Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It wasn’t an oppressive dark. It was new. She felt almost warm, actually. And light, like if she could close her eyes in this strange place, she might float off. As she focused on the black on the horizon encircling where she stood, looking around for a place to anchor herself, to give her some information as to where she was, something she could understand and not just feel, she focused hard. She had a strange feeling, one that was so foreign she nearly didn’t recognize it. Safety. Ironic, Rey thought. I know where I am; I know what I am. She looked down at her hands, clean, whole. In her mind she could see herself from above and behind, the complete shape of her, though she found herself reacting, motioning like the living. I’m not living, am I? She didn’t know who she was asking yet, but she felt it meant her no harm. She could sense it there—a presence; it started all around her before it began to concentrate into a shape in front of her, not 10 feet away. A voice with no mouth resounded in her ears from a place inside her head.

“Rey.” She knew it instantly, and the figure now in front of her confirmed it.

“Luke…” she tried to call out, but she couldn’t find her voice, and that frustrated her. Why can’t I—

“Don’t try to talk—your mind is loud. I could have heard you even if I wasn’t near you now.” Luke’s lips were moving. Rey tried again, and this time it was just a whisper on the wind, a thought that echoed between them.

Where are we? Her eyes left Luke’s ghostly form for a moment, flicking around to her surroundings. They were lit by stars everywhere, orange balls of flame in the far distance. They appeared to be standing on nothing in an unnaturally calm sea of galaxy.

“You’re in between.”

Rey didn’t understand. Only the two of them stood in this great nothingness.

It’s done. It’s over—I’m done fighting. Her words came out in a flat, dark tone of finality.

“Child.” A different voice came from behind her.

Leia? Rey whirled around to face the pale blue figure that had by now formed behind her. Rey’s eyes welled with tears, hot and fast, and she didn’t try to stop them. Why am I crying… she meant this thought only for herself, but she knew Leia could hear her every breath, her every thought in this moment.

“It’s all right. You are safe here. But you are not done.” Leia’s expression was soft and commanding, one Rey had seen her wear many times in the months before. She felt as though she had known her for decades. Rey could feel the weight of Leia’s entire life, every sacrifice, every emotion, as though all the time that had ever ticked by existed in the buzzing stillness around the three of them.

What is this place… what do I do now? What does he mean? In between? Rey couldn’t hide the fear rising in her. Fear—this was not a feeling for the dead. What had she become?

Leia reflected none of Rey’s fear.

“You’ve done it before,” Luke spoke, and she turned to face him again. “But you cannot do this by yourself this time. And you won’t. He will not leave you here. Clear your mind, my girl. You have nothing to fear.”

“But you have one more fear to confront.” Leia spoke resolutely, and her form shifted to standing beside Luke’s.

I don’t understand… Rey studied her hands again, then her drapes, which flowed in a solar wind, looking fresh and laundered. What IS this place…

“I told you,” Luke sounded almost exasperated, “you’re in between. But you won’t be for long.”

But I want— Rey paused. She thought she wanted to stay here, with Luke, and Leia. But then… Ben.

I don’t want to leave you. Her echo was quiet.

“We will always be with you, Rey.” And Leia smiled at her, that soft, knowing smile, like she had a secret she’d never tell. The corner of Luke’s mouth pulled up in a kind of smirk. “You will never be alone. And your story is not over. Your journey, your purpose is not done.”

Rey just stared, studying them. They looked just as she had seen them last, but younger somehow. She memorized their faces.

She could feel a pull, like a string that was tied to somewhere deep within her belly was being tugged from a force she could not see.

There’s so much I want to ask you, so much I want to tell you. I don’t want to leave you, Rey repeated.

“You must. I could not see it before, but you will. I think Leia knew. She always found more hope than I ever could. There’s a wisdom she’d long surpassed me in. Trust, Rey.” Luke spoke softly. Leia only watched tenderly. Their comforting figures seemed to fade further as her chest began to rise with a breath.

A breath.

And the shining, warm darkness faded into a new one, a tangible warmth, a warmth that wrapped around her neck, her shoulders, and the small of her back, into unfamiliar arms but familiar hands.

The in between place was gone, but in its wake her eyes made out the shape of a gaping hole in what had once been the rocky ceiling of that shadowy hall that it felt like had been days since she’d left. She knew these hands, had only touched them once, but she knew them well. She’d waited for them.

Her gaze darted to the right, and locked onto Ben’s.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

When Rey shifted her weight and pushed herself upright to face him, she was surprised at the strength that had seeped its way back into her bones. Her eyes flicked across his face; she studied his pleading eyes, his disheveled hair, his relaxed jaw, his softened brow, his mouth, his lips, slightly parted. She was searching him. Searching as if to confirm it again, to confirm to herself what she’d just done with him, that they really had just faced Sidious—together—and defeated him. Together. The light in him was everywhere, everywhere—she could feel it so strongly there was no question, only answer. She knew instantly what he had done for her.

“Ben,” the name felt like honey rolling off her dry tongue. He was trembling, studying her right back, and Rey watched tears well in his dark eyes. Never before had they been so close without blades and hate and yearning for something they thought they understood between them.

She raised a hand to touch his cheek and could barely lay it upon it; as her fingertips grazed his skin, she nearly flinched at what she thought was electricity—the shock of its softness, a stubble forming along the curve of his jaw. What is going on, what…

Neither could take their eyes off the other. She feared she’d burst if she didn’t close the space. So she leaned in, paused where her breath fell easily on his lips, hesitating, detecting him everywhere and his thoughts, his thoughts—there was no more hesitation. She knew what she had to do.

Rey kissed him. His chin tucked up as he pressed his face against hers, returning the kiss in tenfold. He raised the hand that had been on her belly to her upper back, pulling her closer into him, til their chests brushed. It’s not electric, she thought, her whole being was ablaze. She felt a painful twinge, a tightness high between her thighs. She needed this. She’d wanted this so badly, and only now was she letting herself admit it deep within herself.

The kiss was gentle, measured, and in it there was no rush. Time slowed. His lips were soft, and she could feel the folds in his puckered lips pressed to hers. There was nothing better than this, she thought. Gods, there was nothing better than this. She’d never felt anything like it in her 20 rotations. And then she grew aware of it again, how dry her mouth felt, and self consciously drew away. She kept her face close to Ben’s, sucking in her breath. She hadn’t been unaware she was holding it.

A smile played on her lips, and she watched his broken expression lighten, and slowly, slowly, a smile, a real smile, crept across his face.

“Rey…” He choked out, his deep voice breaking in half. There was a pause, and then she began to feel his grip on her back weaken.

“Ben? Ben,” she could feel it in that tie between them just a moment before his hands slipped from behind her. “Ben, stay with me, BEN.” He fell back onto the ground behind him, but Rey didn’t let his head hit it.

No. It was not going to end like this. He needed help. She needed to get him out of here.

Rey tried to gather her thoughts. How am I going to do this, how do I DO this. She was verging on panic.

“Be with me,” she mumbled low. “Be with me,” and she realized she wasn’t just speaking to herself, or to the Force. She was calling out to him.

Rey stood beside him and turned a palm up, then the other. A few feet from the ground Ben hovered, and she walked with purpose and poise back toward the X-wing, trying not to focus down on his tired, broken form. He just needed medical attention, she told herself. She could feel him still, his energy, his life force. She knew he was not gone, but his presence was faint. She needed to act fast.

Chapter Text

Rey landed Luke’s X-wing in the trees of Ajan Kloss, practically on top of a clutch of saplings, with desperation and fear in her heart. Poe and Finn should hate me for this, she thought. She didn’t know if anyone would help her. She didn’t know if anyone would respond to this need, but she needed to try. It was all she could think about now. She knew the resistance had taken out the First Order and she had a thousand questions, but her concern for Ben took up too much space in her mind for her to celebrate this victory just yet. Maybe she was a fool for this, but Ben deserved to know this peace. To get to live in the light he’d chosen. To begin to heal. To have what Leia had wanted for him. As Ben’s heartbeat grew fainter, she felt her legs grow weaker.

Rey summoned strength in the Force as she opened the X-wing’s hatch, turned, and pulled Ben from behind the pilot’s seat. She leapt from the pit with him in tow, knowing what would meet her. Knowing this decision could turn the celebration into a confused and distressed crowd. Finn spotted her before she could turn around to face them.

“Rey…” Finn took in the whole scene in a matter of seconds. He cocked his head silently, trying to understand the picture before him. Then the rage began to take shape. He felt it in his chest first, and then it snaked its way down his arms, into balled fists. She turned to him, carrying Ren’s enormous frame in her sinking arms, no doubt held up through sheer power of the Force. He dwarfed her, and if Finn hadn’t been so angry, he would have laughed at the sight of it.

And then he met her eyes—tears streaming down her pale cheeks, cutting paths in the stony dust that caked them. This cut through the hate in his heart. He didn’t understand it, but he didn’t need to. He needed to help her, however he could. The pain he recognized on her face wasn’t something he’d seen in her before. It was raw and new and so heavy he wondered if he could lift even that himself. He unclenched his fists, and started toward her.

“What is this? What is Ren doing here.” His questions came out with less softness than he’d intended. Conflict bounced around in his chest, clanging painfully with every step toward her.

“I need a medic. Now.” Her voice broke as she spoke the last word.

“Rey… Rey, this man is responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents. Even if I wanted to help him, who here would?” Finn lifted his arms from his sides, motioning to those cheering, crying, kissing, holding each other around them, none of which had stopped to watch them—yet. He was pleading with her more than he was speaking with her. He wanted to help her, despite his disgust at what she’d brought with her. But he knew better the reception this would have, and the challenge it posed. He didn’t understand it, but he felt something strong and unbending from her through the Force. Not something he feared, but something he didn’t know himself how to receive.

“I— I don’t know, Finn. But I know that Ben saved me back there, on Exegol, and he’s part of the reason we’ve won this fight. Something happened on Kef Bir, when I pushed you away…” Rey paused and focused on Finn’s gaze. “I’m sorry I pushed you away, Finn. I needed to finish that fight on my own. I was trying to protect you.”

They shared a look that lasted a few quiet, templative moments.

“Rey, it’s okay. I… I was scared, I was angry, but that’s passed. I’m just so happy to see you.” Finn replied.

Rey stared back at him. “Something happened on Kef Bir, on the Death Star ruins. By the time Ben found me on Exegol, he was fighting by my side and there was no hesitation. I sensed it, I knew it, Finn. Leia was right. There was and is good in him. He’s turned back to the light. He saved me, Finn. He gave everything he had to save me, and now, I can’t let him die. I—“

“Rey.” Poe had been watching from behind Finn. His posture was tight, unyielding. Rey knew instantly from the look on his face that he had heard everything.

Poe watched her, surveying her and the meek giant in her arms with every sense of authority, deliberating within himself. Even to Rey, he was hard to predict. Poe, for a non-Force-sensitive, was certainly good at concealing his next move.

