Work Text:
"Mrs. Dameron?” Rey startled where she was standing at the window, staring out onto the sweeping grounds at Yavin. She wondered for just how long Martha had been calling her name - her new one, the one she had yet to grow accustomed to.
“Yes, Martha?” She smiled at the girl, who adjusted her apron carefully.
“It’s the master, ma’am. He’d like to see you in the front drawing room.”
“Oh.” Rey nodded and bowed her head. “I see.” Martha bowed and turned to leave, but in a fit of nerves, Rey spoke yet again. “Martha–”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“The master…did he seem…cross?” It would be very unlike Captain Dameron to be cross; he was perhaps one of the most genial people Rey had ever been acquainted with. To be fair, they were a good deal more than acquainted with each other, as they were three weeks into their marriage.
“No, ma’am.” Martha smiled, a small twitch of the lips, but a smile nonetheless. “No, I - it is not my place, ma’am, but I believe you’ll be quite pleased with him.”
“Oh?” Rey arched her brow and smoothed out her dress. “Well then. Thank you, Martha.” The girl did bow and hurry away, and Rey sighed at that. She would have liked to have talk with the servant girl a little while longer, as it was not so long ago that their stations would have been equal. Not even four years ago had she been taken in by Mr. Skywalker as his ward; she had been elevated from destitution almost overnight, but after the death of Mrs. Mara and the unpleasant rumors that arose from a man in his fifties keeping on a girl not yet one and twenty, they were required to seek placement for Rey elsewhere.
At the time, when Mr. Skywalker had mentioned it, phrased it in that way so very delicately over breakfast, she had thought he meant as a governess.
The next day, a Mr. Armitage Hux had appeared at tea, and Rey realized Mr. Skywalker meant something very different indeed.
Compared to all the painted ponies and complete and total crabapples that Mr. Skywalker had trotted out for her, Captain Dameron was undeniably the most suitable match. And, Rey mused as she walked down the hallway towards the front drawing room, Captain Dameron would be the best match in any gathering. A handsome military man freshly retired after a decade and a half at sea, Captain Poe Dameron turned heads wherever he went, had the easiest disposition Rey had ever come across - and that was even when considered next to Mr. Skywalker’s brother by marriage, Mr. Solo - and was exceedingly gentle, for all his famed ferocity aboard his ship.
In fact, he was so gentle with her, Rey was beginning to fear he did not want to be married to her at all; he hadn’t so much as kissed her since their wedding day. When they retired for the night after their ceremony, Poe had kissed her hand delicately, stroked her hair as softly as a butterfly’s wing, and wished her a good night. That was the most physical intimacy they had experienced, and after Mrs. Solo had been so careful to explain to her the workings and expectations of a married woman, Rey fretted that she had done something to make Captain Dameron very displeased, indeed.
Rey reached the drawing room and smoothed out her dress one last time and patted her hair carefully, making sure it was pinned just so. Captain Dameron had never expressed any kind of preference regarding her hair, so she simply kept it in the current fashion - a strange regret thudded in her stomach at the notion that her own husband had never seen her hair down, but Rey tucked it away and knocked on the door delicately.
“Captain?” She said in a low tone, when there was no answer. “You called for me?”
“Come in!” Poe called back, much louder than she would have dared spoken indoors. Mr. Skywalker’s etiquette lessons, delivered by his own mother’s old butler, had been quite stern in breaking her of her wild habits. Rey pushed the door open and walked in.
The moment she saw the entirety of the room, she gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. For a full half-minute, she did not speak, rendered speechless by the surprise.
Captain Dameron stood in his waistcoat, looking very handsome indeed, and all the more handsome for the broad smile on his face; and what was also remarkable was the equally handsome pianoforte he stood next to. Rey had never seen such a fine instrument - the one she had learned to play on had been Mrs. Padme Skywalker’s, and had been several decades old - and she had not had the occasion to play on one since coming to Yavin.
“Oh,” she gasped, once she had found her voice. “Captain Dameron - is this -”
“It is for you,” he said, his smile faltering slightly. Rey realized that her husband looked quite…nervous. She had rarely seen the expression on his face, and in fact, the one time she could recall such a nervous countenance had been when he lifted her veil in the ceremony. He cleared his throat and continued with a heightened tone of confidence. “Tell me, does it please you Mrs. Dameron?”
Her feet stumbled over each other in their haste to cross the room to the pianoforte, and Rey ran an admiring hand over the smooth wood, the whisper of her gown’s sleeve over the instrument undeniable. “Aye,” she whispered before correcting herself. “I mean - yes, yes it please me greatly.” She ran her hand along the keys, not pressing down, not daring to make uninvited noise, and she felt the heat of a blush fill her cheeks as she studied Captain Dameron’s gift to her. “It is too much,” she concluded, raising her eyes to his face with great anxiety. “You - you are too kind to me, Captain.”
His smile was gone, but his expression was no less affectionate as he gazed at her. “No, I do not believe so,” he countered. “I think it is just adequate.”
“May I ask what the occasion is?” Rey inquired. “If I am in fact deserving of such a gift?”
