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The smell of cinnamon and pancakes wafted up the stairs as Rey rubbed her eyes, trudging her way past the photos of everyone else on the walls of the tiny home that contained the family she’d wished to find for her entire life. There were a couple of photos of her, but more of other members of the family; her cousins graduating from college, her brother Thomas running or riding his bike in some beautiful mountain ranges, uncles and aunts even from her father’s side, his presence long gone from everyone’s lives.
There were two photos of Rey on the whole wall: a photo of Ben and Rey at her Ph.D. graduation, Ben proudly kissing her cheek, and another of her that Ben had taken on their recent trip to Japan. Two photos out of at least twenty or thirty photos.
This Christmas with the Palpatines felt less strained, but she still felt distant, as if she could’ve been back home in New York or in Berlin with Ben and his family and no one would’ve noticed her absence.
It was a house, where her biological family was, but it wasn’t home, where Ben, his parents, and Poe and Finn were.
Her aunt’s giant Great Dane announced her awakening and her aunt turned around from the stove, her face lighting up when she saw her niece. “Merry Christmas! There’s our little mathematician!” She abandoned the stove for a moment to hug Rey. Rey’s arms wrapped around her loosely, her aunt was much smaller than she remembered. It had been a year or so since she’d seen her aunt, and it had only been for about an hour. Things like size were easy to forget at that point.
Deep down, Rey knew that her aunt loved her on a base level that was dictated by genetics, but everything was still tense and slightly awkward between them. Rey felt like a stranger in a home that was supposed to be family. She didn’t grow up with these people and had only just met them two years ago after taking an Ancestry kit that Ben had gotten her for her birthday. She knew that she was only there out of obligation rather than a real desire for her to be there. She hadn’t even been invited to Thomas’s wedding, one of her cousins apparently telling him that she would’ve been ‘taking a seat from someone who wanted to be there.’
As if she’d had a choice in not being a part of the family. She hadn’t chosen being dropped at an orphanage, or never finding out who her family was until late in life. She’d wanted to be with them, wanted to be a part of a family and belong to something, just like Thomas had his whole life.
Her aunt’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. “So, breakfast for everyone is just about done. We’ve got eggs, I can make them however you like, and pancakes are almost done - the thick American kind, I know how much you love them - and we also have French toast and some ham we can cook as well.”
Rey was about to voice her thanks but stopped herself. “What about me?” she asked, feeling like a forgotten child again. “I can’t eat any of it.”
“Oh, I didn’t know how to make the vegan eggs, so I just figured you could just skip it today.”
No, she couldn’t just skip it for today, that wasn’t how it worked. She smiled at Rey and gave her a couple of pats on the cheeks, completely oblivious to how her words had impacted Rey. “Don’t look so down, it’s Christmas morning! You’ll survive for one day, won’t you?”
Rey picked through the fridge and found some bread for toast, and found a jar of peanut butter that clearly the dog had been let into. As the rest of the family woke up, they tucked into breakfast and then opened up presents once Thomas’s wife Allie had risen from the dead around noon. After a big roast dinner (which Rey only got to eat small portions of), the cousins played Scrabble together, which resulted in her brother dominating the game and his wife nearly flipping the table in anger.
Rey sat out of Scrabble, however, and stole away to sit at the top of the staircase. Ben’s end of the phone rang for a few minutes before he picked up. “Merry Christmas! I was wondering when you’d call.”
Rey let out a quiet sigh and physically felt herself relax when she heard Ben. “God, I missed your voice. Merry Christmas. Did your present get to your parents’ place in time?”
“Yep, we’re all good. Thank you, I loved it. How are you? How’s the new family been?”
Rey paused for a moment, blinking back the small tears that were filling her eyes. “Fine. Just really miss you.” She was a grown woman, why was she crying over missing her fiancé so much?
“You sure? You don’t sound fine,” Ben said. His voice was laced with slight concern, and Rey could tell that he was going to a more quiet part of his parents’ home to talk to her.
“Something stupid happened this morning and I’m overreacting about it, that’s all.”
“Let’s talk it through, I can bet it’s not stupid,” Ben said. She could almost picture him with his arm crossed over his chest as he paced in that way he did when he was thinking.