“Poe. I knew from the moment I put him in that X-wing to bring us both here that you would be the first, most important people I’d have to answer to about my decision. But you’re also two of the best friends I have ever known—the only friends I’ve ever known. I don’t mean to take advantage of your friendship, of your trust in me. I know what I’m asking you to do is unbearable, unthinkable, even; I know what we are up against and that you’re angry with me for even trying to save him.”

“Rey, you don’t know what you’re asking me to do. You can’t possibly expect me to save a man who’s killed, whose army has killed so many of my fighters, of this resistance. I can’t simply ask my medics to save a monster, and at a time like this? A man who’s taken more than he could possibly apologize for. His actions are unforgivable, Rey. This isn’t up to you. His fate is not up to you.”

“But this ISN’T UP TO ME!” Rey didn’t mean to raise her voice, but it came out in a pitiful cry. “I didn’t take his hand. I didn’t choose his path. Ben came to me, and I suspect something shifted in him when Leia… went. Ben did choose the dark, but there are things that you don’t understand. His own Jedi master betrayed him, held a saber to his face in his most vulnerable hour for fear of his strength.”

Poe and Finn looked to one another surprised, confused, then turned their faces back to Rey to let her finish.

“Ben has made his choice. He’s been trapped under a darkness that I could sense from the beginning was eating him alive, but which he did not see choice in. Palpatine, Sidious, whatever you want to call that garbage that took everything from me, was manipulating him from the beginning, since Ben was a child. He knew exactly how to take him from Leia, Han, Luke. And he did, he—“

Rey swallowed the knot in her throat.

“Ren is dead. But Ben still has a chance to live, to make up for what he’s done under the influence of Snoke, Sidious. But I need you to trust me. He hides nothing from me… I… I can feel his every thought. His every breath. I can explain later. But right now, I need a fucking medic.”

Poe and Finn stared at her, weighing everything she’d just said. Finn hung his head, searching the ground for an answer as to what to believe. Poe stepped forward, locking eyes with Rey.

“Falcon. Now.”

“POE—“ Rey started.

“He needs a bacta tank. So let’s go. Follow me back around here.” Poe made his way around the X-wing, following the outside of a cluster of ships toward the Millennium Falcon. He paused as Rey began to follow. “We’ll finish his conversation later. I trust you, Rey. But he needs to answer for his crimes.”

Rey didn’t hesitate. She adjusted her grip on Ben, and followed stride, careful not to alert the notice of the joyous crowd around.

Finn held back for a moment.

BB-8 let out a series of beeps and stalled next to Finn.

“I know, buddy. But I think we’ve got to trust Rey on this one.”

Finn looked over his shoulder. No one had seemed to notice them yet. He spotted Lando, who’d exited the Falcon, sitting with his back to the ship, deep in conversation with Jannah of Kef Bir.

“I feel it too.” Finn snuck away, following close behind toward the Falcon.

Chapter Text

It had been two days of watching Ben float quietly in the bacta tank on the Falcon. A medical droid was tasked with overseeing his care. And during these hours Rey hardly left his side. Poe had sent another medic to tend to her scrapes and cuts and burns. She had a good-sized gash on her forehead, and she let this medic patch her up, never diverting her attention from Ben. She thanked the medic, and sent her away gently at the soonest opportunity. Rey spent hours searching their bond for any signs of communication from him, waiting for movement anywhere she could spot it, sense it.

That first evening, Finn came in to bring Rey some food from the victory feast, and she refused it. She told him she wasn’t hungry, but Finn knew otherwise. He didn’t want to argue with her. He just felt dejected at this point; he didn’t feel right celebrating without her, though Poe had since rejoined the masses, clearly trying to distract himself from the predicament at hand with Rey and Ren. “I can’t believe this, Finn,” Poe had told him when they were retreating from the Flacon, and then, in a gentler tone, said, “I really don’t know what to do next. Most of these people probably don’t even know what Ren’s face looked like under that stupid mask, but this isn’t going to be easy. I didn’t think… to be honest, I didn’t think he could change his mind.”

Rey could just barely make out the muffled sounds of merriment from outside the ship, but she focused on tuning it all out. She was angry—angry that after all that they’d managed to overcome, the life force between them seemed to be failing them. Failing Ben. Failing her.

On the second day, Finn returned to offer her food and company twice. By then Rey was starving, so she took the first meal when he offered it. But when Finn visited around dinnertime, he saw she had only eaten about a third.

“You really should finish it this time,” Finn said, setting the plate on the small round table beside her. She was sitting in a ball holding her knees to her chest. Her energy was intense, strong as ever, but focused entirely on Ben. She looked frail.

“I tried. I just can’t get it all down.” She was anxious by this point; the anger had subsided by that morning, and now she just wanted to hear Ben’s voice again. For a moment Finn just looked at her, noting her tiny form on the bench seat. Rey rested her head on its side against backrest. “I’m tired, Finn. And I’ve had this awful headache.”

“Have you slept at all since yesterday?” Finn asked.

“I drifted off a couple of times. Couldn’t have been for more than an hour or two. The nightmares kept waking me up; I was back on Exegol, Ben bleeding and broken. I thought something was wrong. But each time I woke, no change.” She didn’t take her eyes off the tank while she spoke. “I guess that’s better than being there. Better than waking up and not feeling him at all.” She hardly seemed to be speaking to Finn at all.

“Rey, let me take this shift. It’s getting dark out now. You really should try to get some rest—maybe laying down will help. You must be sore sitting there like that…”

Rey finally looked at him. Her eyes were bloodshot, her eyelids drooping. “I know. I know.” She gazed down at her tensed hands, uncurled her body and stretched her legs out in front of her, stretched her arms out to the sides, leaning her head back and lifting her chest, and Finn could hear her bones crack in relief. “I don’t want him to be alone. I think he can feel me. The first time I slept, I dreamt he was here, next to me. But he just looked at me.” She was staring into space. “I couldn’t touch him, I couldn’t speak, but he was here, and I felt him tell me…” she trailed off, not sure how much to say. Not sure how much Finn wanted to know.

“You’ll be right across the wall. And if what you’ve told me is true, you know you won’t be out of reach. For… Ben.” He hesitated before using that name. Rey noted it instantly, locking eyes with Finn. “And I will be here. Right here. If you need something, I’ll know, and I’ll be right there. And if there’s any change here, you’re the first place I’ll go. Go.”

Rey stalled for a moment and turned to look at Ben one last time. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you, Finn.”

Rey stood and made her way down the short hallway, touched her hand to the back of her neck to play with the hair at the nape.

“You can eat when you get up,” Finn called after her. Rey lifted a hand and lazily flicked it, dismissing his insistence.

Rey turned around the corner to a row of cots built into the wall. The Falcon was a circular maze of small chambers. She traced her other hand along the gray wall, still playing with her hair, reaching out for the feel of Ben on the other side, and she chose a cot closest to him. She stopped and let her forehead fall against the hard surface bracing the top bunk. She closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m here, Rey. I feel you, too. I feel you,” She had heard Ben say in that first, that one good dream, and she played that consolation over, and over in her mind now. I need you here, Ben. I need you. She projected the thought with every ounce of strength left, and then slid into the bottom bunk, leaning back onto the flat pillow, not bothering to pull up the covers or take off her boots. As soon as she let her lids close, she fell back into the black of her mind, into a dream of stars and sea, all whipped together in a peaceful blue-black bath. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

This dream was different. She sank backwards through that starry sea, and landed somewhere on a lush, green planet. She’d never seen this place before, not in her waking life. It was alive, everywhere, alive. She could feel life reverberating through the dirt and up into her legs. She felt strong. She was surrounded by tall brownish-gray cliffs curving around a meadow of which they stood deep in the center. She was watching the crest of waterfalls along the entire curve of the canyon, watching tons of water crashing down into a rocky pool faster than her eyes could follow. And then she saw him. Ben was standing in the distance, 20 feet off, following with his eyes something small, not visible to Rey from where she stood, that chirped gleefully in the tall flowering grasses. Ben was laughing. 

Rey felt her face erupt into a wide smile. Her head didn’t hurt here.

“Ben?” She called out to him loud, and he slowly peeled his eyes away from the small form toppling through the grass at his feet.

Rey took a few slow steps toward him, noticing a small creature on two legs turn and make its wobbly way toward her. The top of its head was still hidden under the cattails and yellow and purple flowers. She looked up again at Ben.

“Ben, what is—“ she felt a gentle, tumbling thud against her knees that stopped her question, and short arms wrapped themselves around the backs of her calves. She brought her attention down to the grass in front of her.

“Ma-ma?” It cooed. The most beautiful creature she had ever seen was staring up at her from between her knees. The small girl’s hair was the darkest shade of brown in the afternoon light, short, and curled up at its ends around her ears. The girl flashed a gummy smile and sunlight bathed her pale, shining face. Her eyes were a cool, pale brown, and her button-sized nose had a fleck of dried mud on it.

Rey just stared. What in the galaxy is… this…

By this point Ben had moved closer to Rey and the tiny figure, who was now rubbing her face into the gap in Rey’s knees.

“She seems hungry to me.” Ben’s deep voice floated down to Rey. He was bowing his head to look at the girl between them. He stood only a step away from Rey, just watching the child.

“Hungry?” Rey asked, watching Ben, waiting for him to look down at her instead. She felt no fear, no pain, no anxiety. She… she felt safe. Safe something like she felt in the in between, with Luke, with Leia. She had the sense that nothing at all was wrong—nothing in the whole world. Nothing in the whole galaxy. She didn’t blink; she only breathed, and followed his gaze back down to the girl.

The child let go of her and plopped herself down, crushing a pile of daisies and digging her small, fat hands into the emerald green grass. She started to tear off chunks toward her little, open mouth.

“Oh, now hold on, honey,” Ben’s tone was so gentle and so certain. He was already on his knees, taking the girl’s hands into his giant ones with a tenderness that was brand new to Rey, but she had the odd sense that she’d seen this all before.

“She’s definitely hungry,” Ben smiled up at Rey, and now it was his face’s turn to reflect the warm rays of the sun overhead. His expression was soft, showing no sign of command or brokenness or fear. He felt it too.

“I… I should feed her?” It came out of her as a question. She still wasn’t sure what was going on here… still didn’t understand.

And then she felt like she was under the weight of the water off in the distance. Felt so struck by the sensation of understanding that it almost knocked her off her feet.

“Oh… Ben,” He was still watching her, with his arms around the girl, a smile still at his lips. And as soon as she said it, she felt a knocking in her chest; she felt a breath come from somewhere outside herself here in this perfect vision, and then it all fell away as fast as light speed. 

Chapter Text

Rey’s eyes flew open to Finn’s face staring down at her in her bed, and the first thing she felt was her stomach churn. She was starving.

“You were out for four hours. I would have let you keep sleeping, but…”

Rey was on her feet in a matter of seconds. She didn’t need another word.

“He’s up?” She said, and Finn was already trailing behind her.

“Well I said I’d wake you. You were out cold…“

“Finn, I—“ she started to tell him about the strange dream that felt nearly as real as the in between had. She had barely turned her head, called loud enough for him to hear the beginning of the thought as she practically slid around the corner into the next room, when she stopped mid-sentence.

