Chapter Text
“Thank you so much,” Rey says graciously to Lieutenant Connix as she motions her toward her new living quarters.
“It’s my pleasure. Let me know if you need anything, there’s some extra sheets in the closet.” Connix left Rey to herself, allowing her to get aquatinted with her new space.
Rey crosses over the sliding doorway into her room in the underground tunnels below Cloud City. When they had landed, the Resistance was fortunate enough to find the remaining occupants of the planet to be sympathetic to their rebellion cause and welcomed them with open arms. Lando Calrissian was a kind leader, but had faced death by blaster fire for attempting to overthrow the First Order commanders that had taken over the city. Luckily, the First Order no longer occupied the planet and had moved their base elsewhere, leaving the Resistance with a perfect secret base location below the protective layer of hazy gas clouds.
Rey undresses into her bedclothes and finds the sheets in the closet to make her bed. She had had a rough day of merely staring at the two pieces of Luke’s lightsaber, willing it to fix itself to no avail. After giving up, Rey made her way to the training compound, accompanied by her trusty quarterstaff and sparred with Finn for a few hours. They had been productive; Rey feels the tense ache of her muscles as she collapses onto the stiff mattress. She throws the small pillow onto the floor in annoyance; she never had such a luxury before in all her years on Jakku. While she was thankful for the kindness of the Resistance, Rey had grown too accustomed to sleeping on a hard surface in her old AT-AT.
Just as she’s starting to doze off, Rey bolts upright in her bed, goose bumps raising the hair on her forearms. Something was very wrong. Her eyes scour the room frantically. Instantly, shock takes over, as she finds herself no longer in her tiny quarters.
Rey looks around the unfamiliar room with all black interiors. There is very minimal décor, a desk, a single chair and a large bed. Wrapped up in the sheets of the bed is none other than Kylo Ren.
He’s shaking violently, his body covered in a cold sweat. His eyelids were quivering as he let out little gasps, rising in volume, clearly out of complete and utter terror.
Rey’s instincts take over. She moves over to the bed as quickly as she can.
“Ben? Ben wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP!” She pleads desperately, kneeling over him and shaking his shoulders vigorously.
He wakes with a loud gasp, sitting upright and almost knocking Rey off of the bed. His entire body still shakes in panic, his breathing uneven. Rey runs both of her hands up his arms to rest on his shoulders, forcing him to recognize her. As much as she doesn't want to focus on the fact, her mind keeps circling back to the fact that he isn't wearing a shirt.
He won’t calm down and instead stares straight at her, his face as pale as the snow that had blanketed Starkiller Base. She takes ahold of one of his hands, still clammy with sweat and places it on her chest over her heart.
“This is real, I’m real. It’s only us here, you’re safe.”
She repeats the mantra a second time, then a third before deciding that Ben’s heart rate has returned to a normal rhythm.
She carefully removes his large hand from her chest, a heat claiming her cheeks as she realized how close in proximity the two of them are.
Rey reaches out gently to wipe his damp hair out of his eyes, his brown meeting her hazel. She cups his cheek with one hand, running her forefinger along his jaw.
“You had a nightmare,” she said simply.
He’s frozen, her statement sinking in. It is almost as if he hasn’t realized she was touching him this intimately.
“Rey, I…” Ben croaked.
“You don’t have to explain,” she murmurs.
There’s a pause as Rey ran her hand through his impossibly soft hair.
“It was about Snoke,” Ben admits. “Since I killed him, he’s been in my nightmares even more frequently now. It always starts the same: He has my mother, torturing her into insanity and then he kills her.”
His voice cracks on the word “kill.” He gulps, allowing his lungs to fill with air while avoiding Rey’s gaze which now shines with unshed tears.
“Now it’s not just my mother… he has you too. Forcing you to your knees next to my mother’s dead body as he repeats his torture.”
Rey stares at him. She digests his words as she moves closer to him on the bed. “Ben. None of it was real. Snoke is dead. We’re safe.”
He shakes his head to disagree wanting to believe her, his dark eyes growing heavy with sleep and he tries to suppress a yawn.
“Will you stay?” It’s nearly a whisper. Rey hesitates considering that she might have imagined his request.
Ben’s head falls back against the pillow as Rey watches him. She breathes out a long sigh letting herself give into his offer as she lays her head on the cool pillow next to his her body lying neatly against him on top of the covers.
She watches him eventually nod off, his chest rising and falling steadily. He unconsciously nestles his face into her hair sending a warm flutter into Rey’s heart. She peers up to examine his jaw where a light smattering of dark stubble had begun to grow. As she counts the moles and freckles on his face, Rey thinks to herself, amazed:
How in the entire galaxy is this scared, fragile man the Supreme Leader of the First Order?