Star Wars: A dyad in the Force 「A Reylo FanFiction」

Act 26: A shoulder to lean on

We passed upon the stair

We spoke of was and when

Although I wasn't there

He said I was his friend

Which came as a surprise

I spoke into his eyes

I thought you died alone

A long long time ago...

Ajan Kloss, 36 ABY

The crowd slowly surrounded the group, and the only reason it kept a few paces away from him was that the group of four—Rey, Poe, Chewie, and Finn—remained in front of him.

Ben couldn't explain the rollercoaster of emotions he was going through. He wasn't only in physical pain, though at the moment, he wouldn't have minded a trip to the Med Bay. It was an emotional debt. That was the term, right? What about emotional responsibility and accountability? Because all that stuff that he took as his entitlement, or worse as a defect of his bleeding heart, was what sustained his world. It was one of the reasons; his world was slowly making sense.

Lost in his own darkness, he was pulled and tortured by the dark voices and raised in isolation. Ben had never known how it felt to be surrounded by people who supported him. The Resistance was not following his mother because they were afraid of her or because they profited from her. They had followed her to fight against the Darkness and him.

Yet that was not the only thing that stood out to Ben: the four people that were at his side defending him against their own. Their own! The emotions that that knowledge triggered were agonizing to one who did not want to hope. They were alien emotions, emotions that he had never before felt inside him. And damn, those emotions were like torrents of rivers trying to invade his suffering heart; those emotions were trying to teach him that there was hope even in the darkest places of the Galaxy.

"You aren't alone!" Rey's voice suddenly whispered inside his head, and his brown eyes met hers for a brief second. "I'll help you!" She assured him.

Ben had known she would. Even if she was angry with him, Rey would never ignore a friend. And Ben Solo believed that Rey already thought of him as her friend.

As for him, she was the only friend he had. Even as Kylo Ren, Rey had been the only person he could contact inside his Darkness. She would never lie to him. She always spoke her mind loudly and showed him the right way. Rey was one of the reasons that the Light inside him kept burning. Rey was one of those people who, with her existence, aided Ben Solo to be awake.

He owed the Galaxy to her.

Lately, one more person had been trying to drag him out of his misery. Poe Dameron, the acting General in the Resistance, was tugging him back to life. Since Poe had met him on Jakku, he had been like a burning flame that kept attacking Ben until he got his attention. Ben couldn't ignore him or avoid him. The man managed to convince him to be his spy, and now he was presenting him to the Resistance.

When Ben interrogated him on the Finalizer, he thought he had seen Poe's mind. However, Poe Dameron was a riddle that Solo had only just started to solve. The general had many levels and depths; he was not just the best pilot the Resistance had. He was much more than that. After all, Leia would only choose the best to take her position. And even though he had been offered to become the acting General, Poe hadn't taken on leadership alone. He shared it with Finn.