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In their free moments, they fly.
Rey shows him how to make a ship go much faster than it’s supposed to. Ben already knows--been there, got in trouble for that as a kid--but he lets her show him anyway. He tries to get her to pilot most of the time, because he could spend all day just watching her. The excitement on her face, the wonder of seeing a new planet, the uncontainable joy of freedom. He used to feel that all the time.
Still, she insists on having him take the reins sometimes, so he takes her on insane flights at top speed, showing her every trick that used to thrill him as a child when Han would take him for joyrides in the middle of the night.
Flying the Falcon is bittersweet. He’s uneasy every time he’s in there, like he doesn’t deserve to be there, and yet it still feels like home. Sometimes it all becomes too much for him, and other times he loses himself working on it and telling Rey about it. In those times, it almost feels like he never went down the wrong path.
It feels so good to laugh. This is one of the only places they can do that-- away from all the disapproving glares, the feeling of constantly being watched. So when they can laugh, they do it a lot. No matter how used to it she gets, Rey still screams with delighted terror at every sharp turn, every sudden drop, every pass through a tight space where the Falcon should not fit by any means. He revels in the feeling of her hand gripping his arm, the sound of her laugh, the contented sigh she gives when they land.
In these moments, Ben notices that he’s happy. He imagines tomorrow.
Not long ago, he wouldn’t have been able to fathom a day where he didn’t hope to die before tomorrow ever came.
--
Rey thinks he’s afraid of lightning. It’s sort of funny at first, considering how intimidating Ben once was. He could cross sabers with her, take on multiple opponents at once, fly a ship straight toward the ground and then pull up at the last second...but he is afraid of lightning?
She’s at the little work table she built for herself, tucked in a corner of the small home they found for themselves on a near-empty planet. She is repairing odds and ends just for fun when thunder cracks outside and she hears Ben yell from another room. The sound is guttural and pained, as if someone was pressing red-hot metal to his skin.
Rey grabs her lightsaber on instinct and makes it to their bedroom in seconds. Ben is hunched over with one arm covering his face as if preparing for an oncoming blow. He’s so tense that he’s shaking. Rey stands dumbfounded in the doorway, trying to process what’s going on, and it’s the only explanation she can think of: he’s afraid of lightning. She sighs in relief and comes out of combat mode.
“Ben,” she says quietly, a little amused. “You know it can’t hurt you in here.”
She comes toward him and his eyes are wide when he looks at her. He’s looking right at her and yet he barely seems to acknowledge her, like he’s in a different place than she is.
“I didn’t know you were--”
There is another peal of thunder. Ben flinches and falls to his knees, his eyes closed tight, hands clenched into fists at his sides. This time she feels his mind through their bond, and she immediately sees that this is not merely a fear of lightning. She feels the memory of a searing pain all through her body. The smell of smoke and burnt hair. She feels like she can’t move.
He has more than one memory like this. She can’t hear what is being said, but Snoke’s voice is unmistakable. It is loud and gravelly and dripping with derision. It fills her mind and seems to constrict her heart. Ben is furious, and terrified, and humiliated. There is a pang of rejection. You are a failure. You are weak. You will never amount to anything even half as great as your grandfather.
Rey pulls herself out the vision and rushes to Ben’s side, throwing her arms around him and pulling him to her chest. “You’re alright,” she whispers. Tears stream down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m just...so sorry.”
His whole body heaves as he finally exhales. He comes back to her little by little and there’s a twinge of embarrassment, but he still leans into her embrace and lets her stroke his hair. Her heartbeat becomes all he can hear and it brings him back to where he is now: a place where he is more than a legacy and more than a weapon to be wielded.
She has found that touch works best when calming him. It’s sort of endearing, the way his thoughts drift away from all that anxiety and into a blissful recognition of the texture of her hand, the softness of her lips against his forehead. Ben’s breathing slows and her consciousness seeps into his to remind him: I love you. You’re everything to me.
--
Sometimes, Rey still has nightmares. They’re different from what they used to be. She no longer hears her own screams or watches her parents leave over and over again. Now she is older. She dreams that she hurts everyone she touches. She can’t control her power and it drives her into isolation, wandering in a cavernous temple, sinister voices whispering in her ears. She is a time bomb, a tool of destruction. Alone and shrouded in darkness.
Ben doesn’t sleep as well as she does, so he’s usually awake when this happens. Lately he’s been experimenting with their bond, testing the limits of what they can do in each other’s minds. He can’t do much, but it seems to help. He closes his eyes, reaches out, and holds his hand just above her head. He directs his focus until he can see her in the dream.
He doesn’t want to be there as himself. He fears how her subconscious might react to him, how her memories of Kylo Ren might make things worse. Instead, he creates an exit from the temple. She sees the bright light and runs to it, and when she crosses the threshold the temple is gone. He puts her in a vast field of colorful flowers, and she’s stunned. The sun shines bright and glitters on the surface of a nearby lake. A slow smile lights up her face, and outside her mind, in their bedroom, Ben smiles too. He puts a camp in the distance, where she can see her friends talking and laughing together.