“My aunt went to all this trouble to make breakfast for everyone and it looked so good but I couldn’t eat any of it because it wasn’t vegan. I said something to her and she just brushed it off like it was nothing. I felt so bad though; she made American-style pancakes specifically because I like them and I just totally ignored all the work she’d put into everything. I ate toast while everyone else had pancakes and eggs and ham.” Rey’s voice had evened out by now, but her eyes were still full of tears. “Like I said, I’m being stupid about it. We’ve had a great day together and I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Rey could almost feel Ben’s arm pulling her into his side by the waist, as if he were sitting next to her on the stairs. “It’s not stupid. I promise you, it’s not. You should’ve been able to have breakfast on Christmas morning with your family.”
Rey laughed wryly. “At least they remembered a chair for me at the table this year. Last year my aunt got a new kitchen table and only got enough chairs for everyone but me.” Ben made a soft, almost pained oh on the other end, and Rey cleared her throat again. “So, this year is baby steps in the right direction, I guess.”
She heard Ben sniffle on the other side of the line. His voice was smaller when he replied. “I love you, you know that? My whole family loves you. There’s always a seat at the table for you. We’ll always have food you can eat no matter the holiday.” They were quiet for a brief moment before Ben spoke again. “Ma can’t wait for you to get here. She’s on another one of her tears about us moving back to Cologne so we can be closer to her and Dad.”
Rey laughed a genuine laugh and wiped her tears away. “Cologne is still hours away from Berlin, I would’ve thought she’d want us in the city.”
“Yeah, she would prefer us to live in one of their extra bedrooms, but I drew the line there,” he said in that only half-jokingly annoyed way that made him sound just like his father. His tone changed with his next sentence to a caring tone he reserved only for his mother and for Rey. Something soft and gentle and Rey knew it was only for them. “I can’t wait for you to come home and be with us.”
“All of us will be together tomorrow.”
They talked for a little bit longer before Ben had to hang up and go help Leia with something. After they ended the call, Rey sat in silence for a moment on the stairs, before someone caught her eye. Her brother Thomas was standing at the foot of the stairs, a somewhat sad smile on his face. She returned it as he climbed the stairs. It was then that she noticed that he had a plastic bag in his hand.
“I’m pretty sure Allie and I almost got divorced down there playing that game.” When he sat next to her, he pulled a small cupcake in a clear plastic box from the bag. Rey sat and stared incredulously at the cupcake in his hand, then back at him. “It’s vegan. I checked. See? Got a big ‘v’ on the top and everything.” Rey’s silence continued and Thomas explained some more. “None of us knew how to make any vegan desserts so Allie and I got you this. Red velvet.”
“But why?”
“Because it’s what family does for each other. I know we don’t know each other that well, and I know the rest of our family is shitty at best, but Allie and I at least want to try.”
Rey wanted to argue that family doesn’t just throw family away the way that they did to her, but there wasn’t any way she could in the moment. Thomas pushed the cupcake towards her again and made a face at her. “She’ll be really sad if you don’t eat it. Happy wife, happy life and all that.”
She chuckled before taking the dessert and opening it. “Thank you.”
The siblings sat in silence for a brief moment before Thomas piped up again. “How are you getting to the airport tomorrow?”
Rey shrugged as she licked some of the frosting off her fingers. “I’ll figure it out. My flight’s at eight so I should leave pretty early. Heathrow will probably be a nightmare, the day after Christmas.”
“So we’re driving you then?” Allie said as she climbed the stairs. Rey tried to protest but Allie made a face back. “I don’t want to hear any arguments. I’m not letting you ‘figure out’ the two-hour drive to London Heathrow before an eight am flight.” She made air quotes around 'figure out' and cast Rey a look.
“I figured out my way to America with Ben and that worked out totally fine,” Rey said, which just made Allie roll her eyes.
“You two really are siblings. We’ll leave at four, then.”
True to her word, Rey was stuffed into the backseat of Thomas and Allie’s Mini Cooper for the drive to Heathrow before the sun had even risen. The awkwardness was still there, but it wasn’t as pronounced as it was between Rey and the rest of the family; Rey could even see herself getting on with Thomas and his wife somewhere down the line of their lives. It would be hard to stay in touch, with the two of them living in London and Ben and Rey being in New York, but she’d heard Han say more than once that you make time for what’s important. She wanted to make her brother important in her life, now that she knew she had one.
