Chapter Text
Han stepped back, admiring his handiwork, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the hem of his shirt. He dropped the hammer in the grass and turned toward the dark-haired boy bobbing with excitement on the porch.
“That should do it kid; she’s all yours!” Han said to the gangly eight-year-old as he bounded toward the tree house, quickly scaling the wooden boards up the trunk to get inside.
Ben could hardly contain his excitement. He had waited three long months for his dad to finish building the treehouse, and he wanted to thoroughly inspect it for himself before he ran down the street to tell his best friend Poe it was finally finished. He scrambled through the hole in the plywood deck and smiled down at Han, giving him a thumbs up. “Dad, it's perfect !” he squealed.
“Wait! Wait!” Leia yelled as she came out of the house holding a cardboard box in her arms, the screen door slamming behind her. “Nonna Padme sent this from Naboo when I told her we were building a treehouse!”
Ben scrunched up his nose and looked down at his mother. Wild horses couldn't drag him out of the treehouse at this moment.
“It’s a fairy door for the tree. In Naboo people put them at the base of trees to attract fairies. Some people, like Nonna Padme, believe that if your tree has a door, a fairy will come live in your tree and they will protect you throughout your life. It’s just a silly legend, but your Nonna believes in it so we need to set this thing up and send her a picture or I will never hear the end of it the next time we visit.” Leia said, rolling her eyes at Han. “Han, give me a hand with this, would you?”
“Of course, Princess…” he smirked. They had been married long enough to know that you don’t want to get on Padme’s bad side, so he gladly knelt down and helped Leia unpack the box. Enclosed were a small, arched yellow door, a sign that said “Faereys Welcome”, and a small white daisy. Everything was carefully laid out on the grass.
“I don’t know, Mom...it sounds dumb. Do we really need to put it on?” Ben asked, sticking his head through the hole in the wood. He didn’t even want to think about how the boys in the neighborhood would tease him about it.
“ Yes, Ben,” Leia sighed. Han headed off to the garage to find something to stick the door to the tree.
Han returned with some epoxy as Ben climbed down and helped Leia position the pieces where they wanted them on the base of the tree. He applied a small amount to the back of each piece and handed them carefully back so they could be placed back into position.
“Mom, fairy is spelled wrong.” Ben pointed at the little sign.
“Yeah, I guess it is...does it really matter? I doubt anyone will be looking closely at it,” Leia said, placing the white daisy on the yellow door gently. “And, done! Ben, run and get the camera, and then you can go play!”
Ben took off like a shot, running through the house. Knowing his mom would kill him if he broke the camera, he opted to walk briskly back to the tree, carefully cradling it to his chest.
He handed the camera off to Leia and she motioned for him to go to the tree. “Kneel down by the door so Nonna can see you and the door together...perfect!” Ben flashed a crooked smile of missing and too-big teeth, balancing on his knees next to the tree while pointing at the little yellow door.
He stood up and brushed his pants off, anxiously looking at his parents. “Can I go get Poe now?”
“Of course! Go get him and have some fun. I’ll bring out some snacks in a bit for you.” Leia waved him off and he took off down the street.
“The things we do to humor your mother…” Han said to Leia with a smirk.
“Luke and I each had our own fairy doors on trees in the yard growing up, and we turned out fine. I’m sure Ben will have forgotten all about it by the time he gets back with Poe.” Leia threw her arms around Han’s neck, stretched on her tip toes and kissed him on the lips. “Thank you for humoring me and my mother. I love you.”
“I know.” he said with a smirk as he swatted her ass and walked back to the garage to put the epoxy away.
5 years later
“Boys! Time to come in for dinner!” Leia hollered from the porch.
It was a warm spring evening and the fireflies had just started making their appearance in the yard. Ben and Poe kicked a soccer ball back and forth on the lawn under the tree house.
“Five more minutes? Please, mom?” Ben yelled back and he swung his leg back and kicked the ball with all his might. The ball sailed past Poe and hit the base of the oak and hit the fairy door with a loud crack.
Ben had long forgotten about the little faded yellow door, concealed by the tall grass at the base of the tree. Splinters of yellow wood flew from the door and the little sign above it split in two. The ball ricocheted off the tree and out into the street. Without thinking, Ben loped out onto the blacktop to grab it. He bent and extended his arms toward the black and white blur rolling out into the road when he heard a horn blare. He felt a hard shove from behind. He flew across the street, knees dragging on the pavement and his chest hitting the curb.
He quickly turned around to see who pushed him and saw a pair of sparkling green and gold eyes. She was half sitting, half laying in the street, wearing a white dress, and her brown hair was tied up into three buns. Ben looked on in shock as a car drove straight through the girl. The sound of brakes locking up brought him out of his stupor. He heard a car door slam and he looked down, assessing the damage. He had two holes in the knees of his jeans now. His mom was gonna be pissed.
