightsaber? Ben reached out to handle the lightsaber hilt but his hand passed through it. Though he still noticed that it was unfinished. Ben frowned. Where was she going to find her kyber crystal?