Ben was sitting at the table, hunched over the plate of food Finn had left her, shoveling fork-fulls into his mouth. The table appeared so much smaller with him in the seat behind it. It had been at least three days since he’d last eaten a real meal, maybe more. He couldn’t remember, really.

Rey stopped in the door frame, taking in the whole scene, not sure what to say first. She wasn’t sure whether to run to him. Finn nearly ran his teeth into the back of her head she had halted so suddenly.

After a moment, Ben looked up, as if her blinking eyes and heaving breath had been a shout from across the room that snapped him back from some other plane of mind. There was a pause, a pulsing in the room between them. From over Rey’s shoulder, over which he was now peering, Finn sensed such an enormous shift in Ben’s energy that Finn didn’t recognize it. It actually startled him.

“Hey,” Ben’s low voice rasped around a mouthful of food—fitting for vocal cords that hadn’t been used for days, Rey considered. “I’m sorry, I woke up and…” Ben paused.

“It’s Finn,” Finn cut in with an air of displeasure. He sounded like he was trying to prove something. Maybe he was waiting for Ben to prove something, anything, to him. If he’s well enough to inhale Rey’s dinner, he ought to be well enough to know I don’t owe him anything, Finn thought. He felt like testing him now. He also wished he’d thought to put on a shirt.

Ben was wearing a short, white towel around his waist, and had taken off the shirt he’d been in the tank in. He had been wearing a thin layer of clothes while he was floating in recovery. His hair clung together in wet strands that hung around his face, slowly dripping onto his shoulders and chest, which were still covered in a sheen of moisture.

“Finn,” he took a breath, “saw me. It took a second, but he saw—got the medical droid. Not that I needed any help. I… let myself out.” Ben hurried over his words. Finn rolled his eyes; Rey flicked her eyes toward him in annoyance.

“I was,” Ben paused again, now choosing his words carefully. “… hungry. I’m sorry, I hope you don’t mind—I saw this here and couldn’t stop myself, truthfully.”

Rey felt a smile tickle the corners of her mouth. She reached for that tie in the Force, examining him. His heartbeat. He seemed so calm. She could feel his warmth from across the room. To her, his light was bouncing off every surface it could reach.

“Ben,” an air of sleep and visceral relief hung in her voice. “I’m glad you’re awake. You look… a lot better than I left you.” Rey was already clearing the distance. She took a seat beside him. Finn watched her every move now, marking her unflinching attention on Ben. She looked like she was holding something back from him. From them both.

“I feel a whole hell of a lot better,” Ben replied playfully, smirking at her. He hadn’t returned to the food; his focus had shifted solely to Rey, his body repositioned toward her beside him.

“I’m sorry I left you,” Rey said. She looked ashamed.

“She needed sleep bad.” Finn cut in, and Ben looked at him. “She was… she wasn’t sleeping. She was waiting for you. For days,” Finn finished.

Ben studied his face. Finn was so angry; he could feel that anger far sooner than he saw it on his face. Ben didn’t have the slightest idea as to how to fix this. How to even begin with Finn. The traitor. The stolen boy, like so many others. These thoughts rang in Ben’s head with an ache. He’d commanded so many like him without so much a second thought for years. Though he had never admitted it to a soul, it had earnestly surprised him, made him angry when he learned about General Hux and Captan Phasma’s effort to rebuilt the stormtrooper force by recruiting scared children and infants who didn’t know the difference; Snoke was surprised when Ren had challenged him about this. “What about conscription? Imperial sympathizers and cadets—the old way?” Snoke snapped back, “The old way… that is a path to weakness. The Empire put too much faith in this practice. This new plan will restore order and reap unyielding allegiance for the First Order. A new empire. You must let go of this flawed idea.” Weakness, it had been, to call it anything but necessary. Now… now, he felt shame. A new fear crept slowly over Ben. He was locked in gaze with Finn, searching for the right words—any words that could make anything right. Ben doubted those words existed. He had already been so wrong.

“I’m glad she got it, then. It was good of you to let her sleep,” Ben’s reply came out calculated, bitter and cold. His words were held up with a rigid, icy grief. Here in Finn’s quiet rage, Ben was confronted by an old self of which he had only just let go, and Ben didn’t know how to remember this self without hate for it.

Rey sensed something hardening in Ben and stared intently into his eyes, which were lingering on Finn, lost in thought. Dark thought. But she could tell it wasn’t a hatred for Finn, no; it was a morose self-pitying thing.

“Rey, do you want me to grab something else for you to eat?” Finn asked. He was leaning into the room slightly, hands braced on the top of the low, rounded door frame, avoiding Ben’s eyes. He hadn’t dared to venture any farther into the makeshift medical bay now that Ben was up and about as cold as Finn had expected him to be. Don’t know what else I should have expected, he thought to himself.

“That would be great, Finn. Please,” Rey replied, craning her head to face him. Her stomach was in knots—with hunger and with the memory of that dream.

“Well that’s an improvement,” Finn spoke with a twinge of forced levity, turning on his heel. He could sense Ben’s coolness too, and he wasn’t eager to wait around for the other shoe to drop. His words were still hanging in the air a moment later, by which point Finn was halfway down the loading ramp on his way to the cook’s camp.

“So, you weren’t eating either?” Ben asked, and Rey met his eyes. They were alone now.

“I hardly could,” Rey argued. “I don’t know, Ben, it wasn’t easy waiting, wondering whether you were going to be okay. I knew you were still there; I could feel you, always, but it felt like at any moment you could slip further away. You terrified me.”

“I terrified you?” The look in Ben’s eyes was something soft, something gentle and laced with contemplation. Their faces were merely more than a foot apart. “I heard you, you know.”

Rey waited for him to go on.

“I heard you tell me that you needed me,” Ben said, taking her slender hand in his own in that space between their nearly-touching knees.

Rey dropped her gaze, watching him very slowly brush his thumb over the center of her palm. She thought about thanking him, thought about bringing up the events on Exegol; she wondered whether it would break the calm that had settled over them both, and decided against reminding him of any of that now.

“Thank you, Rey,” Ben whispered into the short space between their bodies. She squared her eyes on his, searching them for his meaning. Rey could feel his breath on her neck.

“You never left me—not really. Not once. I don’t know if I ever could have found the strength if it weren’t for your… persistence.” A wry smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. His eyes glinted with threatening tears in the low light of the Falcon. Rey sensed the insistence in his meaning, the certainty.

“I doubt that,” Rey retorted, trying to make her tone light. I need to just say it. I need to just tell him, Rey’s thoughts rang loudly. She wondered if it was stupid to say anything this soon, knew it should be entirely impossible in the first place. Impossible.

Rey almost opened her mouth, but before she could Finn burst in through the doorway carrying a steaming bowl of stew in one hand and a plate of breads and greens in the other.

“OKAY,” Finn’s cheerful announcement cut through the trembling tension between Rey and Ben, and he placed the fresh meal on the table beside them. “Had to ask a half-drunk Bax to put this together, so no telling how good it’ll be.” Bax was an ex-resistance fighter with a bad leg. The resistance had kept him around for his mechanical knowledge and some unexpectedly excellent cooking skills. “Black and Dagger squadrons are up late tonight. When I left, Poe was doing a poor impression of D’Acy.” Finn chuckled to himself and turned to leave without much of a pause. He had an uncomfortable feeling he’d interrupted something and didn’t want to stick around to find out.

Rey called out after Finn, thanking him.

“Yeah!” Rey heard him yell curtly from the other side of the ship. Rey wasted no time, repositioning herself toward the table and reaching for the utensils in unison.

Ben silently watched her put half the plate away in minutes, pause only to take deep gulps of the stew broth, and then return to her piled fork. Once Rey had finished her plate and was working through meaty pieces of the stew at a much slower pace, Ben finally spoke.

“Rey, what were you going to tell me?” His question had little inflection. Rey stopped chewing and set down the bowl.

“What are you talking about…” Rey asked.

“You were debating whether or not to say something to me. I could feel you considering it as loud as you were just tearing apart that zymod.”

Rey noticed Ben’s brow slightly furrow as he said this, and she looked back down at her food. She felt her stomach turning happily; she already felt stronger for having eaten. And something in her felt different—felt like something she’d never imagined she’d know the sensation of. Like she was full of something besides the food, something she couldn’t control. And it scared her.

“Ben…” Ben was watching Rey’s lips tentatively move. She frowned. “Ben, I saw something while I slept.” She turned to face him fully. “Something that doesn’t make any sense, though I believe I understand its meaning now. It was like a dream at first, but then it was like a memory. Even now, it feels like a memory.”

Ben’s expression was serious and somewhat nervous. Now, he felt he had truly no idea what she was about to say. And he was desperately trying to sense it ahead of her admission.

She was going to have to bring it up.

“When you brought me back on Exegol, what did you feel?” Rey’s words came out quieter.

Ben was taken aback at the question for a pause.

“I… I held you in my arms, and I felt the Force rush through me like ice and fire and misty wind. It wasn’t… I had never felt anything quite like it before. I remember thinking only of you. And then you touched my hand, and I opened my eyes to see you looking back at me. I didn’t know if I’d ever… see you do that again.” He trailed off, pale, with a pained expression on his face. He was replaying the memory.

Rey reached up slowly for his face, laying a hand on his cheek. She let it fall back into her lap, not breaking contact with his expectant stare. She took a breath.

“Ben… I think I’m pregnant.”

Chapter Text

Ben stared blankly at Rey for a long time. At first, he wasn’t sure he had heard her right, and in this confusion, he searched their bond, and her being. Listening for the tick of her heart and any other singular beat of life within her. He knew exactly what she had said.

“Rey… is it… is it Finn’s?” Ben stuttered out, his face white, somehow paler than it had been before. As much as he wanted this not to be true, as much as this idea sent needles into his ribs and his throat, he was certain he and Rey had never lied together. No matter how many times he’d thought about it, and no matter that he sensed that same desire in her. So he was left to assume that she’d found the time with somebody else, maybe to stop the fascinations and fantasies he knew they shared.

As soon as he’d asked this question, Rey’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. Her chin bobbed.

“O—oh, no,” She choked out, “no, Ben, Finn and I aren’t like that, we could never be—he’s my very best friend. I’ve never once thought of him as anything more, and we’ve certainly never… been together,” her voice dropped in pitch at that last part, and her gaze shifted away as she absently gripped and rubbed her crossed forearms in a self-soothing fashion. Then she stared back up at him. They still sat very close on the bench seat.

“Ben, I’ve never lain with anyone—ever,” said Rey, as though that settled that. There was nothing more she could say. She still didn’t understand this part, and it’s not exactly like she’d had a moment to confirm these suspicions turned assertions with a medic who could examine her and give her more information. She knew how these things were supposed to happen, how babies are meant to be brought into this world, for Eternals’ sake. She felt completely at a loss of what to make of this.

“Hey,” Ben took hold of her restless hands and grasped them tight enough to pull her attention back to the two of them, “I know. I think I knew; I just… I wanted to hear it from you. Maybe I’m terrible for that. I’m sorry.” He lowered his eyes, looking deep into Rey’s from under his tilted brow. “I’m trying to make sense of it.”