“What the fuck, kid? Are you okay? You scared the shit out of me! You can’t run out into the street like that!” An older man in a brown leather jacket was leaning down in front of him, babbling in a panicked voice.
Ben was trying to process what the man was saying and what just happened. The man from the car was now standing in front of him and holding his hand out to help him to his feet.
Ben’s ears rang with white noise and all he could feel was his chest heaving and his heart pounding, and he stood breathlessly with the man that nearly killed him.
“I...I’m so sorry,” he stammered. Leia and Han ran over to him at the curb opposite their home. Poe was right behind them.
“Oh my GOD! Ben, are you okay?” Leia grabbed his shoulders, feeling for broken bones, up and down the length of his arms, then pulling him in for a crushing embrace.
“What the hell, man?” Han was standing toe to toe with the man now. “You almost fucking ran over my kid!” he growled.
“I didn't see him! He ran out before I could stop! I swear I didn't mean to hit him!” The guy was pacing and running his fingers through his hair nervously.
“The girl...i-is she okay?” Ben and stammered.
“Who, honey?” Leia asked, smoothing his hair back away from his face.
“The girl. The girl that pushed me out of the way. The car hit her. I saw her laying in the street.” Ben’s eyes were wide with shock. He looked around for the girl in the small crowd of neighbors that was gathered to investigate the commotion. Not seeing her, he backed away from Leia and started walking around the car and looking up and down the street.
“Poe, did you see anyone push Ben? Were you playing ball with somebody else?” The last Han knew, it was just Ben and Poe playing and there weren’t any girls around their age in the neighborhood..
“No. It was just me and Ben. I ran toward the street but I didn’t get there fast enough, before the car...I didn't see anyone push him either.”
Han and Leia looked at each other with concern.
“Let’s get you inside. Do you need some water or to lie down?”
“NO! We have to find her and make sure she’s okay!” Ben was starting to panic. She was hurt, or worse. She had to be. The car ran right over her!
“Benny, I think you’re in shock. Come on, let’s go inside.” Leia put her arm around him and walked him into the house. Ben kept stealing glances back toward the street.
That night he dreamed of the girl standing on the deck of his tree house. She called his name and reached out for him. “Ben...You are not alone…” she kept repeating.
10 years later
Ben and Baz huddled together in the shadows of the scaffolding just after midnight outside the Kessel Run. They were sloppy drunk with kisses just as sloppy, giggling to each other as they waited for their Uber back to Ben’s. They had gone out to celebrate his new job. His first career . It had been six months since he graduated college and his internship with First Order Design, the most prestigious architectural firm in the city, had paid off with a starting assistant position to one of the founding partners.
Ben had never really treated Bazine to anything fancier than Outback Steakhouse during college, so this was a treat for both of them. DelMonico’s Downtown was bougie and expensive and Bazine had begged Ben to take her there. He was dressed in his best suit and she was in a low-cut black number that hugged her curves that she had borrowed from her roommate. They dined and drank to the extent of Ben’s budget and then moved on to a much less expensive dive bar a few blocks over for a night cap. By the time they decided to head back to Ben’s apartment, neither were sober enough to drive, so they left Ben’s car in the lot and would deal with the extra fees tomorrow. Fuck it, he thought. He could afford it now.
Bazine’s hands clutched the collar of Ben’s shirt as she pulled him down into her parted lips. A minute passed and Ben felt her stiffen and she let out a small yelp.
“What, baby? You don-” he laughed. His mouth chased hers and he wondered why she was suddenly shy since they had been full on making out for a good five minutes already.
“ BEN!” she hissed at him.
Ben pulled away and saw a pair of cold blue eyes and a mop of ratty gray hair over her shoulder. Panicked tears streaked her cheeks.
“Wallet and cell phone NOW ,” he heard, and Bazine’s arm jerked behind her.
“What the fuck, man?” Ben stuttered and the man pulled his arm out from behind Baz’s back to flash a small black pistol. “ FUCK! Okay, okay . Take them, just let her go, please. ”
Ben’s hands slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet and iPhone and held them out.
“Here, just take them and go!” Ben pleaded.
The man shoved Bazine toward Ben and grabbed for the wallet and iphone. Baz stumbled into Ben and he dropped the phone and wallet when he reached out to grab her.
When he looked up, Ben saw blue eyes blazing with fury, and the pistol leveled at Ben’s chest.
“ Don't play with me you fucker!” the man spat. “Gimme that fucking watch and I’ll go.”
“No.” Ben’s eyes widened. “Just let me--.” He bent to reach down and get the dropped items, but he froze when he heard the metallic click of the slide cocking back to chamber a bullet.
“ I SAID give me that fucking watch. You look like a smart kid. Not stupid enough to die over a watch are ya?”
Ben pushed Bazine behind his back and heard her plead with him not to do anything stupid and to just give the guy the fucking watch.