“The occasion is you are my wife, and I can think of no special occasion required for me to enjoy spoiling my wife.” The captain rested his elbow on the instrument’s lid and smiled at her, wide and teasing, and Rey found herself returning the smile, showing her teeth, the precise opposite of how she was trained. Rather than disgust him, though, her easy show of happiness merely increased the joy on her husband’s face.
She continued to stroke along the black and white keys with amazement, and she only looked up when Captain Dameron spoke again. “In honesty,” he said in a low voice, diverting her attention, “I - I do not know much of women, I fear.” She stared at him in shock; it was a forthright declaration, and one she would not have expected from the charming man; after all, more than one girl had expressed their jealousy to Rey after her engagement was announced two months prior. “I spent six and ten years at sea, my darling wife, and -” he laughed nervously, attempting to draw himself up to a straighter posture. “- And as good of men as my crew were, it was perhaps not the best environment to study how to please wives.”
Rey laughed, brightly, before she could stop herself. She covered her mouth with her hand, mildly horrified at the loud noise she’d created, but Captain Dameron shook his head earnestly. “No, please, I beg you - do not hide your laughter from me.” His lips twitched again, and he took a step towards her; Rey dropped her hands to her front once more and clasped them together. “Could you - would you perhaps tell me what I did to earn such a beautiful noise?”
She blushed and looked down, her cheeks full warm now. “It was amusing, sir, to hear you say that you bought this,” she gestured at the pianoforte, “incredible gift merely because you wished to please me.” She lifted her eyes to her husband’s face and switched to a more teasing voice. “Most husbands would have started with flowers, if they wished to give their wife a gift.”
Captain Dameron laughed ruefully and nodded, and Rey smiled more, pleased that she had not angered him with her cheek. “I suppose that is true,” he acknowledged. “But I am not most husbands, and you are not most wives.” He coughed slightly and indicated the small bench set out in front of the instrument, a lovely little seat in a matching colour. “Would you please play something? Would it be too much to ask?”
“No, Captain,” Rey assured him, settling down on the seat and spreading the skirts of her dress carefully. “It would not. Do you have any requests?”
“The air you played the night we first met,” Captain Dameron said softly. She gazed at him in surprise, and saw that he was studying the pianoforte’s lid most diligently. “At the ball, when the ladies were exhibiting. You were - it was enchanting, the way you played. As though there were nothing in this galaxy but you and the music you created.”
“You do me a great honor, sir,” Rey said softly, setting her hands on the keys. “But I shall do my best, if only to please you as much as you have pleased me.” She began to play the tune, a spritely and energetic air that was a personal favourite of her own.
“You always please me,” Captain Dameron said so quietly, it was almost entirely covered by the music. She blushed all the more, but continued to play, and when the last note had faded, she felt her husband’s eyes lingering on her face. She dared to meet them, and what she saw took her breath away.
“You realize, husband,” she said serenely, enjoying the brief red on his face at the address, “That you have created quite a conundrum for yourself.”
“How so, wife?”
“You started with such a marvelous gift, you shall have to find more elaborate and expensive items with each and every gift that follows,” Rey teased, and Captain Dameron laughed lightly at her jest. “Perhaps an elephant, next?”
“Perhaps,” the captain agreed. “But what should the lady like, for me to best please her?”
Rey opened her mouth to continue their lively banter, but a strong urge to be entirely honest consumed her, and she redirected her course. “Why…” she bowed her head again and studied her hands once more, which were once again clasped in her lap. “I should like…to spend more time with you.”
A gentle finger was tucked under her chin, and Rey lifted her head once more to meet her husband’s eyes. He looked thunderstruck, and it was difficult to gaze at him in her mortification. “Is that the truth?” He whispered. “Is that all my wife would ask of me? Time?”
“I should like to know you,” Rey said truthfully. “You are my husband, and yet we do not even…” she blushed, too shocked at her candor to continue.
“Well,” Captain Dameron knelt at her side and held his hands out; Rey placed her hands in his, and he lifted them to her lips. “Let us rectify that. Tell me, do you currently have engagements elsewhere?”
“No, Captain,” Rey answered, a sweet smile crossing her lips.
“It is settled.” He rose to his feet, and Rey did as well, their hands still clasped between them. “I will show you my favourite tree from when I was a boy. My mother planted it, and I took great pains with it in my childhood. If it would interest you?” His nervous expression had returned once more, and Rey inclined her head, eager to dispel the anxiety in his countenance.
“I should like that very much, Captain.” They walked towards the exit together, Rey’s hand in his arm, but he paused at the door; she watched his tongue drag along his bottom lip - and for some reason, the sight caused her stomach to clench unbearably, as though she had missed a step walking down a flight of stairs.
“May I ask one more thing of you, my darling?” Rey nodded in assent, her brow arched in curiosity. “Would you be so kind as to call me Poe?” She blinked, startled at the request. “I should very much like you to call me by my Christian name.”
“As you wish,” Rey said, smiling so ferociously, her cheeks ached from it. “Poe.”
They walked out of the parlor together, and Rey felt as though it were the beginning of a very great journey indeed.