Rey’s expression softened, but she made no attempt at levity.

Their conversation grew still and contemplative. Then Ben continued.

“What did you see in your dream?”

Rey sucked in a breath and started to describe it to him; she told him of the meadow where they both had stood, the way the dream felt more tangible than any dream she’d ever seen, and about the young girl.

“A girl?” Ben asked, cutting in. His voice was dark, but it didn’t frighten her.

Rey was amused. “Yes…” her tone lilted as she slowly answered. She could feel Ben trying with so much of his might not to show her his cards; his expression was surgically attentive.

She continued her retelling of the vision, and Ben watched her without interruption. When she got to the end, he stayed silent for a moment to make sure she was finished. He still held her hands in the gap neither of them had the courage yet to close.

“If I hadn’t felt so strongly that something had changed when I awoke, I might have thought it was just that—a vision of something still outside myself. But… this is happening now, Ben.” The two of them sat there, letting the words hang in the air between them.

Something had happened when Ben healed her on Exegol. Like an excess of the Force combined with their diad in it had done more than heal her—it had created something brand new in the place Ben had touched. Rey came to the conclusion that this was the only explanation. She didn’t need to say this; Ben and her had an understanding. They each felt it as one might feel the hair raise on their arms. The clarity was palpable.

“It was never my intention to do this to you,” Ben had grown cold. Rey sensed his sincerity cast a shadow over the room.

Ben finally let go of her hands, and at the first sensation of his loosening grasp, Rey’s heart sank into her stomach. And then he raised both his hands to her face, lifting it to his.

“Are you okay, Rey?” Ben’s stare was pleading and earnest. Yet his energy felt walled away from her; he was fighting something.

“I…” Rey began to answer, then realized this was a question she hadn’t come around to asking herself. “I haven’t been okay, Ben. I was afraid of who I am, what I was capable of; then when I finished what we started on Exegol, I was afraid of losing you; now I’m afraid of what is coming.” She breathed a few times.

“I don’t know how to do this, Ben.” Their stares were locked. “I’ve never heard of anything like this, but I know what I feel. And I know that when I search this… thing… happening inside of me, I feel you. I know what this is, but I don’t know how to do it. What if this baby isn’t normal?”

Ben surprised Rey, chuckling through his reply, “normal?” His tone was light.

“Rey, what does that even mean?” He said softly. “What could possibly be normal about anything that is ours?”

Ours. Rey’s eyes wide and curious, that of an Alderaan doe.

“I was worried you would be angry, or afraid, and want to leave,” she said. “Or… well, I didn’t know what to expect.”

“Why would you think that?” Ben asked, a hint of a smile lingering on his lips. With his hands still cupping her small face, he traced his thumb across her bottom lip—light as it scaled the corner of her mouth. When he reached the crest of her lip, she felt the weight of his thumb deepen, pulling down on the pink skin, just barely. Rey’s breathing quickened.

“I don’t ever want to have to search for you again, Rey. I want to be exactly where you are,” said Ben, softly, and Rey felt the tightness in his spirit fall away slow, like snow from an endless night sky. Behind it she sensed brazen yearning. It was unbearably hot, like a sun’s rays insisting upon its own heat, bearing down on a thin leaf that clings to the fickle safety of its tree. Rey felt naked in his stare. No one has ever seen me like this, she thought.

“Then, don’t go. Stay. For what’s coming. I don’t want to do this without you. I want to rebuild—with you.” Rey barely moved her lips and let her bottom lip hang, expectantly; she didn’t want to encourage him to take his hand away.

Ben breathed deeply, letting it out as he closed the space between them. Hands still holding her face, lips slightly parted, he put his mouth over hers and kissed her deeply. Rey pressed into him, and she slipped her fingers into his hair, tangling it around her slender fingers, bending them into needy fists. Ben exhaled through his nose as he traced his tongue against her barely exposed bottom teeth, her jaw slack, and she opened her mouth in answer. He let go of her face with one hand and slid it around her waist to the small of her back.

Their mouths, their brushing faces, their hands were moving in a rhythm that extended beyond their bodies. The atmosphere in the Falcon seemed to darken and tense, pulsing, turning into a heavy, urgent thing. Rey brought her left leg up to the seat, tucking her foot beneath her other thigh to lean in closer to him, and wrapped her right around Ben, pressing the inside of her knee against his back. He moved his close hand to the back of her head to grip her better and his two smallest fingers slipped down onto the skin at her nape. Hot air encircled them. Ben’s hand on her back grazed up her side and when he reached the curve of the side of her breast, he stretched his fingers apart, cupping it, and traced his thumb against her hard nipple. Rey moaned breathily, and opened her mouth wide into the kiss.

After a minute had passed, Rey slowly brought her hands down to the sides of his face and let a few centimeters come between their lips. She watched Ben as he took deep, metered breaths. He didn’t take his hand from her chest.

They sat silently in a heavy pause.

“I hate this stupid bench,” Ben said. Rey’s laugh was an airy trill.

“Let’s find another place to hide,” Rey smiled through her reply. She slid out of his possessive grasp and turned, offering him her hand.

Ben looked at her. His gaze flicked to her upturned palm, then back to her shadowy eyes. He stalled as if he’d suddenly changed his mind about the bench.

“What?” Rey tilted her head as she questioned and lifted her brows.

Ben straightened his posture on the seat and cradled his hands in his lap.

“I just want to look at you,” he said. Rey’s heart beat fast.

“You can look at me somewhere more private,” she retorted.

Ben took her hand and stood, towering over her, and stepped forward til he his face hovered inches above hers. He said nothing as he slipped his fingers in between Rey’s.

She turned toward the doorway, and pulled him along through it. He had to bend to avoid crashing into it. As they made for the exit of the Falcon, the top of the loading dock in sight, Rey heard the crunch of twigs breaking against mossy earth, and then the thud of large footsteps on raised metal.

She sensed it in the same moment that Ben’s grip tensed around her hand.

Rey slipped her hand from his, turning her head enough to catch Ben’s figure in her peripheral.

“It’s Poe.”

Chapter Text

“You can’t,” said Finn, rising in a single motion from where he’d sat on his cot. “Not tonight.”

“I have to,” Poe replied without missing a beat. “Thank you,” he ran a hand through hair slick with oil and dirt. A smell of campfire smoke and burning broadleaf bark had come in with him, and it lingered. Poe had burst through the pinned-aside entrance to Finn’s tent not two minutes before, looking for an update on Ren, and sobered fast with the news Finn had been hesitant to share.

Finn wanted to reach him, to touch him, wanted to dance circles across Poe’s palms with his thumbs.

“How long has he been conscious?” asked Poe.

“Maybe twenty minutes. I just got back from bringing Rey some dinner. She’s up with him,” said Poe, rounding down. It had been at least thirty. It hurt his chest to keep things from Poe, and he was poor at it.

“Shit, half an hour? You should have told me as soon as he was out. I need to see him immediately,” Poe said, racing for the opening of the waxed canvas tent.

“Wait, Poe—”

“Don’t start with me, Finn.”

“Poe! Listen to me—give them some time.” He couldn’t say for sure where this was coming from. There was no clarity for Poe in this furnace of a make-shift place to lay his head, only the heat pulsing off the man in front of him in waves. Finn might have recognized the anger in this man, but they were alone, and still Poe was short and cold with him. And though Finn had not yet named it, he’d expected the tenderness Poe seemed to always offer only him, one that Poe wordlessly promised him with his every move. No matter how angry, how afraid, how tired Poe was…

“I know you don’t get it, but what Rey told you is true. I feel it, Poe. Like I can reach out and touch it—the Light isn’t some made-up thing.”

“You’re actually listening to that bantha crap? I’m this close,” Poe said, slicing the air with his thumb and index finger curled into an illustrative C, “—to sending Emerene to take a serious look at her, see if she can figure out what’s going on with Rey. She’s not making any sense.”

“I believe her, Poe. And I’m not saying I like the scughole, or that he should get to walk around like he wasn’t just last week a supreme leader for the First Order. I have questions for him, too, but I don’t see anything wrong with giving them the night to sort their shit out.”

“What, do you understand him, Finn? Huh?” Poe prodded with pointed words and was barrelling through them with too much hot momentum to slow down.

Finn looked as if he’d just been slapped.

“Or is it, Rey? Where do your loyalties lie?”

“To my friends! To Rey, to you!” Finn fought for a word in.

“Clearly you have made a choice between those friends. I just never took for you an imperial lapdog. Guess I was wrong.”

It was like Poe had stolen the air from Finn’s lungs himself.

“Fuck you.” Finn choked out. His face felt hot. He looked away. Finn didn’t want him to see the pain written across his face. “I don’t want to see you.”

“Right now, I don’t care.”

“What is wrong with you?” Finn’s jaw tensed as he asked, and he turned his back to Poe.

“I’m sorry,” Poe said softly, unspecific and too light not to catch the wind.

Finn whirled on him, a delicate look in his eye, the way deep, clear ice creaks and groans on the surface of the rivers running through Hoth’s mountains in the summer time; it will not break, but it will feel as if, at every moment, it is about to.

Then, Finn realized. Poe wasn’t apologizing for what he’d said. He was apologizing for what he needed to do. For keeping Finn around for this.

A gust of humid midnight wind blew the opening to the tent from where it was pinned. Canvas flapped in a quieter breeze.

“I’m… I need you to stay with him after I speak with them. Then I’ll go inform the council of the situation, and I’ll come back and get you. There’s no time to inform them now.” Poe rattled off the plan as though Finn’s heart wasn’t breaking in front of him. And it was his fault. Poe knew it was his fault.

The strong lines on Finn’s forehead wrinkled and collapsed in on themselves. His brow bowed, casting a shadow over his closed eyelids, and he turned his face away from Poe once more.

Dammit. Poe didn’t want to see it, not now, I can’t—because, here, now, there was nothing he could do to pick up the pieces. Poe was more angry at himself now, and that guilt pricked at the corners of his eyes—he needed to confront Ren.

Ren actually deserves it.

They breathed, watching each other from opposite sides of the tent, unable to say anything.

It was Finn who finally spoke.

“Let’s get it done, then.” Finn grazed Poe’s shoulder with his own as he passed him and reached across, pulling the fallen door flap to the side, and paused to face the camp.

Finn waited for Poe to say something that mattered. Anything to stop the bleeding. But it did not come.

“After you,” said Finn.

And Poe brushed by, exiting the tent, careful not to touch Finn’s arm. He wanted to take back those words. Now, Poe could say nothing.

He couldn’t even bear to look back.

And with every step through the camp, every turn around dark tents and grounded ships as Finn followed him, Finn wished he would.

Chapter Text

In the four long, withering seconds it took Rey to drag a path with her eyes back to that seam of the doorway to the boarding ramp, she lingered on a distinct, pine-scented gale as it brushed the soft curve of her jaw, running down her neck and across the slope of her chest. Her skin felt tight as she gauged the emotion in her field of feeling. Poe’s approaching energy chased into the cool air the ends of every hair light enough to defy the gravity of her body. Two were coming.

