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He was already halfway through the door when she reached out, both with her voice and her mind.
« Please don't go »
He hesitated. That was enough for her to know she could add :
« Please not tonight. If this is my last night with you, I want to pretend, just for one night. Please don't go ».
He had let her finish, but given the way his heart had clutched when she's said ''last night'', he had already made his decision. So he put his lightsaber back on the table, unbuckled his belt, took down his mask, and turned arround to face her. He smile sadly.
« Hey honey, I'm home ! »
She rose from the bed, but stopped when he took a step towards her. He dropped his outer tunic and his shirt on her way to her, still faking that smile that couldn't quite reach his eyes. She rolled on her side so that her back was against the wall and he laid on his back next to her. He took her in his arms, her head resting on the crook of his shoulder. She had her palm on his chest and he kissed her forehead.
They'd never been as open before. Even in their closest most intimate moments they'd always kept the walls in their heads. And arround their hearts, too. But the next day was supposed to be the end of everything. Each side of the war knew it, there was no point in hiding it. Somehow, it would all end the next day and they still were sort of on opposite side of a conflict they hadn't started but were tasked to end by people too old to fight their own battles.
They stayed curled up against one another for a while. They were so in sync that they reached the breaking point exactly at the same time. Hugs and kisses and soft words were not gonna be enough. So they made love. Because they didn't know if they'd be allowed to, ever again. They didn't know, if the other would survive the next day, and if one of them didn't, they both knew in their hearts that they would never love another person that way, ever again. They'd been through too much. Their bond was too strong, and there wasn't another Force sensitive being strong enough in the world to form a new bond with anyway.
So they loved each other as if it was their last night.
In the morning, they woke up to the sun rising. They went outside and watched it side by side. They dressed in silence, doning their armors and carefully rebuilding their barriers. Before they closed them, they shared unspoken words through their bond one last time and shut the doors to their minds. Before he put on his mask he took her face between his hands, pressed their foreheads, then their lips and he closed the door to his face. She closed the door to the little house that had sheltered their blossoming romance, one last time. Before he climbed into his TIE fighter she couldn't help herself, she asked :
“Ben, what if I never love again ?”
“You'll survive, you always do. You wouldn't be my little scavenger if you didn't”
It's her turn to perform a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. He closes the door of his ship, she closes the door to her heart. They don't share it through the bond, but still they share the same hope, that they won't cross path on the battlefield. That they won't have to kill each other.
* * *
It had all started with opening a door. Luke and Leia had sent her to retrieve information from their informant inside the first order. She had to meet him in a small beach house on Takodana of all places. That was the day she'd first met Ben.
Nobody could know. He wanted to stey inside the First Order until the very last day. They had started fighting, they always did, but as the years went by they became friends, and then a little more than that. They had worked on streightening their bond, in case they needed each other.
It was always brief though. They spoke a lot of nonsense during their meeting. Fucked. And went their separate ways. They couldn't afford either one getting caught. It was better if a secret meeting took place right after a meeting between the Jedi and the Knight of Ren. The adrenaline of fighting and talking in the open felt like hiding in plain sight. It felt good. It felt arrousing.
They had developped an understanding, and before their last night, they'd never broken it. But final battles tend to do that to people, they make them break all the rules, just for the sake of making the end matter.
* * *
To her twisted relief, it wasn't her that struck the final blow. Just like they'd wanted, Supreme Leader Snoke had kept his best Knight close to him. Little did he know that he was the traitor in his ranks. Ben reached to Rey through the Force and together they ended him.
It was stupid really, because they all thought Hux was too stupid to do anything that could endanger his life. How wrong they were. Ben had just tosed his cursed lightsaber aside. They were running to each other, opening their minds, glorious in their victory, sharing all the ideas they had for the many night they were now so sure to have together.
Yes, really it was a stupid way to die. Hux had picked up the lightsaber and thrown it at Ben with a surprisingly good aim. Everyone present that day still don't know who screamed the loudest, Rey or General Organa. They all agree on the fact that Rey's was the most haunted scream they'd ever heard. They all felt like her soul was suddenly broken in two, and died at the same time the man she was craddling drew his last breath.
Really stupid situation indeed.
* * *
To this day, they still don't know which is the most ironic. That Ben died when he could have finally been reunited with his mother, or that by dying for his rightfull cause he had finally become one with the Force he was still trying to balance inside himself.
Rey had finally found herself a family though. A very dysfonctionnal family, but aren't they all ?
As it turned out, Rey was able to love again. Not the same kind of love, that would never go away, especially since the objet of her affections insisted on coming back as a Force ghost every time a man so much as looked at her, or if he felt like it, which happened quite often, just to annoy her. His presence had been greatly appreciated during childbirth though, just for the sake of cursing at him for putting her in this situation in the first place.
No the new love Rey felt, she would never feel it again.
The small boy with hair dark as ebony and big ears and her eyes comes running towards her with tears in his eyes.
“What's up Ani ?”
“They said Dad was evil !”
“They'll say you namesake was evil too, you know, still he saved the galaxy just like your father did, they were really brave men, don't listen to them”
“And if they bother you again, I'll go tickle their toes at night !”
The giggles of their son filled her heart with so much love, it poured through the Force and even Ben could feel it.
It had been her last night with him. But the way it had ended mattered, that was all she had asked for, after all.