“ Fuck you! That's my grandfather's watch. Take anything but that.” Ben, now sober and adrenaline coursing through his body, shook with rage and balled his fists at his sides.
“Okay, kid... I thought you were smarter than that,” the man spat as he raised the barrel to Ben’s head.
Ben Ben Ben
Everything happened so fast it felt like a dream.
He heard a woman’s voice in his ear...mind...he wasn't sure, but it didn't belong to Bazine.
A white streak broke his peripheral vision.
A shot pierced through the din of the muted city sounds.
Ben fell to the ground. His body covered a hysterical Bazine, and pressed her into the cold pavement. He didn't know if she had been hit or not, but he stayed on her until he could get his bearings.
Ben lifted his head and saw a woman in a white dress standing over the body of the mugger. He lifted himself off Bazine and scrambled to stand. He took a few tentative steps toward her. The mugger was silent and unmoving on the concrete behind her.
The woman turned to face Ben, her green eyes wide and blazing, her lips pursed, as her gaze moved over him.
The woman stood up and strode over to meet Ben in the middle of the sidewalk, she gripped his wrists when they were toe to toe. Her touch was warm and featherlight on his skin.
The world around them stopped. A wave of calm washed over Ben. He should be sparking with adrenaline and maybe even in shock, but he was eerily calm. She looked familiar too, but he couldn't place her. Something about her eyes, the way they blazed with green and gold, they held in him a trance. Freckles dotted the bridge of her nose and cheeks and when she smiled the deja vu hit him strong.
“ Beeeeennnnn!!”
Bazine shrieked on the sidewalk behind him, breaking the trance.
He turned to look at her prone body on the concrete. Black streaks of make up ran down her cheeks as her body shook with sobs.
Ben hurried to her side and grabbed her hand, gingerly helping her to her feet. He put his arm around her, and turned back to the woman. She was gone.
“Did you see her? The woman...in the white dress? Where did she--?” he stammered.
“What are you talking about, Ben? What woman?” Bazine said through her panicked sobs. “Hurry! Call 911!”
“She took him down! She saved us! We need to thank her!”
“Ben, I didn't see anything, just you kicking that guy’s ass! HURRY and call 911!”
“Wha-...Okay.”
He grabbed his phone up off the pavement and dialed, pacing as he waited for the dispatcher to pick up. Ben looked up and down the deserted street for a glimpse of white or anything that would convince him that she wasn’t a figment of his imagination.
“911, what's your emergency?”
“Uh, someone tried to mug us. We are in front of Kessel Run, off Republic and 4th. Can you send someone? I don’t remember what happened but the guy is down and I don’t know if he’s hurt or dead. He had a gun.”
“Sir, we have a unit in the area and they have been dispatched. Please stay on the line with me until they arrive. Is there somewhere you can go that’s safe?”
“Yeah, I can stay on the line and the guy is either out cold or dead. We’ll be okay until they get here.” Ben walked over toward the curb, clutching Bazine against him. “Stay over here, away from him. The police will be here soon,” he whispered to her, covering the bottom of the cell phone.
Bazine just nodded as she sniffled.
Ben paced back and forth in front along the curb line. He didn’t dare get too close to the man, but he was morbidly curious what the woman did to him and if he still had the gun.
He took a few cautious steps toward the body and realized the gun wasn't in his hand anymore. Ben looked around the pavement in the immediate area looking for the pistol, but didn’t see it.
He heard a high wail of a siren and spun to see a police cruiser pull up to the curb in front of Bazine. An ambulance parked just behind the cruiser.
Two officers and two EMTs jogged over to Ben and Bazine, and they pointed at the body on the sidewalk. The EMTs rolled the gurney over and began to work on the man. The officers took Ben and Bazine aside for statements. Thankfully they gave their statements together so he just nodded along with what Bazine said.
Neither spoke the whole ride back to Ben’s apartment.
They both just crawled into Ben’s bed, kissed goodnight and laid in the dark. Ben tossed and turned for what felt like hours before he fell into a restless sleep. That night he dreamed of the woman in the white dress. She stood on the deck of his childhood treehouse and extended her hand, repeating “Ben, take my hand.”
10 years later
The blaring alarm shocked him out of a deep sleep. It took a few seconds before Ben realized it was the fire alarm that he was hearing and not his cell phone going off at the ungodly hour of 3:23am.
The acrid smell of burning wood filled his nostrils and he knew this wasn't a drill.
Ben surged out of bed and grabbed the trainers off the floor, where he had kicked them off after the gym the night before. He made his way to the front door of his condo, tapping his palm against the doorknob to see if it was too hot to touch. It was still cold against his palm as he turned it and pulled the door open slowly. Out in the hall through the smoky haze, he looked down the hallway of his building and saw some of his neighbors looking like deer in headlights, frozen in place.