Her phone dinging quietly pulled her out of her thoughts, and some of her anxiety melted away when she saw Ben’s name next to a text.
Ben Solo: Waiting just by security in terminal. Call when you get to Heathrow?
As Rey was typing out a reply, Ben sent her a photo of his parents in the living room that was clearly from that morning.
Ben Solo: They’re waiting for you too, the attached message said, and Rey’s heart was full to bursting at the thought.
Thomas glanced at her from the rearview. “What’s got you smiling?”
Rey looked up at him briefly and back down at her phone. “Nothing, just a photo of my in-laws. They woke up when my fiancé did so they could wait for me to get home.”
“I forget, do you guys live in Germany? That would make seeing you again easier,” Thomas asked.
Rey sighed internally and looked back down at her phone. She’d talked about living in America a million times over the two days she was at the family’s gathering for the weekend. Of course, no one had listened to her. “Ben and I live in New York.”
Her brother nodded and turned his eyes back towards the road. “Far away.”
“Yep,” she murmured.
“So then who lives in Berlin?”
“Ben’s parents, his mum worked for the embassy.”
“What does he do again?”
“He’s an art historian-”
“Thom, stop pestering the poor girl, she answered all these questions yesterday.” Allie’s voice cut through Thomas’s endless questions.
“I’m sorry, I can’t ask my sister about her life?” he said in a sharp tone, his eyes locked on the road and his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly.
“It’s five am and we’re all tired, let’s put this to rest before we murder each other,” Allie said, clearly trying to be sensible about the situation.
“Fine, if you want it that way,” Thomas said back.
Happy wife, happy life, Rey thought sarcastically. She hoped silently that Ben never said anything asinine like that when she wasn’t around to smack him for it.
All was quiet for the rest of the drive, and London Heathrow was predictably insane when they pulled up to the curb outside the terminals. When they stopped, Thomas turned around and smiled half-heartedly at Rey. “Well, until next time?”
She returned the smile and nodded. “Until next time.” If there ever is a next time, she thought to herself as she climbed out and shut the door slightly too hard.
Before she made her way through the airport doors, her brother rolled the window down and called out to her. “Stay in touch, okay? I meant what I said last night. If you’re game for it, we both want to try.” Allie leaned forward slightly with a smile on her face, and all Rey could do to respond was nod again. She turned before either of them could see the small tears pooling in her eyes and blinked them away as fast as she could.
Waiting in the line at security, her thoughts drifted to what was waiting for her in Germany; Leia and Han were probably still sitting watching something on TV to distract themselves while they waited, Poe was in all likelihood still asleep while Finn sat with the Solos, and Ben was waiting at the airport in Berlin for her.
As if on cue, her phone rang with a photo of Ben’s face flashing across the screen. Even just that moment of seeing him made her heart skip a beat. “Hey, sorry that I didn’t call right away. Doing okay?” she asked him.
“I’m fine, I just wanted to hear your voice. That’s all. And I want you home with us.”
Rey laughed as she navigated through the bustling airport towards her gate. “I’ll be home soon, I’m getting to my gate now. My flight leaves in-” She paused to check her watch, but Ben beat her to it.
“An hour and five minutes. And the flight’s only two hours long,” he finished for her. “Not like I’m counting or anything.”
“Oh no, clearly not.” She heard him laugh from the other end of the phone and her heart felt even fuller somehow, if that was possible. “I know it’s hard to turn the worrying off, but just try. I’m going to be fine. Everything will go smoothly.”
There was a quiet moment where she knew he was nodding. “I know, I need to keep reminding myself of that. Once you’re here I’ll be able to relax, I think.”
“Is your brain being loud again?” Rey asked. They’d developed a sort of code to talk about both of their anxiety and the way it manifested, based on descriptions the other had given. For Ben, he’d said that all his thoughts felt too loud, like they were going off at the same time with no rhyme or reason. He sounded okay though, which put Rey’s mind at ease.
“Only a little, nothing I can’t handle.”