She inspects her surroundings like an excited child. She bunches up some flowers and sticks her face in them, inhaling their scent and feeling the soft petals brushing her skin. Remembering the lake, she abruptly turns and runs toward it. When she gets there she considers going straight from a run to a jump, but she stops at the edge. Ben gives her enormous trees with bright green leaves that drape down to hang just above her head.
He can feel her starting to slip away. Her heartbeat has slowed, her mind is beginning to shut off as she lays down on her stomach in the dream and dips her hand into the lake. A glowing blue butterfly flutters down and lands on her arm.
“Hello,” she says to it, yawning.
“Hello,” Ben whispers out loud. She’s so beautiful. She’s lying in the dirt and talking to a bug and everything about her is so, so beautiful.
The scene fades to black and Ben opens his eyes. She’s sleeping peacefully now, snoring lightly. He feels there is not a lot he can do for her-- not a lot he can do for anyone. But he can do little things, like this. Rey is a gift to the galaxy. All he is worth is his ability to make her happy, so he tells himself that he will always be here to make sure of it.
--
The voices fade away. The end of a laugh lingers on Rey’s lips until the cool night air brings her back down. As much as Poe annoys her, she can’t help but laugh at the way he tells stories sometimes. Not to mention that he makes for a great distraction during the moments where she tells them she’s going to get some air. Without the distraction, her friends would be exchanging concerned glances. Finn would ask her if she was alright later, and she would say she was fine, because Finn still doesn’t like what she’s chosen. As if it was really a choice.
The sky is clear and the stars are like a roof to her home, because now her home is in a few places all at once. She walks out until everything goes silent, and then she lies down on the ground, her hands resting on her stomach. Within moments of quieting her mind, she turns her head and sees him looking back at her.
“I’m sorry.”
Ben is lying next to her from light years away. He always looks sullen when she goes to visit her friends. Rey rolls her eyes.
“Ben,” she warns.
“But you’re happy there, with them.” He tries to sound resigned, as if he would really just accept it if she told him right then that she wasn’t coming back. He tries, but there’s an aggressive edge to his tone that betrays his jealousy. “I don’t get it.”
He really doesn’t. His brow is furrowed and his eyes are watching her, waiting for her to reveal some truth he insists she’s hiding to protect him. Han lives in his expression.
“They don’t get it, either,” she mumbles. “Not only do I have to convince them of who you really are, but I have to convince you, too. Is it really so hard to believe?”
He pauses, then firmly replies, “Yes.”
“Ideally I won’t have to go back and forth. I’ll tell them about you. If they love me, they have to love you too.”
Ben looks horrified by the thought. “They really, really don’t. They have every right to hate me.”
“You’re part of me, Ben.”
“I’m not the good part of you.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Are you saying not all of me is good?”
“You know what I mean.”
Rey watches him. He’s looking up now, at the ceiling or the sky, back at their home. She wishes she could make them all see what she sees. Someone brave and determined and charming. Someone who would give his life for hers.
“Come with me next time. Do some work at the base. You don’t even have to talk to anyone.”
“Reeey…”
“They just need to get used to you being around.”
Ben closes his eyes and says nothing. Now is absolutely not the time to tell him. But she does it anyway.
“Well, someone is going to have to be here to watch the baby while I help with repairs.”
There is a long silence. Finally, he opens one eye. “What?”
She presses her lips together and waits. Ben bolts upright.
“Rey. What?”
“I was waiting for you to notice. I’m surprised you didn’t feel it.”
He looks like he’s seen a ghost. She can’t tell if he’s happy or angry or about to pass out.
“I, I felt something was different,” he stammers, “I just…you…”
Rey sits up and tries a smile, though she’s certain she must look terribly nervous. She reaches out for his hand and he gives it to her, letting her guide it to her stomach. They both hold their breath as he searches for that little pinprick of life.
Suddenly, he takes her face in his hands and presses his lips to hers in a hard, desperate kiss. Her surprised yelp is muffled by it, and she has to grab at him to not fall back under his weight. He breaks away and kisses her forehead, her cheek, her neck, everywhere.
“Ben,” she laughs, finally feeling the excitement she was hoping for. He’s terrified, but not in the way she thought he might be.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” he says, frantically pulling away from her and jumping to his feet.
“What? No, Ben…”
“Just hold on.Two seconds!”
He’s gone. Rey buries her face in her hands and releases her fears in a giddy laugh. She hopes no one walks out and sees her there, laughing to herself, tears streaming down her face. She’d been so worried that he would be too afraid, too hateful of himself to see this as a good thing. She’d been all wrong. This was a new beginning for him.
Of course, there was now the matter of telling everyone else. They would all be face-to-face with Ben faster than she had planned it, but perhaps this was what would finally bring her two worlds together.
She sits in the grass and waits, telling the little life inside of her, “You’ll never have to doubt how loved you are.”