The thrum of her beating blood blurred her vision as he neared, a pinging with the clang of Poe’s boots on the metal incline in Rey’s recesses of mind.

A long four seconds.

No, no—not yet. I’m not ready. Rey hadn’t finished composing the plan. Her arsenal in the conversation she knew was coming.

Rey wanted to know Ben’s face in this moment. She regretted her neglect to meet his eyes with her warning. She dragged her attention to the curved, weathered-gray wall concealing the figure on the other side.

Poe stepped over the top of the ramp and paused in the light of the ship, followed by Finn. He was surprised to see the pair standing there in the curvature of the hallway, braced for an impact.

“Hey,” Poe absentmindedly ran a hand through his tired black hair. “I heard he was out.” He anxiously flexed his fingers at his side once, twice as he waited for Rey to respond. Rey and Ben hesitated a body length away from Poe and Finn.

Rey watched Poe, mulling over minced words in her mouth, growing steadily aware of her own rigid muscles. Something was wrong; Finn’s expression was stony, his shoulders held tightly as if under the weight of armor. Without searching for it, she felt the tightness in Ben’s spirit spring back into place, furiously reweaving itself. His tower of a shield cast a shadow over her shoulder.

“Finn?”

“Yeah,” said Poe.

Finn said nothing.

Rey hated that. She wanted more time, more control over this inevitability. But she’d expected this, too. Finn had been sharing more with Poe over the last six months—stories, secrets, plates… tents—something Rey was not remiss to. Now, Finn looked uncomfortable, and Rey could sense in him a rejection of whatever Poe was here to do, though it was clear by his demeanor that he would weather this storm regardless.

“What are you doing here, Poe?” Rey pressed in a calculatedly even tone. She also hadn’t missed that Poe had walked in here out of uniform, but he’d arrived with empty cuffs hanging from his hip. Poe took a step forward and straightened. His warm, dark brown eyes dimmed into something colorless, sterile.

“As of now, Kylo Ren is under custody of the New Galactic Republic and awaiting trial for crimes committed in service to the New Order insurgency.” Poe recited the decision made hours ago; he had been glad for it, eager to confront Ben. Now, as he delivered the final blow, Poe felt a cold hollowness where the words left him. “Ren is, as of 19:00 today, to be officially detained upon his recovery, by order of the reformation council for the New Galactic Republic.”

Poe’s eyes never left Rey’s. He’d been expecting her to cut him off, object. She was the one he’d have to convince to comply.

Rey stepped in front of Ben and in the same motion raised a slender arm in a protective gesture, but she said nothing. And by the look of Ben, Poe was correct. Ben made no indication of disagreement.

Ben stood calmly, his head slightly bowed, a seemingly blank look in his eye as he stared toward Poe. He had nothing of himself to collect; he was a statue, composed in his affect. He had accepted this, had considered this already, had been startled to find himself in a bacta tank, surprised at the readiness of the medical droid staff to assist him, surprised to find Finn the one staring back at him through the glass. He’d known this was coming, he just thought he might have more time. More time alone with Rey, more time to deal with everything still unsaid. But here was the swift hand of the victorious, seeking justice and reparation. It occurred to Ben that these demands held not so much an air of vengeance, but an acute bereavement—something undecipherable even to Ben as he retreated within himself.

“Why am I just now hearing of this?” Rey finally spoke into the static space between her and Poe. “Why did the council not inform me of this decision earlier? I would have been present had I known the council was in session—”

“I told the council what you told me. We didn’t need you,” said Poe, cutting her off.

“Didn’t need me?” She spit at him. “How dare you. You knew I had information on the situation which the council is blind to, you—”

“How dare I?” Poe was fuming, his gaze piercing into Rey’s guarded expression. Finn’s eyes darted between them.

“I think we have been more than fair with him. You could have spared him without bringing him here; you should know—better than I—he’s a war criminal. Ren and his troopers murdered my pilots, my people. I mean, gods, the people he had to cut down to get to you, Rey.” Poe’s mouth snapped shut, cutting himself off with those last words. He was about to make a point that may not serve his argument. He was losing focus.

Poe noted Rey’s ghostly, crestfallen face was revealing her distress and her round cheeks beginning to show evidence to anyone who knew her of her refusal to eat or sleep. She remained silent, and her attention had obviously shifted to the cuffs Poe had brazenly brought in on his person. She looked exhausted; she looked impossible to reason with. And Poe didn’t come here to argue.

“I know what he’s done,” Rey’s voice rose from the back of her throat in a growl. “I know what he’s taken. What I’ve lost. And so does he. And I wouldn’t be standing here—you might not be standing here if not for his choices. I need him,” Rey’s last words cracked her voice. She looked away, tired of his painted expression.

Poe’s face twisted in pain at that. His eyebrows knit and unraveled as Rey’s words—you might not be standing here if not for his choices—dissolved in the air and sunk deeper into his thoughts.

He didn’t save me. He sided with the winners when it was convenient for him, no doubt. But is Rey really that thick? Rey reads people better than anyone I know. How could she make a mistake like this?

To the others, Poe studied his boots.

“That’s rich,” Poe broke the silence. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t change this. I can’t unmake this decision because it’s not mine to un-make.”

He paused.

“But I won’t cuff him.”

Rey’s attention snapped back to Poe, expectant.

“—If you can promise me he will remain on this ship. I have permission to confine him to the Falcon for the meantime. Finn will also stay here. I need him on watch for the next fifteen, but I’ll return to relieve him for the night. Council says we aren’t due to ship off world for another two days. Phantom Squadron is making its way back to Ajan Kloss now. We’ll transfer him to our facilities on Coruscant.”

Silence fell again over the group. Rey was livid. She was angry at the council for evading her witness, enraged by Poe’s callousness, angry with herself for not foreseeing this outcome.

She stayed quiet.

“This is what I can do, Rey,” Poe spoke gently into the night air.

The wind is like ice now, thought Rey, indignantly driving a shiver back into her bones with the heat of her anger.

“And this is what I have to do,” Poe finished, and he turned to face Ben.

“Ren, do you understand the charges brought against you?”

“I do,” Ben replied, returning Poe’s eye contact.

“And—” Poe hesitated, realizing as he opened his mouth to speak that Ren’s oath meant nothing to him. But he had a job to finish. “And do I have your word you will remain on this ship?” Ben never broke his stare.

“I give you my word.”

With that, Poe nodded his head once to them both and met each of their eyes. He stepped back, pivoted on a heel, and descended the ramp.

Poe still said nothing. But he stayed where he stood, like a fixture in the hallway of the Falcon.

There, the three of them stood a moment longer, listening to the metal groan under the weight of Poe.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“There must be some part of you that knows this is wrong.”

Rey’s shaking voice rose above the distant creaking song from the forest as she stomped haphazardly after Poe, who was retreating as quickly as he could from the ship. The light bled down from the inside of the Falcon, haunting his peripheral.

“No, what’s wrong is doing heinous things and expecting there won’t be consequences. What’s wrong is asking me to put my friendship with you above my responsibility to the Republic, which, by the way, is proving really fucking difficult to rebuild.” Poe stopped talking and whipped to face Rey eye-to-eye, holding a hand up as if bracing himself against a closed door.

“Why Ren, Rey?” He was pleading in earnest. The ship’s light reflected in his eye. “How can you stand it after Han? And years of running after that. I don’t understand you... or how you could ask me to try.”

Rey inhaled deeply, considering these words.

“I’m tired of running. And I don’t have to anymore,” she replied.

“Poe,” Rey spoke in almost a whisper. “You haven’t seen his soul.”

Poe’s expression changed into a mixture of fractured emotions as he stared back at her with furrowed, jealous confusion. His suspended, pleading hands dropped to his sides and he took a step away. His gaze fell to the forest floor.

“No,” said Poe flatly. “You’re right. I haven’t.”

He left her there.

Rey didn’t follow him.

Chapter Text

Rey heard the low timbre of Ben’s voice before she saw him.

“Why are you helping me?”

Or thought she had. She couldn’t be sure if those words in that order were correct.

Rey froze at the top of the ramp. The talking in the hallway stopped at the same moment.

She stepped around the corner in two paces, facing Ben and Finn, whose posture had completely shifted from what it was when Poe was here, Rey noted. She was searching Finn for clues as to what he was thinking, what had happened between him and Poe before they came in there—clearly, something had. Finn’s energy was guarding something but was communicating something else urgent, pleading and exposed.

“What are you doing?” Rey asked quietly, looking over her shoulder. She hit the control on the command panel next to the ramp, and it began to close back into the ship, affording them a blanket of cover under the whirring of the hydraulics.

He turned his attention from Ben, considering her question.

“We need to move quickly and very quietly.” said Finn, his eyes shifting from Rey’s to Ben’s. “Poe doesn’t know what I’m doing and I want to keep it that way.”

Rey took a step toward him.

“I love you, Rey. You’re one of my best friends. And I trust you. I don’t—” He looked at Ben. He was speaking rapidly in a hushed tone.

“I don’t know how or what happened on Exegol—and just between you and me,” he directed these words at Rey, his gaze following them back to her. “We will be talking about that in detail when we’re out of this mess,” Finn said, gesturing with a firm flat-fingered hand at his waist. His eyes were bright and alert, and grew a shade gentler at his own remark.

“I know the Force,” Finn was speaking to them both, but, really, it was for Ben. Though he did not look at him.

“I trained, too, with Leia. She approached me, asked me if I knew what she was there to ask me,” he chuckled, recollected this moment, pinching his eyebrows together as he spoke.

“I told her that she was far too important to the Resistance and to Rey’s training, and I was busy preparing for the next mission with Black Squadron. But, but she insisted. So I did as she said. Most of what we did was commune with the Force, to be honest, I… I am so glad she did. Since she’s been gone, I’ve… sensed her so strongly. And I had a dream, the night before last.”

Finn turned his feet to Rey, locking eyes with her. It surprised him to find the expectant expression on Rey’s face, wide-eyed, her lips slightly ajar. A look of recognition, of familiarity.

“It was like she was really there. She told me, ‘My son has returned. He—’” Finn paused and closed his eyes to remember the words as precisely as they were spoken.

“‘He will need your help, as will your friend Rey. You will be one of few who can,’” he opened his eyes before her final words, “‘The good in him is greater than the hurt he must confront.’” Finn’s brows and the corners of his mouth slid like layers of earth shifting earth away by their own enormity to reveal something buried, something truer.

“I didn’t understand it at first but I think I’m starting to figure it out.”

Rey went to him in two steps, throwing her arms around Finn’s strong, warm shoulders. She softly laid her head on his chest, and felt Finn curl himself around her lean, small frame, resting his head on top of hers.

“I’m sorry, Finn. I love you, too. Thank you,” she leaned out of his embrace to meet his gaze.

The urgency of the moment dawned on him with an internal ticking. He loosened his arms from around Rey and stepped back.

“Right now we need to get out here. At this point we’ve got seven minutes max to get off this ship.” Finn’s expression had softened, but his tone serious and focused.

