Poe Dameron murmured something to Rey that Ben couldn't hear, and left them alone.

Ben felt strange. Like he didn't fit inside his own skin. Rey sat beside him on the narrow cot, and laced her fingers through his.

"I'm so glad you're alive," she said.

Her face had gone very pale when he had told her what was in store for him. He'd dealt with politics his entire life. There was no other outcome.

"How did you get here?" she asked.

"I ran into some scavengers on Exegol. Turns out your general friend hired crews to keep watch on planets with known Sith and First Order connections. They rounded me up and brought me here. Who struck you?"

"No one. I've been clumsy lately. Tell me about Exegol."

"There isn't much to tell. I woke up in your grandfather's throne room, naked as the day I was born. When I came out on the surface, Dameron's crew captured me. And now I'm here. They weren't particularly gentle."

He touched his own bruised eye. The orbit bones were tender.

"I think it might be my fault you ended up there."

Rey proceeded to tell him the most outrageous story of how she had basically time jumped, pulled him out of the Exegol Sith lair just as he died, put life essence back into him, and transported him to her present timeline, but not her present location.

"Little Yoda was with me on Ahch-To. That must be why he came back with me, and you didn't. I basically dropped you in the last place you'd been. How did your Ghost end up back in your body?"

He frowned and rubbed his forehead. "What? Who is Little Yoda?"

"The Mandalorian's son. The one who Force Choked you. My student."

She was looking at him in a way that made him nervous. He dropped her hand and turned to fully face her.

"I have no idea who that is."

The quietness stretched between them. He could almost see her brain whirring at high speed, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Do you remember fighting Palpatine?"

He nodded.

"Do you remember crawling out of that crevice and healing me?"

He nodded.

"Do you remember kissing me?"

He leaned in and kissed her, but she was too flustered to return it.

"What happened after that?" she asked.

His mind was muzzy and slow. "I woke up on the floor of the Sith arena. And when I came topside, Dameron's men captured me and brought me here."

"Oh, Ben. You really don't remember? It's been months."

"Where were you?" he asked.

"On Ahch-To. Trying really hard to figure out how to bring you back. You and Yoda, Luke, Leia, Obi-Wan, and Anakin were all Force Ghosts. In the other place. You visited me."

He didn't disbelieve her, exactly. She'd always been honest with him. But what she was saying was nonsense. He had not been a ghost. And he had certainly not seen other ghosts.

"You don't remember," she whispered. "How is that possible?"

"What's to remember?"

She then told him about the visits he had paid her as a Ghost, and those of the others. Of the other Ghosts scheming and planning to help her.

"They thought I could do this," she said. "They thought I could save you, bring you back. Everything they worked for was to that end. They didn't tell me, because they didn't want me to change the future. They didn't tell you because they didn't trust you not to tell me, and I couldn't know. It was a long shot, and it actually worked."

"I think I would remember spending months with my mother and Luke."

"Do you remember the portal?"

"No."

She told him about a Force controlled torture device that made him relive all of his past crimes. The thought made him sick.

"Maybe it was a test," she said. "For both of us. But you've forgotten yours."

"There's some other logical explanation."

"How do you explain the time gap?"

He couldn't.

"Well, a week ago I thought I had failed to return life to your body. And I've never been so glad to be wrong. There will not be a trial. They will release you and you will come back to Ahch-To and help me." She frowned. "If you want to, I mean."

There was nothing he wanted more.

"I can't escape this reality."

"Fight back! Why did you just let them capture you?"

He held his hands out. They shook a little. "At first, I was too tired and cold to try. And if I stayed on Exegol, I was going to die from exposure. It made sense to go with them. But now. Well, now, I can't touch the Force."

Rey's mouth had fallen open she was so surprised. Then she closed her eyes, and he had a feeling she was examining him with every bit of her own Force ability.

"You still have it," she said, though he wasn't reassured by her hesitant tone. "But it's different. Than it was. It feels..." She shook her head and her eyes popped open.

"I can still feel you," he said. "I can still feel the Dyad Bond. It's weak though, just a shadow of what it was before."

If he really had been dead for months, no wonder he didn't have full use of his abilities. He would be rusty from disuse.

"Can I see your lightsaber?" he asked.

That was an easy test to conduct. She placed it in his hand, and he extended it forward. The blade did not engage. He closed his eyes and tried harder. Finally, after three more attempts, a gold blade extended out from the hilt. Gold. How had she done that?

Rey released a shaky breath. "That didn't look good for a minute there."

He didn't tell her how hard it had been. It had taken his full concentration, and even then he had failed several times.

"I'm going to go talk to Poe. Let me figure out what's happening. I'll be back."

He kissed the tips of her fingers before she left. "Come back soon."

"I'll see if they'll move you up to my rooms. That would be nice."

How did a person who had been through what she had remain so optimistic? He didn't have the heart to tell her not to bother. They wouldn't release a monster to roam freely through their halls.