After a few more minutes of talking, they reluctantly said their goodbyes and hung up. As time passed slowly but surely and Rey tried to occupy her time both in the airport and in the air, her thoughts kept drifting back to the weekend at her aunt’s place. Maybe it wasn’t all bad, maybe she was just blowing things out of proportion and catastrophizing as she tended to on occasion.
Or, maybe she wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t great, and she wasn’t catastrophizing the weekend. Ben would be able to help her parse that out better than she was able to on her own, a learned skill from being with Rey through so much of this transition from an unwanted orphan to a member of a family.
Transition maybe wasn’t the right word for it; she was still Rey Johnson, math nerd, painter, fan of Jules Verne-era science fiction, orphan, and part of two families now. She’d realized that those two descriptors, orphan and family member, didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. She would always be that little orphan girl who threw herself into math and books and painting because she found belonging in them, found a place for herself in the worlds she created with all three.
Now, she’d found belonging with Ben and his crazy family. Leia didn’t introduce Rey as her daughter-in-law, or her son’s fiance, or anything like that. She introduced Rey as ‘one of my babies,’ and Han would regularly refer to her and Leia as his girls. Finn called Rey his sister, the same way that Poe called Ben his brother. They’d made a family through trial and error, lots and lots of errors, and biology didn’t dictate that for them. Now that they had figured it out, they didn’t have to try the same way the Palpatines did. The Solos just were.
Rey hadn’t expected herself to be so emotional when she saw Ben in person, but seeing him and the way his entire being seemed to relax when they met eyes made her heart hurt. In a cheesy Hallmark movie moment, she careened herself into him, for once not caring what the people around her thought.
She tried to keep herself from truly crying in the middle of the airport, but she couldn’t help herself. Even an action as simple as being held by Ben felt more like home than anything she’d experienced in the last three days.
At least her glasses gave her some cover, she thought to herself, as she tried to smile up at him but faltered halfway through. All she could do when her breath caught in her throat and her eyes filled up was draw a shaky breath, hiding her face away at the base of his throat. Ben rubbed her back with his comforting touch. His scent even made her think home, the combination of aftershave and something distinctly him calming her down and helping her stay within the earth’s gravity.
“Hey sweetheart. You’re alright,” he murmured quietly into her hair after he pressed a few kisses against the top of her head. “We’re here. I’ve got you.”
Rey wasn’t entirely sure how much time had passed before they stepped away, but she didn’t even want to be apart from him for that long. Sensing this, he refused to drop her hand when they stood by the baggage carousel and waited for her bag. He insisted on taking her suitcase for her and lightly ribbed her the way he always did about how she still had her suitcase from ten years ago as they walked to the car. When they got outside Ben put the hood on his sweatshirt up over his baseball hat.
“You need to listen to your mother,” Rey said in a joking tone. Her throat still felt scratchy and her eyes still stung, but she attributed it to the cold moreso than her crying jag in the middle of the arrivals terminal. Anything to save the slight ding her ego had taken by crying in public.
He just looked at her and blurted out a confused, “Huh?”
“It’s below freezing, a denim jacket and a hoodie isn’t enough to keep you warm.”
“Oh God, don’t you start on this too,” he said with a fond smile on his face. “I am fine, I promise you. We’re going from the heated airport to the heated car to my parents’ heated house.”
“You sure?” she asked, purely to get a rise out of him. He rolled his eyes before nodding, which made her giggle. His fake annoyed smile turned into a real smile and he brought her hand up to press his cold lips against it gently.
“I missed your laugh,” he said quietly. She missed everything about him, in truth, but there wasn’t enough time to say that to him. There would never be enough time to tell him all the things she loved about him.
She let him fuss over her stuff when they got to the car, and once her backpack and suitcase were in the trunk, he opened the door for her.
“So, do you want to stop and grab something to eat before we head home? There’s a couple of McDonalds and an Edeka on the way. They have a hot food bar I think, same as Wegmans’ does back in New York,” Ben said, his eyes cast down on his phone.
Apparently, Rey was just going to cry her way through the day today. The thought of going anywhere other than home where the rest of the Solos were made her tear up, and Ben reacted almost immediately.