“We’re getting off this moon tonight. Right now.” He was already moving to guard the door. “Get what you need and let’s go. I can’t show my face here anymore so I’ve got no choice but to leave too.”

“Finn—you can’t do this then, leave yourself out of it,” Rey cut in. Her heart and her thoughts were racing. She couldn’t watch him do this to himself, separate himself from Poe, ostracize himself among the Resistance.

“I don’t like this, either,” Ben’s deep voice rose from behind Rey and Finn, who stood a meter and a half away from him before each other, bickering.

The pair paused and turned in unison to face Ben, surprised to hear him speak, let alone against a plan to free him.

“I made an oath to Poe that I would stay on this ship. I heard the charges, and they aren’t false. I did irrevocable things, Rey. I deserve to have to face what I’ve done. Leaving will just make things worse…” Ben trailed off.

“Ben, you cannot be serious—people will want you dead. Do you hear me? I can’t, I cannot lose you to your sense of guilt, to your pride. You can’t change the past, but you can have a future. And I’m so tired, Ben, of wondering where you are,” she didn’t care what Finn heard, she forgot his presence entirely as she pleaded.

“Feeling you, hearing you, but not being able to touch you. It’s so loud, it’s so lonely. I’ve never needed anyone. But for some reason, I need you.” Rey’s hand rested on her taught stomach, wrinkling her thin gauzy shirt.

“We need you. You can do nothing from behind a cell. Or worse.”

“Rey, I can’t come with you. I’m the first place Poe will look for him,” said Finn.

Rey just stared at him. Ben’s focus was on Rey, his expression melting into something so foreign to Finn that Finn just stared at Ben with furrowed brows.

And then Finn’s gaze fell back to Rey’s hand, still held flat against her abdomen.

“What?” burst Finn, reactively lowering his volume mid-interjection. The pieces were falling into place.

“You’re pregnant?” Finn reached for his tight curls with both hands, brushing through them with closed fists. “You’re pregnant. How are you pregnant? That’s… that’s insane. When would you even…?” Finn cut himself off, his face flushing.

“Yes,” Rey breathed. “I don’t have time to explain and I hardly understand how myself, and I know it's crazy, so can we please just talk about it later?” her words tumbled from her, breathless and anxious.

The three of them hesitated for a moment before Finn broke the silence.

“I’ve made up my mind. I’m not hanging around here just to lie to Poe, wondering if Rey is safe, hating myself for doing nothing, and I’m not gonna wait for him and everybody else to find out what I’ve done to help you and Rey. And hate me for it later.” Finn looked away before redirecting the conversation once more.

“Go, now, both of you, collect whatever you need that you can carry and then we’re getting out of here. You’ll take Lance and Maddok’s tandem T-65. I’ll explain the situation to them without… explaining the actual situation, so don’t worry about that. I’ll take your T-65B. No use in leaving that thing around so it can be confiscated.”

Finn was referring to Luke’s X-wing, but Rey didn’t contest.

“Always wanted to fly one of those things.” Finn smiled wryly.

“You’re such an idiot,” Rey kissed Finn lightly on the cheek. “And you are brilliant.”

She started down the hall back to the medic bunk, which was on the other side of the medical bay. Ben followed Rey to the bunks and stood behind her.

“Seriously! You guys have two minutes, let’s go!” Finn yelled after them.

Rey had kept the lightsaber Ben had on him during their fight with Sidious, hid it in a drawer below the bunk she’d been using. Well, used once.

“Here,” she said, her back to Ben. She turned around then, and Ben felt her firmly press cold metal into his palm. “You may be needing this now.”

He was looking at Leia’s lightsaber.

“It belongs to you, anyway,” she said, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

“Thanks,” he said softly, turning the saber over in his hand to feel its weight and sway. “You got everything?”

“Yeah,” said Rey, taking a brief visual account of the room before meeting Ben’s eyes again

Ben nodded, and ducked out around the corner, moving toward a drawer, one Rey had never bothered to open, above the refresher. He pulled out a clean, neatly folded pair of dark pants woven of a thick fiber, and an off-white linen shirt.

Rey turned to give him some privacy. Her cheeks felt hot and irritated.

By the time she peaked over her shoulder, Ben had fixed the top four pearl buttons, leaving the peaks of his collarbone exposed, and was adjusting the lightsaber, tucked into the snug waist of his pants against his back.

“Dad used to keep an extra change or two of clothes in here. Figured it was worth checking. I’m practically in sleeping garments. The worst part of being indicted was having to stand around in these.” Ben awkwardly gestured to the white tunic he’d carefully folded and placed back in the trunk. He’d initially pulled it on, without thinking and it being the only clothing item nearby at the time, before leaving the medical bay with Rey—what was now ten, almost fifteen minutes ago.

It was strange, standing in a vision of utter mundanity. So simple and plain and in harmony, and so unobtainable just five days ago. The scene she seemed to be observing from beside herself felt suddenly not so foreign as it conjured a feeling like a memory.

“Thank the Force he forgot about them.” he laughed breathily. “They smell like they haven’t seen the light in ages.”

Rey watched him at that remark, before the urgency of the situation jumpstarted her back into action.

“Well, we might as well grab whatever else is in there,” she said, shoving another change of clothes into the leather rucksack she normally kept in her bunk drawer. Rey’s saber, once Luke’s, hung from her tactical belt.

“We’ll have to get you one of these wherever we’re going,” she said, looking at her belt and then back to Ben as she slung the rucksack over her shoulder.

“Naboo.” Ben said without pause.

Rey stopped and turned the rest of her figure, waiting for an explanation. She’d only ever heard stories of the planet, east of Jakku. As far as she knew, it was just another star from another system in the Mid Rim.

“I used to travel there with my mother when I was young, especially when my dad was away for a long time… It's unlikely people here, even her closest advisors or friends, would know about it. It was my grandmother’s childhood home. My cousins still live there now I think. They will be able to help us, if they’ll speak to me. If not…” Ben’s mind was turning over pages in a drawer of uncategorizable, unwanted, long-forgotten junk.

“Then we figure something else out. But we should be safe on Naboo.”

He crossed the room to Rey and held her face in his hands as though it were delicate as perennial petals.

“But I will follow you wherever you go. You are all that I have,” breathed Ben, slowly tasting each word as he spoke it.

Rey craned her neck and gently pulled his face closer to hers, kissing the corner of his mouth.

Let’s get to the tandem.”

And she disappeared around the bend in the hall. Ben hurried to catch up with her.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“We’ll stay in contact, but I have to keep a safe distance,” said Finn under his breath. He cast a glance over his shoulder.

They’d followed Finn halfway across the base camp to get to it, and found it surrounded by several other crafts of various sizes. Finn would be crossing camp again before taking his own ride out from another group of ships. This plan hinges on drawing as little attention as possible.

Ben and Rey were climbing into the tandem X-wing. Ben released a hand from the small of her back—merely an excuse to touch her—and hoisted himself into the seat in front of her. Morning light would be here in a few hours. They might just make it far enough to evade those that will pursue them at dawn.

By dawn.

“Thank you, Finn. We are in your debt,” said Rey, tucking a stray lock behind her ear.

“No, stop talking. You owe me nothing. Except to get out of here as quickly as you can, and stay alive.” Finn was watching them from under the wing of the ship. He breathed, patted the side twice in good bye, and took a few steps back.

“Now get out of here. Contact me when you get to your destination, and—don’t tell me where you’re going. I don’t want to know yet. Just get out of here.”

Rey’s heart raced. She put on her comms, as did Ben.

Ben nodded to Finn, and Finn returned the gesture. A look of gratitude and understanding passed between the two men.

Glass closed over the cockpit. The sound of the forest disappeared with a popping sound as the air seal locked into place. From inside, Rey watched Finn disappear into the shadowed scattering of ships.

“You ever flown one of these before?” Rey asked over her shoulder, adjusting her helmet.

“Not in a long time,” said Ben, his voice crackling in her earpiece with a mischievous chime.

“And never without my uncle.”

Rey let out a short laugh.

“I hope you find me an easier copilot,” she said playfully.

Ben started up the ship, turned on the dashboard lights with a flick of the back of his finger, and checked his controls.

“Oh, I’ve been looking forward to this.”

Rey fired on the repulsorlifts and lifted the X-wing up over the camp with a turn of her wrist.

Slowly they accelerated away from camp, until they were almost a quarter kilometer into the inky sky.

“I need you on navi,” said Rey.

“Already on it.” Ben was enjoying this. His glee at the present situation almost made her laugh; she felt his joy so strongly by what connected them beyond their bodies.

Rey hit the thrusters, catapulting the X-wing out of the range.

Chapter Text

Finn watched their ship disappear, nose pointed to where the tops of the rainforest trees brush the sky. The air was strange tonight, Finn noted, as a warm gust of wind blew over his face, flecked with misty dirt that pricked his skin. Clouds would cover the moons and the world would be left with only stars to guide it; and then minutes later at most, the light of Ajara’s sister moons seemed to burn away those clouds as they were carried along with the high winds.

Finn found this dance of night light above to be a comfort as he ducked under wings and behind crates of supplies. The moonlight shifted consistently, offering him a sense of time. He wanted to stop by his tent, grab a few things he’d need, and then he would make for Luke’s X-wing.

He was doing his damndest not to think about Poe. The way Poe left things… but every time blackness fell back over the camp, a fear would rise up in him. The idea that he might never see Poe again was an icy fist around his throat. His chest ached.

Finn considered leaving a note. Maybe… maybe that would be enough. He never got his word in. Would have been no use then.

Poe’s never said anything like that before, thought Finn. Not to me. It was like…

Finn spotted the Falcon, twenty meters away. He was nearing his tent.

I wish I could make him understand.

He kept moving.

A sound from the tree line to the right startled him. At the first whisper of movement in the leaves Finn whipped to face it, scanning for diversions from the shadows between broadleafs. Searched for a small light blinking back at him, or the glare of camplight off a tool belt or tactical gear.

Nothing moved. And then Finn saw the long-legged lizard as it leapt from one branch to another, sending them springing a few centimeters back into place with a rustle of leaves. “Pff,” Finn let out a light-hearted breath, laughing at himself in his mind.

I hate the jungle.

Finn crouched as he crept behind a stretch of steel wire repurposed into a clothesline, guarded by a row of drying garments and rags that hung, offering a modicom of protection from notice. Though it seemed he had only glow bugs for an audience. The cloth wall rippled with the wind. Rose had attached it to her tent, he was realizing, as he pulled hard at the end of one of his shirts to find it was clipped firmly to the line. He paused and pinched at the wood-carved fasteners one at a time, slipping his shirt and a pair of his trousers from the bunch. Finn draped them over his arm, looking around to double-check that he was alone. He was indeed.

Ten light-footed steps, and Finn was feeling for the seam of the door to his tent in front of him. The lantern from within seemed to make the tips of his fingers glow as light cracked through the sliver of space between the canvas flaps.

Finn pulled it to the side as little as possible, concerned about letting out any more of the light, as he slipped inside.

“Shit—fuck. Poe.”

Poe was sitting on the cot. His eyes flicked inquisitively to the clothes on his arm.

“You scared the shit out of me.”

