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Adjusting to life on Jakku once more had been a trial. For one of them, anyway.
For Rey, it had been all she had known for so long that returning had felt commonplace. Like a Nightwatcher Worm, she was accustomed to keeping a low profile - stalking through the endless sands unseen and unheard.
For one as tall and imposing as Ben Solo, adjusting to life as a scavenger had proven to be more difficult. He stood out like a sore thumb, his black hair and overwhelming height making him an automatic source of gossip whenever they ventured into the outpost.
They had decided that she should go alone after a while.
Sitting up on her small cot, Rey rubbed her eyes, blearily focusing on the dim light of one of the lamps she and Ben had left on before going to bed. Neither of them liked sleeping in the dark - something they instinctively knew about each other without having to vocalize it.
For her, the darkness promoted anxiety - after years of sleeping alone, the possibility of having to fumble around in the dark in case of an intruder was etched in her mind. It had been a month of living with Ben before she had felt safe enough to sleep without her blaster under her pillow - not because of him, of course.
He had managed to convince her to stop, stating factually that if anyone were to try to rob them blindly in the middle of the night, they would have two of them to deal with.
“Besides, from what I’ve learned, pretty much everyone here seems to be wary of you.” He stated, not unkindly. The slight tilt of his lips as he said it made Rey’s heart skip a beat.
Overall, Ben hadn’t been what she had expected.
After knowing the calculated front of “Kylo Ren” getting to know the actual Ben Solo had been difficult in some ways, but easy in others. Instinctively, through their bond, she knew everything about him - his deepest fears, the haunted dreams that still occasionally followed him.
Getting to observe the man, however, had been something entirely different.
Ben was calculated, quiet and utterly kind. She had learned that he was particular and neat, folding his clothing in the same ordered way every day and leaving his calligraphy set impeccably organized and laid out for the next time he would use it.
…She had managed to barter for the set in the outpost a month prior, giving up a pristine astromech socket in exchange. Overpaying for it had immediately been worth it when she saw how Ben’s eyes had lit up when she gave it to him. The look he had given her communicated that he hadn’t ever been given a gift like it before - or for a very long time. The tenderness present in the gaze had made her feel bashful, causing her to look away before she could be overwhelmed by the affection present in it.
She was soft, now. Softer than she ever had been as she continued to extend kindness to him - something that he returned to her tenfold.
The evening after receiving the set, he had offered to show her how to write.
“Properly,” he said, after taking a critical look at her chicken scratch.
So, every night since, they had sat down at their makeshift table while Rey attempted to understand the many rules of majuscules, minuscules and marking the proper waist line. Ben had been endlessly patient, gently pointing out her mistakes and demonstrating how she could fix them.
There was another thing about Ben that she had learned. While she was often quick to frustration, resisting abandoning her brush pen, Ben evened her out and provided encouragement that never felt condescending.
Of course, he still got frustrated. Mostly with learning the “art” of scavenging (as she had said to him, playfully).
While as quick and surprisingly graceful as a loth cat as he navigated long-lost abandoned ships and AT-AT Walkers, Ben knew surprisingly little about ship parts. Understandable, since she doubted that he’d ever had to work on a ship himself (or he had so long ago that he didn’t remember how to).
So, like he did with calligraphy, she took the reins in showing him the differences between an auto-tracking fire controller and an automatic interrogation response circuit. Ben was a willing and responsive pupil, listening intently to her words and only visually annoyed once when he had issues removing a lateral stabilizer.
Ben .
Looking over at Ben’s sleeping form on his cot (parallel to her own), Rey took a deep breath. Pausing, she reached over to press her hand to his back gently. He was an incredibly still and silent sleeper - something that unnerved her as she frequently found herself waking up in the middle of the night to check that he was really still with her.
But he was. Solid, warm and alive .
…They hadn’t talked about the kiss.
She assumed that he didn’t know how to broach the subject as much as she did.
So, they continued on learning each other and trying to avoid eye contact on the occasions they ended up too close to one another.
The nights when they pushed their cots together, the cool night air of the desert proving to be too much.
Or the evenings when they’d sit on the roof of their home, taking in the wide sky above them. In these moments, Rey found herself resting her head on his shoulder. For comfort, and (though she didn’t want to admit it to herself yet) a yearning to be close to him.
Ben never pushed her to talk about it, gently resting his cheek against her head or brushing his hand against her own.
I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere.
She knew they’d talk about it eventually.
Until then, she was content to have him as he was. All the complexities that unveiled themselves daily as they both healed and navigated their connection to each other - and themselves. Something that they could now do as two lost souls in the galaxy.
Laying back down on her cot, Rey closed her eyes.
Peace .