“Or we can go straight home, that’s fine. Ma is probably making a whole spread anyways.” The words nervously tumbled out of his mouth as he turned the car on and drove away. His hand in hers and the car finally, finally, finally moving towards home dried her tears up and smacked some sense back into her.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with me today. If you want to stop somewhere, we can stop,” Rey said as she looked out the window and refused to meet Ben’s eyes.
He squeezed her hand gently and didn’t let go. “I get it. The holidays are already hard. Add all this bullshit on top of it and the stress of traveling and it makes your head go all weird sometimes.” When she turned back towards him he cast a smile at her and flicked the back of her hand. “Don’t get all soft on me, Dr. Johnson.”
“Don’t you get soft on me either, Dr. Solo.” She returned the flick.
“Ow! That hurt!” he exclaimed with a slight whine behind his voice as he shook out his hand.
She laughed, truly laughed at him and his dramatics, and grabbed his hand to kiss it a couple of times. “There, all better?”
“I think I’ll survive,” he said with the same fake whiny tone.
They were quiet for most of the drive to Han and Leia’s home in the suburbs of Berlin. She’d forgotten what a beautiful country Germany was in their years of living in New York, and maybe she and Ben could find jobs that brought them back. Right now though, things were settled and overall better than she’d expected them to be. She didn’t want to disturb the equilibrium they’d found together, so that thought could be put off until some nebulous, distant point later on in their lives.
When they pulled up to the Solos’ home, Han’s dog came running towards them, barking happily at them with a tail wiggle that could power a speedboat. Ben took ample time to greet Walker, who Rey suspected he loved more than her sometimes, but as soon as he heard the trunk open he snapped out of it.
“I’ll get that stuff, go say hi,” he said with a smile on his face. Rey tried to argue, but he wouldn’t hear it. He just flashed her a look that reminded her so much of his dad and pointed at the house. “Go, it’s one bag and a backpack, I can handle it.”
When Rey walked in, holding the door open for Ben behind her, Han’s back was to the door. He was doing something at the sink and muttering to himself, his glasses perched on his nose and an iPad on a cookbook rest in front of him. The door shutting behind him cause him to jump and turn around, and when he saw Rey standing in the door, his face lit up in a massive smile. “Leia! The kids are home!” he called out before rushing over to her. “Get over here, you’ve been gone for a whole eight months and won’t even hug me?”
Rey laughed and opened her arms for Han, and heard Leia bounding down the stairs. She waited behind Han and smiled so warmly at Rey that it made her heart hurt. “All four of my babies are finally home,” she said as she patted Rey’s cheeks before hugging her. “It’ll be the best two weeks having all of you home with me.”
“Us. Home with us,” Han corrected as he walked towards the stairs with Rey’s bags. Leia looked back at Rey and winked.
“Ben, honey, Poe and Finn are outside if you want to go with them. Remind them they don’t play for the NHL, please, they’re scaring me,” Leia said, waving Ben out towards the back of their home.
Ben chuckled as he traipsed towards the back door. “I’ve been trying to remind Poe of that for at least ten years and he still won’t listen to me.”
As Rey unwrapped her scarf from her neck and hung her coat up on the pegs on the wall by the door, she was struck by how easy this all was between them. Her eyes fell on the wall under the stairs, and all the photos of the six of them. Rey and Ben at national parks across the country, a few of Ben teaching in front of paintings at the Louvre and the Vatican from the study abroad semesters he’d taught, shots of Han and Leia with her and Ben at Rey’s doctoral graduation, and shots from Finn and Poe’s wedding too.
“I made some dough for monkey bread if you’d like to help me?” Leia asked from the kitchen, snapping Rey out of her little trance. “I’ve still got to cut it and coat it, but it shouldn’t take long.”
“Yeah, of course. I’ve missed baking with you,” Rey replied. She made her way to the sink and washed her hands, and took a moment to watch Ben and his best friends playing two on one hockey together on the frozen pond behind the Solos’ home. Ben was surprisingly agile for his height as he dodged around Finn and Poe, and she couldn’t help but laugh when Ben scored a goal and Poe tried to argue with him.
“I hope I did it right,” Leia said as she grabbed the dough from the fridge. “I followed a recipe online for a vegan version that I hadn’t tried before, so let me know if I did anything wrong.”