Shit. Shit.

“Where is Ren, Finn.” There was no lilt in Poe’s question.

The war had hardened him. Every pronounced place in Poe’s features revealed a sharper, more weathered self. Scars and soft lines of age were a constant reminder of the years spent fighting, flying within a fraction of his still-short life, giving every part of himself to resisting the First Order. He felt older, too.

“I know you have him,” said Poe, low and measured. “I know he’s not on the Falcon right now. Gods, don’t tell me he’s already off-world.”

Finn said nothing. He just stared at Poe, who looked like he was about to explode in volume, bracing his head in his hands, elbows balanced on his spread knees. Poe bent his neck to meet Finn’s gaze. He knew he knew.

“Fuck, Finn, no!” He shot to his feet. “Tell me you didn’t do this!”

Finn was searching his thoughts for a way out of this situation. And wishing, wanting for that chance to have left his goodbye in a letter—on his own terms.

He needed to grab what he could now. He would have to get to the ship eventually, and he should be prepared at any moment, it occurred to him.

Poe was waiting for an answer, torn between rage, fear of what the council would say, and hurt.

How could Finn have done this.

The regime has collapsed. And there are meetings to be had, envoys to coordinate about gathering senators and representatives back to a self-governed consulate, and making contact with sovereign and self-excluded monarchies and clans. Members of the reformation council and Resistance forces are on Coruscant at this very moment, beginning and preparing this process.

And Leia is gone.

Poe reflected as Finn raced around the room.

The Resistance have had several high-ranking First Order leaders in custody since the Battle of Exegol and sent scouts three days ago to monitor the situation in local governments on worlds that supported the regime willingly, and report what they learn back to the reformation council. A great deal of the First Order’s military force and command fell during the battle, and this made for a swift commandeering of the reigns. All things considered, their prospects could be in worse shape, Poe knew that.

But now his closest friend in the galaxy, the only person he found himself looking for in the sea of faces after every mission, every battle, every arrival home against impossible odds—that man… that man had betrayed him.

You did this. His own small voice rang in Poe’s head.

Finn was picking up a faded bag from behind a trunk, shoving the clothes in his hands in and then sliding a few small, unremarkable items scattered across the lid of the trunk into the bag, and zipped it closed. Poe watched him.

“I’m sorry for what I said to you.”

Finn stopped in front of the exit to the tent and turned to face Poe.

“You’re not that man anymore, I know. I never should have…” Poe dropped his gaze to his hands, staring at them as though grief itself had burst from them in spiny vines, as if unable to shake the shame from them. “But how could you let him off this base, Finn?”

Poe pleaded for an answer. His despairing eyes were wandering, lost in a wilderness, and willing to take responsibility for this. He just wanted to stop, to be able to just talk to Finn.

No. Not for my choices. Finn grew hot with anger.

“I didn’t do this because of you, or what you said,” started Finn. “I told you not to do this. And unlike you, I am not so married to my moral superiority.

“So you thought you’d stick to your unique sensibilities?”

“We believe in the same good, Poe. And it’s the same good in Ben. You took a chance on me.”

“This isn’t the same thing!”

“It’s exactly the same thing, Poe! Your commitment to an ideal of government is what blinds you.”

Poe’s brow drooped and his mouth set in a hard line, pressed tightly so not to betray his emotions.

“I helped him because I know his heart. I know his story,” said Finn. “We aren’t the same. But we were both just kids. And yeah, I can sort of understand what it’s like to be a part of something evil that robs you of your own agency. Until it doesn’t. Until it costs too much not to face what you’ve done, and you’re left with no choice but to give up the person you’ve become. So you can become someone you like. Someone worth saving. ”

They stood, breathing hard in a shared silence.

“If I let them keep him here they would have killed him.”

Poe was waiting for him to finish before giving his response, which sat perched on the tip of his tongue. He hesitated, and then said the only true thing he could think to say.

“What he does or does not deserve is not for you alone to decide.” He looked away.

An impasse.

Finn laid his straight on the board between them, a game played in glances and mannerisms, in intimate pieces of the soul each collected like seashells through stolen laughter, late evenings, shared losses.

“You would have fought for me.”

This brought Poe’s eyes up to meet Finn’s, but he said nothing.

Finn continued.

“How could you ask me to do this to Rey? How… how could you expect me to do anything less than what I’ve done?”

Tears were threatening to spill over Poe’s waterline. His bloodshot eyes revealed him. Poe’s breath caught in his throat and he pressed a hand over his mouth. He clutched a handful of hair in the other, tightening his fist. Closing his eyes, he breathed through his nose.

“Finn, I—”

“I am in love with you, Poe.”

The words tumbled from him. There was no backsliding now.

Poe’s hands fell to his sides. His eyes opened wide in surprise. He was afraid to make a sound.

“And when you’re the man that made me love him, you are kind, and you are perceptive. You are funny and quick. You are…” Finn slowly closed the space between them as he chose his words.

“Strong.” Finn placed his hand lightly in the center of Poe’s chest. It started in retreat suddenly, and then hovered there millimeters away. He was so close Finn could smell mead on his sweet breath. He wanted to withhold the point—let it hang in time and space just to have this moment just a minute longer.

Fuck.

Finn felt the suffocating weight of another stone on his chest.

“You never made me feel small or invisible or unforgivable, not once—until tonight.”

A shadow passed over Poe’s eyes.

Inside himself, Poe was falling backward. Color drained from this moment. It felt darker inside the tent now, like the light had flown out. Regret gnashed at his heart.

Now was Finn’s chance. He had to say something to make him stay. To stop him from following.

He wasn’t sure he could.

“I would stay, you know. To work this out,” Finn took a step back. “But I know you can’t protect me from my decisions. So, please, just let me leave.”

“Finn, please don’t just—we can work this out here. Please! I—”

Poe was moving toward him, reaching for him.

“No,” Finn put up his hands. The touch of him would only break any resolve he’d barely manage to scrounge up. “You made your choice, I made mine. If you do one thing for me now… let me go.”

Finn paused, and before turning away, let his gaze fall over Poe’s crippled posture, stopping on his face to drink it in one last time.

“When will I… will I see you again?”

A small voice within Finn fought for release. He swallowed it, and turned.

“That depends on what you decide gets to be up to you.”

Bag in hand, he left the tent.

Five paces from it, Finn stopped to look over his shoulder. No movement. No familiar shape of Poe standing in the opening, waiting for him to change his mind. He hadn’t even made a sound. There was no sign of him. Just the sound of the wind whipping the sides of tents.

Finn took off again for the X-wing.

Now he lifted the levies. His tears were hot and everywhere. They stung his chapped lips as they rolled down his cheeks.

He didn’t stop walking, trudging with blurred vision between the young broadleafs hiding the ship.

It was past time to be gone.

Chapter Text

For the first couple of days, conversation in the X-wing stuck to the occasional navigational update, monitoring the ship, and possible dinner options.

Mm. Still surprising. The thought crept back into Ben’s thoughts every few hours… and then he came to expect it—this quiet focus. He had attempted to broach the topic of his cousins on Naboo. Really, Pooja had been like an aunt to Ben. He’d missed them—Pooja’s kids. He’d grown up thinking of them as cousins. But he couldn’t be sure any of them missed him.

He wasn’t offended. He understood the severity of the situation he and Rey were both in, that they weren’t in the clear yet, that maybe there’s no place she could go before that would be safe for her now. He had done this. It was because of him, his past choices, that she was running from her friends. And as for his cousins—his cousins must know what happened to him, what he’d become. How could he be—offended. Now, he had all the time in this endless galaxy to feel guilty about it if he wanted to. I can’t just go back—I don’t even know who I was then, before the First Order. If I could just have stopped the temple from burning, or Tai from dying. Maybe if… if I had helped the girl. The corners of his eyes stung.

I can’t fucking undo it. How do I live with this? How do I get to go on disappearing, acting like some nobody, some ineffectual, innocent guy? Ben was staring at the stars flashing in streaks past his head, wisping off into their wake as if beckoning him to an answer lost in space and time.

But his thoughts came back to Rey, and he could swear he could feel her breath like he heard it. Suddenly he felt that wincing twinge of selfishness. Rey had given all of that up for him. For him? Why. He knew what she felt—that stomach-deep, mind-splitting, gravitationally charged pull in every moment spent apart, and the cavernous awareness of her absence. And the aching exhilaration of her nearness. But that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough then, when Ben refused to take her hand, and it wouldn’t have been enough now. That wasn’t it, and Ben knew it.

His more recent choices had also changed everything. She still deigned to hope before, just as she did now. She was trusting him with her life.

“I think we should stop pretty soon for the night,” Rey’s voice chimed from behind him, interrupting his rumination. “I heard there’s a port city on Soika, if you’re interested?”

They had agreed to stop pretty much only to sleep, but that didn’t exclude a proper meal before bed.

“That sounds good to me.” All Ben could think about now that she’d mentioned it was stretching his legs. They’d been in the X-wing for hours.

“I’m buying tonight,” Rey said, with an obvious smirk behind her voice. Ben’s gruffed reply was quick.

“You don’t have to do that. I don’t feel right about you doing that.”

“Why not?” Rey demanded.

“Well, I—” Ben swallowed. “I don’t think it’s fair. I’m the reason we’re in this mess anyway.”

There was a long pause before anyone spoke.

“Ben, I’m doing this with you, not for you. I’m here because I want to be. Because I’m not leaving you now.”

She heard him shift in his seat and, a moment later, felt a warm brush of lingering fingertips on the space just above her elbow.

“Okay,” Ben placated, “We’ll switch off then.” He pulled his arm back around and relieved his other hand of duty at the controls.

Rey detected a sort of release in him and didn’t wish to push it. Switch off. Pff. She’d see about that.

Twenty minutes later they had descended on Atlas’ landing, a high, flat point that jutted out off the cliffscape, overlooking the city. To the west was a metallic sprawl of a small city, a barren and pale, rocky desert plane visible just before the horizon line. The planet’s last sun was just about to set.

“What would you say if I told you I really think we should get rid of this, actually?” Rey turned, squinting at the sunset behind Ben. She pulled both hands out of the thruster access panel and wiped them off on the backside of her canvas pants. Ben watched her for a pause, and opened his mouth to tell her that, honestly, that idea doesn’t entirely surprise him. Rey continued before he could speak.

“It’s just that, we’re currently flying a ship that isn’t registered to us and that—for all we know,” she shot Ben a look, “they know exactly what’s going on and which wing we took. Finn was only ever going to be able to stall for so long. So, let’s assume they know everything except for where we are going. We need to cover every possible track. PLUS,” Rey paused. “I would really appreciate having a refresher on board. It would save us time and… grief.”

She paused at that for a moment, eyebrows peaked and lips set in a tight line, and refocused on Ben’s attentive stare. He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off again.

“AND there’s the fact that this craft is severely in need of repairs and I don’t have the patience and we don’t have the time for it. So, there’s that.” She huffed out a short, finalizing breath.

“I agree with you.”

Rey’s expression relaxed but eyes flashed, puzzled.

