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It was the desert on Pasaana, the famed ‘Festival of Ancestors’ as Threepio put it. She was used to walking the desert, but a celebration like this was joyous, something she had missed seeing. The young aki-aki had been listening to a master perhaps from what Rey saw, but she was pulled at by the sleeve by a youngling, the creature placing a decorative necklace over her head.
Rey couldn’t help smiling at the gesture, and after some translation from Threepio, the young aki-aki shared her name, asking Rey’s.
“And she would be honored to know your family name,” Threepio translated, making Rey pause as she looked at the youngling. A moment of pain crossed her face, perhaps in memory as to what she did not know.
“I..I don’t have one,” she stated, shaking her head softly, “I’m just Rey.”
Standing up and turning around, she was surprised to feel the festival become...dark. Almost as if-
“You’re hard to find.” His voice filled the void, their shared force bond once again activating because Ben was looking for her once again. They both were looking for the last Sith holocron, and after several clues and a somewhat tedious runaround, Rey thought she was finally getting somewhere. Of course Ben was going to find out and catch up in the attempt to find it himself.
“You’re hard to get rid of.” It was off her tongue quicker than she’d meant, contemplating drawing her lightsaber in case this turned into the bond duels that often occurred while they shared moments across the stars like this.
And then- Rey woke with a start, breathing heavy as she automatically turned to reach for her lightsaber beside her pillow, realising that like the nights before, it was now folded into a tunic tucked inside her dresser.
Sitting up, she tucked stray hairs behind her ears and sighed. It was surprisingly quiet, and that worried her. Getting up, she padded over to the dresser, opening the draw and gently lifting the folded tunic open. When she held the lightsaber, she calmed slightly. The dream was only a memory, something faded now from the past.
The familiar hum of her saber activating sent a soft yellow light across the room. She was alone, as she expected. It hadn’t been another force bonded nightmare.
Raising a hand to flick the lights brighter slightly with the force as she deactivated her saber, she placed it on the dresser and went to grab the robe hanging on the back of the door. Slipping out of the room she slept in, she inhaled slowly as she walked into the hall, willing the force to allow her to sense anything.
She smiled as she felt it, the slight tinge - a longing presence in the world around her. Her eyes adjusted to the lack of light as she made her way into the kitchen, the stillness and the dark making her wonder why she’d left the room in the first place.
Reaching for a glass from one of the cabinets, she was careful to turn the faucet a little at a time, still fearing that whatever she felt hadn’t been what she was expecting. Surely Poe and Finn wouldn’t be coming round at this hour?
Drinking the glass rather quickly, she set it back down on the counter and sighed.
“Why did that memory come back now? I know who I am.” She voiced aloud, as if to calm the racing thoughts still in her mind.
“You. A scavenger. And you know I can take whatever I want...So lonely, so afraid to leave. At night, desperate to sleep. You imagine an ocean, I see it. I see the island. And Han Solo, you feel like he’s the father you never had. He would have disappointed you.”
Another flashback barrels into her mind, this time of the first time she’d met him, really met him face to face. That thick wavy black hair, the deep chocolate gaze - she was ashamed at how taken aback she’d been at his beauty.
She shook her head at the intrusive memory, before hearing the familiar click of the dwelling’s door opening from the adjacent room.
“Poe? Finn? I know I didn’t give you guys the access code. I swear, if you had BB8 hack-” she stopped mid sentence as whoever had tripped the access door walked inside with a soft chuckle.
“Why would a resistance pilot and traitorous stormtrooper be visiting at such a late hour?”
She actually smiles, that smooth voice is addressing her again, not from her nightmares this time.
“You know I wanted to come see you, Ben. Within an hour of you leaving Poe told me it was a bad idea, didn’t want me showing up and upstaging you boys at the temple - though he never told me which you two were at.”
She couldn’t help the feigned sadness in her voice, knowing he’d been off training younglings again with Finn. Of course, he’d neglected to tell her before he left, but given his family linage Rey brushed it aside and instead pestered the former resistance general for information. She tried to only use their force bond when it wasn’t going to remind her of how things had been, before the war was over.
She reached for his cloak when he took it off, and his gloves were soon set on the table as well, his boots slipped off and set by the entryway. A few seconds later she stood in front of him, hands on her hips with a look he could only assume she’d learned from Leia across her face.
“You know, you’re not easy to find.”
Ben nearly cracked a smile at that, stepping forward to pull Rey into him. A soft kiss was pressed against her forehead as her arms wound around him, she trying to bury her face into his tunic.
“You’re hard to get rid of.”
He felt her relax against him, and briefly used the force to probe her mind, having seen pieces of the flashbacks she had endured earlier.
Rey had only closed her eyes for a second it seemed; when she opened them again, Ben was carrying her down the hall. When she felt him set her down on their bed, she turned to look at the dresser, thoughts flicker the soft yellow light that emitted with a low hum.
“The sabers...they’re comforting. Now that the blades aren’t a dyad, they’re-”
“Harmony in chaos.” Ben finished for her, remembering the new code that had been set up shortly after the new Jedi temples had been built.
She nodded, getting up to put it back in its place for the night.
“I still don’t know why that memory from Pasaana found its way into my dreams.” She admitted.
Ben had paused at that, his tunic half over his head. In acknowledgement. he shrugged before pulling it the rest of the way off, sitting down next to her before taking his socks off.
She turned to look at him with a small smile when his hand cradled her cheek, brown eyes finding hers. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been lost in thought for.
“Because you didn’t know who you were, and that scared you. You know now.” She nodded at the sureness in Ben’s voice, raising a hand to mirror his action.
After a few seconds had passed, she was still awed by the grin that swept across his face as they sat like that, mirrored touch so similar to when he’d saved her that day in Exegol, and then when the entirety of the generations of Jedi through Rey had brought him back to her in turn.
“Ben,” she whispered just as softly as she had then, feeling the memory of that day surging through his mind at full force - bringing with it a semblance of fear that only she could understand.
Her lips closed the gap between them like that first time, but both were deliberate and sure in their movements now.
As Ben pulled on Rey’s shoulder gently to fall into the mattress and toward pillows, he gave a hum of satisfaction. That painful memory was all but overshadowed now by such a tender moment he never wanted to forget.
Pulling the comforter over them both, he gave her another smile as he felt her curl into him. They both could sense the other wanted to sleep.
“Rey.” He whispered back in the same tone, all the love for her evident.
“It’s not just Rey.” She corrected, the sudden reasoning for the intrusive dream becoming clear. Just as she had helped Ben get over that Exegol memory, here he was - helping her get over the Pasaana one.
When their gaze connected this time, their bond activated as it had many times prior - except she knew being with him like this was him permanently finding her, sealing their fates again through the force.
Her name, you see, had already solidified that entanglement. When Ben spoke again, her name left his lips almost as a prayer, a reminder to the Maker that Rey knew now who she was always meant to be.
“Rey Solo.”