“I’m sure that it’s great,” Rey replied. “They had everything you needed at Edeka?”
Her mother-in-law waived a hand. “No need for that, there’s an American grocery store in town that has all the vegan stuff I needed. Picked up some stuff for breakfast for the next couple of weeks as well.”
“Oh, perfect,” Rey said as she formed the bread dough into a square and cut it into tiny pieces. “You shouldn’t need to heat the butter for too long, it’ll melt pretty easily.” They went on coating the dough in butter and cinnamon sugar and then arranging them in a bundt pan for a little while, the kitchen quickly filling up with the smell of cinnamon and the draft of the cold from outside.
“How was your Christmas?” Leia asked after a few minutes. “Was it good to see your biological family again?”
Rey’s hands paused as she was rolling a small ball of dough in her hands before she started back up again. “Truthfully, not really. It was fine, just...awkward. Like I wasn’t even there sometimes.” She continued coating each of the bits of dough and stacking them in the pan just to give her hands something to do. “There were other times that I felt like a complication more than anything else. It’s different here.”
Leia took Rey’s hands in her own for a moment and turned Rey so she was facing her. “It’s different here because we choose to be together. Even after all the shit we’ve been through, we did the work to fix it. Family is what you make of it. You can decide who your family is. Ben and Poe decided they were brothers when they were little and have been that way ever since. I had this same talk with Finn years ago, and now it’s your turn.”
She gave Rey’s cheeks another gentle pat before pulling her into a hug. “You’re part of our family. Don’t ever doubt that.” After they let each other go, she turned back to the counter. “Now, cover that in plastic wrap and leave it to rise for another half hour or so. It might be different with vegan bread, I’m not sure, so we’ll come back and check on it every now and then.”
All Rey could do was nod and blink back her tears as she followed Leia’s instructions.
The boys came in a little while later when the dough was done rising and Rey was putting it in the oven. Han and Leia had put on a rerun of a hockey game, and everything still felt easy between them. This was the perfect time, Rey thought to herself.
“Hey Ben, come with me for a second,” Rey said once Finn and Poe had left the kitchen. “I have another present that I wanted to give you.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “Renewing our Rangers tickets and the Zibanejad jersey was plenty, you don’t need to get me anything else,” he said as he followed her up the stairs.
“Well, I wanted to get this for you," she replied, turning into the spare bedroom she and Ben were occupying. "You said that you wanted one too, so..." she let her voice trail off as she rooted through her backpack and pulled out a small ring box.
He stood there staring at her, his mouth agape. "Is this...?"
She nodded. "An engagement ring for you." Her fingers trembled slightly as she opened the box and showed him the delicately thin, dark grey hammered band. "I made it myself. You said it was stupid and a product of the patriarchy that I got one and you didn’t so...yknow. Level playing field and all that.”
When she looked back up at him, his eyes were glistening and soft. "It's beautiful. Thank you, Rey." She took his hand and slid it down onto his wedding finger, where it fit perfectly. His eyes were still all misty when they met again, and he took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply.
“Wait, wait, give it back, I didn’t do it right,” Rey said as she gently pushed Ben away.
He laughed as she took the ring off again. “What do you mean you didn’t do it right? That was perfect.”
She just rolled her eyes at him. “The whole point of giving it to you in person was so I could do it right,” she said, getting down on one knee and putting the ring back into the box. “Dr. Ben Chewbacca Solo, will you marry me? Again?” she asked, which made his smile even wider somehow.
“Jesus Christ, get back up you dork,” he said before he nodded. Rey put the ring back onto his finger and he pulled her in for another kiss. “This is by far the best Christmas present I could’ve gotten. I love you.”
Rey pulled him close to her and let him hold her in silence for a moment. “I’m with you to the end of the line. Remember that,” she murmured.
“We should go back downstairs,” Ben said almost reluctantly. “If we stay up here any longer, Poe might think we’re fucking or something.”
“And, wholesome moment ruined,” Rey replied with a laugh as she pulled Ben in for another kiss.
“He also might eat all of your monkey bread and we cannot have that,” Ben said, not dropping Rey’s hand as they walked down the stairs together.