“I think we should see what we can find. Even if the pickings are slim, I have a feeling this place has something that will work.” The corner of Ben’s mouth pinched playfully.

“All right.” Rey smiled wide in return and rested her hands by the backs of her knuckles on her hips. “That’s—that’s great. Let’s find something to eat first, yeah?” Rey slid a few stray strands of hair away from her forehead with the heel of her palm. “See what we can find in the morning?” Turning her back to Ben, she closed up the panel and hoisted herself up to secure the hatch door.

“It’s a good plan. And yeah, I’m starving. Dinner first.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“So you’re saying you really never thought about it?” Ben was smiling brightly, eyelids narrowed slightly in study at Rey from across a short table attached to the diner wall. The booths here were tall, which was hard to mind considering their pending legal status.

“The sand rats? Hmm, no. Not really, honestly.” She took a swig of ale and set the mug back on the table. She looked up from it, her hands curled around its circular base, and as soon as she met his confused, somewhat horrified face, she snorted, choking on ale as she fought not to laugh.

Ben had burst into laughter so loudly as Rey scrambled to cover her nose with one hand and reached for a cloth from the pile against the wall with the other that the shock of it made her jump. She’d never heard him laugh like that before.

She was chuckling with him, embarrassed but pleased to see him so amused, so happy and uninhibited by the next thought, and after a minute or so had passed, the quiet began to set in again. Ben’s expression remained gentle and curious. Rey felt an even lightness firmly spread between them, around them. She cleared her throat.

“They weren’t all bad! Ahh, I don’t know. They were sort of…” Rey trailed off for a moment, and her focus floated absently to the backs of the heads of the people lined up along the bar behind Ben.

“They were kind of a strange comfort sometimes. Little nuisances other times, sure, but… a familiarity, still,” she finished and dropped her gaze to her mug. She took a deep drink.

Ben looked like he felt sort of bad for laughing now.

“I can understand that,” Ben had said. He looked to Rey as if he wanted more to say. ‘I wish I could do anything to change how alone you were for so long’ looked so written across his face, she didn’t speak for what felt like a very long time. Though, it was probably only several breaths. She just lingered on that look.

She uncrossed her legs below the table and straightened her back out, fixing her posture.

“It doesn’t matter now. I don’t ever want to see that place again. There’s—”

Under the table, she felt the side of her knee press into what felt like the inside of Ben’s lower thigh. The moment she recognized the sensation for what it was their legs were inches apart, like two positive magnets encountering one another. Fuck, that table was short, Rey thought, as she recalled how her face had surely flushed. Stammering, she had replied.

“SORRY,” her breath hitched in her throat.

Ben laughed, apologizing too, and then assured her, “it’s all right, it’s—it’s all right.” His voice was quiet, soft, like he didn’t want to distract her, like he was waiting for her to continue what she was saying.

“There—umm, there hasn’t been anything there for me in… well, in the whole of my life,” Rey just looked at him after that, blinking and thinking she could almost feel the heat of the memory of that sand-covered, solitudinous wasteland while she waited for his reply.

“You won’t ever have to go back there,” Ben leaned in before continuing. “And I promise you, that where we’re going is nothing like Jakku.” He reached for her face then. The warmth of his palm nearly sent a shiver through her.

Nothing like Jakku. Rey replayed that part.

They paid for their dinner. Ben made no protest when Rey covered the bill. He just sat there, visibly uncomfortable with the ordeal.

The silver-skinned, violet-eyed Soikan woman waiting their table, her inky black hair pulled back into a tight bun, had recommended an inn around the corner from the diner. Said she’d stayed there herself a couple of times when she was younger. “Lovely little rooms for a pretty reasonable price,” she said, “especially since the last owners sold it.” Said she couldn’t believe it when her neighbor told her she’d bought the place. “Great family. The motel across the street though with the green neon sign out front? No good, don’t bother. They’ll overcharge ye. We don’t get too many travelers these days though, mostly domestic and some regional Mid-Rim freighter pilots and merchants. To be expected, ye know?”

They had thanked her profusely at her first pause—she eventually did have to breathe—and they hurried on their way.

“Two rooms, please.” Ben had handled their overnight accommodations the same way the night before. He hadn’t asked, and it never came up. He just asked for two rooms, handed Rey her key as soon as they were finished at the front desk, and he said goodnight. This had confused her the night before. But then, they had just wrapped up a 13-hour stretch on almost no sleep the night they’d fled base. She’d pondered this that afternoon, flying silently for hours. Now, why not share? Or at least discuss it? She felt like she’d needed to crawl inside him just days ago on the Falcon, wanted to breathe him inside her on that passenger bench in the medical bay. Had something changed? She’d feel a lot better being closer to him… after all, what if something went wrong? What if she woke up and couldn’t find him? Now she was standing in the lobby, Ben towering before her half a meter away, holding out her key for her to take. The overhead light in the lobby cast his shadow over the both of them. She wanted to disappear in it.

“Rey?” Ben looked confused, and he did look tired, Rey had thought.

Rey took the key from him and closed her fist tightly around the cold, jagged metal. She looked at her feet, and then back up at Ben.

“Yeah.” Rey started toward the single elevator.

Like last night, their rooms were doors apart, and the realization did momentarily loosen the knot in her stomach.

“Well, I’m going to go to bed. The earlier we can get out of here the better, and I’d bet you’re exhausted.” Ben had stopped in front of his door and turned to face Rey. He took her hand in his and stroked the ridges of her small knuckles with his thumb. Like last night, he leaned down and kissed her once. And like last night, it was a quick, timid brush of something like the beat of eyelashes on her cheek—something her mother used to do—and then he was gone, tall and far away and turning away from her again.

He had opened his door and was standing in the doorway.

“Good night, Rey.” Ben was watching her. Was he stalling for something? Rey couldn’t tell. He started again.

“If you need anything…”

“Yeah. I’m fine. I’ll be fine,” replied Rey, nodding her head almost as if to reassure herself. She turned to retreat to her own room. Five paces down the hall, she heard him close his door behind her.

But here she was, untangling the memories, watching the way the first sun’s rays made the thin blue curtains in Ben’s room glow. She clutched the bed sheets in her hand, pulled them up to her shoulders and turned to face him. Beside her, Ben snored lightly, an arm tucked under the pillow behind his head. The sheets had fallen from his chest, exposing his freckled bone-white skin down to his midriff. Rey wanted to touch him, to slide closer, but for now she was just going to study him like this. In this shimmery sliver of peace, in this room that was theirs for just a few more hours, she continued playing over in her mind the events of the night before, dimly lit in memory.

Rey had gone into her room, taken off her belt and unwrapped her top. From the small bag she carried with her she pulled out a thin pair of pants to sleep in, and laid them out on the bed in front of her. At the small sink and mirror beside the bed, she washed her face and her mouth and took out her braids.

WHY didn’t I say anything? Twisting her fingers through her knotted hair, thoughts of Ben crept around every corner, every curve, every edge of her mind.

I just don’t understand it.

Rey went to the bed and slipped out of her working pants, kicking them to the side as she picked up and stepped into gauzy fabric.

She laid in bed for about an hour. Then she got up, paced the room, climbed back into bed and closed her eyes, and laid there for another 40 minutes before getting up and repeating the process again, and again. Ben should have been out cold by then, Rey knew that. It had been almost three hours since he’d left her in the hallway when she decided she was getting absolutely no sleep in this stuffy, odorous room.

Abruptly, she stopped her pacing and looked at the door in hesitation. To Rey in that moment, this dark, empty room was going to swallow her if she didn’t get out of it. Immediately.

Rey lunged for the room key on her nightstand, and strode around the end of the bed and out of the room, leaving her things behind. The door clicked shut behind her.

Before she could fully process what all she was doing or why, and forgoing all consideration of what she would do if Ben simply did not come to the door, if he slept right through her knocking, Rey was standing at the other end of the hallway, fist raised to knock. His door swung open before she could.

His head slightly bowed, Ben looked down at her, dark bags under his eyes, his lids drooping with lethargy. Still, to Rey the hallway light revealed a rush of intensity in his redwood brown eyes. A thin sheen of sweat glinted off his collarbones. He’d answered the door in just a loose-fitted pair of off-white shorts. He was like a ghost, manifested inches before her from the blackness of his unlit room.

“Come inside,” was all he said.

Rey followed him in, and he gently closed the door behind her.

“Why did you put me in another room, Ben?” She had already crossed half the room and was standing near the foot of the bed, arms crossed, feet firmly planted.

“Rey, I didn’t mean to offend you. I—”

“You think I want to be apart from you right now? While the Republic is out looking for us? I can’t sleep, Ben. I’ve been up for hours just trying to figure out why you held me like that as soon as you had me alone, and now you won’t touch me.”

“Rey, I’m sorry I didn’t ask you,” Ben stepped closer to her, hands raised as he spoke with them. Rey held her ground.

“I’ve been laying here wanting to touch you for hours.” Something heated and desperate flashed in his eyes.

“But I won’t invite myself into your bed.”

Rey’s expression faltered. Her stare softened.

Ben closed the remaining distance between them, sliding his hands along Rey’s jaw and cupping her face. He bowed to rest his face against hers for a moment. The crest of his nose brushed against that secret, untouched place below her earlobe, and Rey closed her eyes to the sound of his breath in her ear, something like the sound of distant wind rushing over miles of sea.

“Can I stay here?” Rey whispered. “I just need to sleep.”

Ben’s hands found her waist and pulled her body to his. Rey wrapped her arms around him and pressed her palms against his back between his shoulders.

“Yes,” Ben breathed. “Let’s get some sleep.”

Ben slid his arms from around her and retreated to the side of the bed closest to the door, pulling back the covers and sliding his body between the sheets. He looked back at Rey, who was still standing at the foot of the bed. Ben pulled back the still-crisp covers in front of him and put his hand on the mattress.

“Please,” Ben dropped his elbow and fell back onto his pillow, winding an arm around it. With his other arm draped across his navel, he smiled at her, and closed his eyes.

Rey rolled her eyes and smiled wryly. She said nothing as she climbed into bed.

The last thing she remembered was the feel of him lifting and pulling her closer to him. She had fallen asleep with her back pressed to his chest, counting his breaths.

She couldn’t recall ever waking up.

Rey combed her fingers through her hair, spreading them to pull apart the loose knots. And it occurred to her that she’d slept through the night for the first time in weeks.

She turned again to the glowing curtains, now approaching a deep cornflower blue hue.

Morning was catching, and it would be time to go and find a replacement ship soon.

Rey climbed out of bed, careful not to wake Ben. She took the key to her room from the nightstand, and tiptoed toward the door.

“Don’t go,” Ben’s voice cracked quietly, stopping her from turning the handle.

She turned her head to face him, and smiled.

“We’ve got a long day. I’m going to go collect my things from my room. And YOU should probably get up.”

Ben groaned and turned over in bed, bringing the pillow with him to bury his head.

Rey chuckled through her words.

“I’ll let you buy us breakfast if you can beat me to the front desk.”

She caught a glimpse of Ben throwing off the covers and running his hands through his messy waves of hair as she closed the door behind her.