“ OUT! Get out now!” he bellowed. Mrs. Wexley grabbed her husband's arm and dragged him toward the staircase at the far end of the hallway. This prompted the others standing in the hall to follow them.
Ben did a mental roll call of the people on his floor and remembered that Kaydel, the single blond two doors down and across the hall, was out of town and she boarded her cat when she's gone. The other two couples on his side were heading to the staircase, and that left Ms. Kanata. Ben knew she was hard or hearing and used hearing aids because when she insisted on pulling him down for a hug everytime he helped her carry things up in the elevator, her hearing aid would chirp in his ear.
He walked down to her door and banged on it fiercely with a closed fist. He waited a few seconds, taking a chance that she might be on the other side of the door ready to walk out, he yelled “Maz I’m kicking in your door.” He waited a few precious seconds for a reply and heard none so he squarely kicked the door just next to the knob. He felt the door give and heard the wood of the frame splinter, but the door held. One more square kick, and it flew open into the apartment wall with a bang.
A thick smoke poured out as the door opened, enveloping Ben. He remembered something from fire safety in school that smoke rises, so he got down on all fours and crawled into the apartment after taking a deep breath of air from the hallway. He crawled through the foyer and into the main living area and realized this unit was a mirror image to his. He quickly crawled to the bedroom and felt the knob, finding it cold. He turned it and pushed the door open. Smoke filled the bedroom and the air was warm. The air burned his eyes and singed his lungs through the shallow breaths he was taking. He felt his way to the bed and pulled up to his knees, feeling for a body on the bed. He brushed over what felt like a thin wrist under a blanket and he moved his hand up until he was sure he had an arm under his palm.
He tried to be gentle, but in his panic he gripped her by the bicep and frantically tried to shake the older woman awake.
Maz didn’t stir, so Ben knew what he had to do. He got to his feet and scooped the petite woman into his arms, and made his way to the bedroom door.
The living room glowed an eerie red through the thick smoke as Ben held his breath and sprinted for the front door. Once he breached the threshold into the hallway, he saw two bulky figures making their way down the hall toward him. The firemen hurried past him, following the billowing smoke into the unit.
Ben continued down the hall, shifting Maz’s body over his shoulder and entered the stairwell. The smoke wasn’t as thick in the stairwell, but Ben’s lungs felt leaden and his body was wracked with heavy coughs as he made his way down two flights of stairs and onto the ground floor.
Three firemen surrounded him once he had emerged from the building. The tallest one took Maz from his shoulder and hurried her over and laid her body on the grass, motioning for a gurney. Two EMTs rolled a gurney over and had an oxygen mask and tank at the ready, sliding it over her ashen skin.
The short, stocky one started yelling at the others running into the building. Ben was so disoriented he thought the firemen were speaking a different language; he felt dizzy, black spots permeated his vision.
Ben went down on the sidewalk. Hard. The fireman closest to him ripped off their helmet and respirator, and began CPR.
Be with me. Be with me. Be with me.
Ben was scrambling up the ladder to get in the tree house. He was following the voice. Her voice. He felt calm and warm and safe. Like he was home. Once he got to his feet on the deck of the treehouse light poured out of the windows and the doorway, drawing him in like a moth to the flame. He ducked down to squeeze through the door frame. His adult body taking up so much space in his childhood haven. The minute Ben saw her he knew. He knew before she even turned to face him. He knew the shade of green flecked with gold that would be there and the freckles and that smile. He had seen it so many times in his dreams. She was the girl in the street the night he was almost hit by the car. She was the one who took down the mugger outside the Kessel Run. She was here again.
But...why was he here...with her...is he...
“His pupils are blown, I think it might be shock! We need a transport now!”
That voice.
The bright light moved out of his face and he felt the plastic mask flooding his lungs with pure oxygen. He tries to sit up, to gulp the fresh air. A firm hand on his chest pushed him back down onto the pavement.
“Sir, can you hear me? I need you to take some slow breaths for me. Can you do that? Can you do that for me? Try to relax, you may be in shock but we’ll get you fixed up.”
Ben nodded. Her. She was there. In the flesh. Unless he was hallucinating, which was entirely possible considering the circumstances.
Ben tried to speak but ended up coughing so violently he vomited.
“ Relax, please just relax. My name is Rey and I’ll stay with you until the next ambulance comes, okay? I promise I’ll be here for you.”
Ben nodded again. He reached for her hand and brought it to his chest. He splayed her fingers across his heart and hoped she could feel this feeling too.
Ben had seen those eyes in his past, in his present, and he knew they were destined to be a part of his future.
Rey blinked at Ben, her eyes wide and her mouth open.
“I feel it ,” she whispered. She reached up and unbuttoned her turnout. She laced the fingers of her free hand through Ben’s and placed it over her heart. “ I feel it, too., Ben."