The ease continued through the rest of the day as Rey helped Leia bake some more, Finn joined in to cook dinner with them, and when they sat down to eat, there were enough seats at the table for everyone. Rey’s vegan food wasn’t a big production at all, it was just assumed, and the conversation didn’t feel stilted or forced at any point.
“When I went out earlier I found these,” Leia announced about halfway through dinner, and to Rey’s surprise she held up Christmas crackers. “So, in the spirit of new traditions, and Rey connecting with her British family again, we should give them a try.”
Rey couldn’t contain her excitement. “I remember these from when I was little! Oh my God, thank you. The Palpatines didn’t even have these and they’re actually in England.”
She held the end of one out towards Ben and explained to him how to do it, and when she won she might have gloated in Ben’s face a little bit. Luckily, everyone was able to win, and they had a great time playing Monopoly later that night. There were no knock-down, drag-out fights between them the way that Thomas and Allie had the day before with Scrabble. Little arguments, sure, because it was Monopoly, but it was all in good fun and easy between them. When she thought about it, even just the day before felt so far away now that she was back with the Solos. This truly was the belonging she’d sought out her entire life.
After they’d finished up Monopoly, they stayed around the table and caught up on the year or so since Rey had graduated from her Ph.D. program.
“So then, we’re leaving Mos Eisley-” Poe said, speaking in his usual animated way.
“Just continuing the family tradition of Saturday night Bible study at the pub, of course,” Ben interjected over the top of his rumchata hot chocolate. He took a sip as Poe started back up again and winked at Rey when he was done with his sip.
“-And Ben bumps into this guy as we’re walking out, right?”
Rey let out a groan from across the table. “Oh God, not this story! Don’t tell them this!” She could feel her face heating up with embarrassment. “This happened over a year ago! Why are you telling them?!”
Poe put a hand up to silence her. “I have to tell this story, it’s the best. Okay, so Ben and this guy share their macho big boy words about the situation, the three of us move Ben along and we thought it was done. But it's not done for Rey, oh no, she needed to go defend her man’s honor. So, she doubles back and in the most beautiful Renaissance painting moment I’ve ever seen, she grabs this guy - who’s at least a full foot taller than her - by the front of his shirt and lands a perfect left hook on him.”
“When you put it like that it makes me sound awful,” Rey muttered out. Ben just looked over at her lovingly and took her hand in his.
Poe was oblivious and continued on with the story. “And as Finn and I were pulling her off the guy, I look over at this asshole,” he accented his sentence with the patented Solo Man Point at Ben, who just continued smiling with that shit-eating grin on his face. “And he’s laughing! Telling her how badass it was as if there weren’t three NYPD cops two doors up the road and he’s not a diplomat’s son.”
Han reached over to his son and held his hand up for a high five. “Nice work, hotshot. Save that one for their wedding, Poe, that’s absolutely perfect.”
Ben returned the high five and shrugged his shoulders. “That was the moment I knew that she was the one. Proposed the next day. And, that wouldn’t be a Renaissance moment, that would be Baroque. Movement and action.”
“Alright you know-it-all-’
“Not a know-it-all, just have three degrees in art.”
From the other end of the table, Leia was covering her face trying to hide her own laughter. “The four of you are going to get yourselves killed someday, I swear.”
“At least they’ll have fun doing it. Don’t pretend that we weren’t like that at their age,” Han said.
“I never committed assault for you, Han!”
Poe looked over at Finn with a loving expression on his face. “I’d commit assault for you any day.”
Finn just tried to stifle a laugh at his husband. “That’s so surprisingly sweet of you. And I would verbally fight straight people for you.”
“Wow, and they say romance is dead. You two should’ve made those your wedding vows,” Han laughed. He stood up to refill everyone’s cups and Ben and Poe continued to make faces at each other across the table.
Leia let out a long-suffering sigh as she rubbed at her face. “Jesus, what’s wrong with my family?”
At that point, Han interjected, saying something about them being ‘the picture-fucking perfect’ family, Finn started howling laughing, and Ben and Poe kept arguing about God knew what, everyone talking over each other and interjecting into other peoples’ conversations.
To Rey, there was nothing wrong with their family. As dysfunctional and pieced together as it was, the Solo family was where she belonged.