Chapter Text
Rey pulled on the reins, pleading, yelling for the horse to slow and relax, but to no avail. Poor Deo, he tended to be far too skittish, and she should have known not to ride him by the stream where she’d seen snakes more than once.
Rey let out a little yelp as Deo leapt over a log, barely clearing it. She was far enough out on the property that if she was thrown or if Deo lost his footing she couldn’t be certain anyone would hear her cries for help or be able to find her. At least, not for quite some time.
Suddenly, something sped by her and she wasn’t fully aware of what it was until Deo came to a halt, rearing up and neighing as she continued to try and calm him. It wasn’t until she felt someone else taking hold of the reins that she realized what was happening.
“Whoa! Easy, easy. I’ve got you.”
Rey stared down, agape, processing the fact that it was Ben Solo who had apparently come to her aid.
Of course it was him , she thought with a groan.
“Get down,” he said, offering his free hand.
Rey huffed at that command. “I’m sure Deo will be fine now.”
“He’s obviously not,” Ben countered, still holding the reins along with her as Deo attempted to rear out of the grasp, proving his point. “He needs to calm down before you keep riding, unless you’re hoping to get thrown.”
Ben offered his hand again, and Rey attempted to bypass it completely and hop down on her own. But her attempt was poorly executed and thanks to her haste and already wobbly legs, the move propelled her directly into Ben’s chest.
His free arm wrapped instantly around her, holding her steady before assisting in lowering her feet to the ground. Rey was more than a little flustered, and no doubt red in the face by the time she shoved herself away from him, smoothing down her skirts and tucking some of the many unruly tendrils of hair behind her ears.
“This really isn’t necessary!” she called after him as he tied Deo to a nearby tree and then did the same for his own horse.
Ben laughed dryly, shaking his head as he walked back over to her. “‘Thank you, Ben. I appreciate your help.’ I think those are the words you're actually searching for.”
Rey rolled her eyes. “I don’t need your kind of help, Mr. Solo”
He frowned. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Everything comes at a price!” Rey bit back. “Just like with my grandfather! Always scheming and selfish. You don’t help people because you care, you help people who can give you something! It’s no wonder you’ve become his precious apprentice.”
He’d been living on the estate for nearly a year, and she’d done her best to have as little dealing with him as she could. It seemed to Rey that he’d latched onto her grandfather like a leech, the older man all too pleased to have a young and eager man to train in the business. Grandfather Palpatine had been disappointed in having only a granddaughter to carry on the name, disappointed she wasn’t meek and obedient and willing to marry the first rich man who looked her way, and disappointed that she cared nothing for the family name and money.
Ben stared at her for a moment, statuesque aside from the slightest twitch of his lips before finally replying. His words were quiet and calm. “You don’t know me.”
“I know everything I need to know about you.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against a tree. “Do you?”
“I know you want my grandfather’s money, his business, his lands, and his title,” she stated bitterly, picking little bits of dirt from her blouse which had flown up as Deo charged through the mud. “You want all that power.”
He barely looked up, a single laugh escaping his lips. “Oh, is that what I want?”
“It is!” Rey was swept up in the adrenaline of her wild ride and the fact that he’d shown up at the same moment. She’d needed to get all this off her chest for a while and this was an easy way to let it happen. “And you’re willing to do whatever it takes to get what you want. You’re not exactly a man who’s burdened with scruples . You’ll no doubt win Grandfather’s admiration and do his bidding until he finally decides to put you in the will. And if all that doesn’t work, you’d surely even be willing to stoop so low as to-“
Rey stopped mid thought as she suddenly found herself face to face with words that she’d never even been consciously aware of and didn’t want to speak aloud. And that wasn’t all she was also suddenly face to face with.
Ben had quickly closed the distance between them and was staring her down, his stance almost challenging. She wasn’t afraid though, and she met his burning gaze without faltering.
“What? What would I stoop to?” he pushed, his voice low like distant thunder. “Say it.”
Rey swallowed thickly, squaring her shoulders and refusing to back down. “You would force your way into this family one way or another,” she replied coolly, opting for diplomatic wording.
When Ben lifted his hand she jumped ever so slightly, making him pause, and for a split second she thought she saw genuine hurt in his eyes. His hand moved more slowly then, and then she felt his fingers touch some of the badly rumpled hair at the side of her head. With a quirk of his brow, he finally produced a little twig, holding it up for her to see before tossing it aside.
“I don’t force my way into anything,” he said firmly. “But you wouldn’t know that, would you? Because like I said before, you don’t know me. And you certainly don’t know what I want.”
Rey nearly swayed on her feet as Ben turned and walked away from her, as if they’d been physically connected for those brief moments, and the separation that followed had upset her very balance.
She watched him walk over to Deo, the wind admittedly out of her sails and feeling lost for words. She reluctantly noted the way Deo accepted Ben’s touch with absolute calm, despite his usual skittish nature. His large but gentle hands smoothed down the horse’s face and neck, speaking soft words that Rey couldn’t quite make out.
“I can ride back with you.”
It was more a statement than an offer, and Rey was sure that if it had come only minutes earlier she’d have thrown it back in his face along with a string of angry words. But she couldn’t find it in herself to do that now.
“You don’t have to do that,” she instead replied quietly as he untied Deo, holding him steady as she approached and prepared to mount.
“I know,” Ben replied, but mounted his own horse once she was settled, nudging him over to walk with Deo. “I’m still riding back to the stables with you.”
Rey said nothing, no fight left in her as both their horses set off slowly. They both stayed silent all the way back, forcing Rey to do nothing but replay every strange and confusing moment of this encounter.
As they eventually neared the stables, Rey found that a million new and unanswered questions were now darting around in her brain, and she couldn’t quite let them rest.
“What do you want?” she blurted out, making him tug back on the reins to stop next to her. “You said I don’t know what you want. So what is it really? What do you want?”
Ben stared back at her for a moment, as if contemplating his answer, before he simply said, “Change.”
The little hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, as if she could feel all the weight of meaning behind that one word. As if she could foresee the hazy shape of the way it could turn her entire world upside down. For good or bad, she couldn’t tell.
“At least,” he added. “That’s part of what I want.”
“And…what else?” Rey questioned softly, her throat feeling parched.
She thought she saw the slightest tug at the corner of his lips, but then he pressed them together, as if they needed steadying before parting again to answer.
“Maybe I’ll tell you one day.”
And with those words, Ben continued the rest of the short distance to the stables, leaving Rey in the wake of his cryptic words and forcing her to once again wonder what sort of man was living under her roof. She knew enough to feel sure that he was not to be trusted, but in a way she also knew he was right. There was plenty she still didn’t know about him.
As things stood now though, she honestly wasn’t sure she wanted to.