Force Destiny

Guidance

Medical wrappers and empty injectors littered the floor surrounding Rey. Rose entered the room with blankets in her arms. Her face was pale and her expression grim. She handed a light grey blanket to Rey. She recognized it immediately.

The blanket from the vision...

"Not that one," Rey insisted, choosing a heavy blanket, and a darker therma-blanket instead. She had cut his blood-soaked tunic from his body to dress his wounds. At that point, she figured it was more of a detriment to heat retention anyway. She wrapped him in one warm blanket and then tucked the therma-blanket around him, knowing it was only a temporary solution. If she didn't find him, he wouldn't last long in that weather. She was running out of time.

Staring down at her bond mate, she tried to remain strong. A bacta patch covered the right side of his forehead. She wiped a warm cloth over his blood-stained face. She had tried to clean him as gently as she could, but there was still dried blood in his eyebrows and eyelashes. Fresh snowflakes melted on his cheeks. His condition was deteriorating with the weather. He was covered in bacta patches but she sensed his pulse steadily declining. She had been given hope and then it had been slowly, excruciatingly, being stolen away again.

Please, Ben, please don't leave me alone.

"There has to be something more we can do," Rey said to her friend, without glancing away from her bondmate.

"We don't have a bacta suit on board," Rose answered. "All we had was these patches and injectors. It's just not enough. He should have died in that cave...but I think he's been holding on... waiting for you."

"No! I won't watch him die! We need to get him to a bacta suit! Tell Chewie to fire up the engines!"

Rose sighed. "Rey, there's more that you don't know. I didn't want to burden you while Ben... We can't take off. Finn just told me that several squads of Stormtroopers have us surrounded. They told him over the comlink that if we make any attempt to take off, they have the cannons to shoot us down. They still haven't attempted to board. They are holding us hostage until the new Supreme Leader comes to take us back to the Finalizer. There's still hope, though. We heard on the comlink Poe gave us that the allied forces are about to launch an attack on the Finalizer, which was waiting for us right outside the atmosphere the whole time. We just have to wait it out and hope that Poe can pull off a miracle. "

"So... what? I just sit here, and watch him die? He's out there somewhere in a blizzard, Rose! Leaving him there is certain death!" Rey shouted. She immediately regretted it. She wasn't angry at Rose.

"I'm so sorry," Rose whispered in a wavering voice.

"Please, just go." Rey didn't watch her friend walk away, but she felt it in the Force. A storm of emotions raged inside her. When she was alone, she allowed the wave of emotions to crash over her and her body rocked with uncontrollable sobs. "I can't watch you die, Ben."

Rey collapsed next to Ben, pulling the blankets back to climb under them with him. She briefly revealed the large bacta patches wrapped over the majority of his right upper torso. Whatever had happened, the damage was extensive. She gently rested her head on his good shoulder and searched for his hand. It lay cold and limp across his chest. She picked it up gingerly, turning it over in her hands, studying every last detail. She pressed her hand against his palm, the size of his hand dwarfing hers in comparison. She slipped her fingers between his, waiting for the warm embrace of his hand, but there was nothing.

"Why can't I feel you with me, Ben?" she whispered to him. "Please come back. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have lied about Sidious, or the vial, or the burn marks on my hand. I should have trusted that you would keep me safe. I was so angry that you kept what happened to my parents from me, and terrified of my own darkness, but I should never have shut you out of our bond. I let you believe things that are not true... Please, Ben. Please don't leave me. This is all my fault. You warned me and I didn't want to listen. I should have believed you. You were right. Okay? You were right. If you die, I'll never forgive myself. I just want you back. Please. I would give up everything to feel you hold me right now. Being with you were the happiest moments of my entire life."