Chapter Text
The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful–
The music attacks her ears as the big swinging doors shift to give her access to the big, warm brightly decorated hotel lobby, one filled with light and trees and holiday-themed baubles, and despite the jangling discordance of so many sensations, Rey feels herself smile big, pleased, delighted with everything.
She loves the season.
It’s freezing outside, so cold it freezes her bones, so cold it’s too cold to snow, it’s too cold even for December 23rd. The big city with its frozen sidewalks and ice that drips from the edge of the buildings, most especially with its wind tunnels from the long boulevards crammed along the sides with skyscrapers, always runs cold, so cold the weather bites with it as the humidity sinks into you, most especially it is windy, but December has its own special element of chill. Rey is so cold she had shivered all the way here from the subway, darting carefully along the frozen ground in her little boots, careful to avoid the patches of black ice. Even in her new, big, bright pink puffy jacket, even in the big, down-filled snuggly depths of it, even with the collar of her latest purchase from the holiday sales, her pride possession, pulled up, her snowflake white scarf pulled tight around her neck, she had been unable to escape the freezing drafts and she feels frozen from the inside.
Nevermind though, she couldn’t care less now, as she undoes the fastenings of the cozy coat and unwraps the scarf to let it hang open around her neck, as she stands bewitched in this fancy lobby, as she takes a minute to spin and absorb all the detail of the decoration. Humming along to the carols playing out of the discreetly placed speakers, she takes a moment to enjoy every last little bit of this moment as she waits for her extremities to thaw, even her toes tucked into their snowman patterned socks in her dainty black dress boots with their thin leather and impractical heels.
Every second of this moment fills her with delight.
Yes, it’s December – her favourite month – and only two days before her favourite holiday of the year.
Christmas.
The one holiday of the year when everyone always seems in a little bit of a better mood, when the lights and the music and the food that’s somehow everywhere boosts her spirits in a way no other celebration does. It’s the one day of the year when, curled up in her tiny apartment with all the friends she can stuff in it, Finn and Poe and Kaydel and Rose and Jannah, she can forget everything else and just enjoy the delights of the season.
Because Christmas is for family, and somehow, even if it’s not the one she’d once imagined, she’s at last managed to find hers.
Christmas is for families and treats and stockings hung on the wall by the fake chimney and for feasting on all the goodies they all bring. Christmas is for laughter and cheery music and gifts thoughtful, whimsical and funny, eating too much delicious food, it's for stuffing everyone as full as possible. Christmas is for funny games and Christmas crackers and for collapsing on the floor to groan at all the food in one’s belly.
Christmas is for the senses – it’s for the tastebuds and the ears and the eyes, and most of all, it’s for the smells. It’s for the delightful scents, fake or not, of holly and berries and mulled wine and cookies baking in the oven and rich spices – of fir and black spruce and evergreens, of Christmas trees and Christmas treats.
It’s the season for companionship and for parties and visiting and good cheer and people wishing strangers happy holidays and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year as they pass on the ice-covered streets.
Rey waits all year for this season to arrive and finally, it is here.
Beginning tonight, as far as she’s convinced, the Christmas spirit will be in full swing.
It’s the night of her work party, she herself is off of work until the New Year, and though it’s her first year at Skywalker Inc., the big law firm she’d moved over to after accepting a position as a systems analyst three months ago (when at Finn’s urging, she’d decided to get serious about her professional life and finally leave Jakku Novelties behind), she’s been looking forward to it for weeks. Based on the details of the event sent by internal email, she can’t imagine but that it is going to be amazing. It’s an impression only reinforced as she soaks in all the delights of the location chosen for the event.
The party is being held downtown for the first time in over five years, she’s been told, in one of the big Victorian hotels that specialize in hosting corporate Christmas parties this time of the year. The setting suits the event, the decorations and atmosphere perfectly designed to bring a sensation of welcome and celebration. Previous years the party had been held out in the suburbs, she'd been told, and while she is sure that also would have been lovely, she’s grateful for this change, and in terms related to more than the short commute she’d taken to get here.
It’s beautiful here, it gives the impression of wonders about to be revealed, and as she heads through the hotel’s public areas to the convention centre attached, she marvels at all the details of the venue. Still, humming along with the festive music, increasingly cozy, she slips her jacket from her shoulders to carry, stuffing her scarf carefully into one of the arms, and proceeds to the room listed on the hotel directory. Already in a cheery mood, she soon makes her way to the room meant for Skywalker Inc.’s party, passing by as she does at least two more holiday parties, already apparently in full swing from what she can hear, music blaring and the sound of multiple conversations drifting out into the hall.
It has her smiling already at the joyful sound of it, for from the sound of it as she passes, listening to the cheerful sounds drifting through the open ballroom doors, everyone is determined to have a fantastic time tonight.
She is a little surprised not to meet up with any of her colleagues as she goes, she’s more surprised not to find a hubbub of people milling around the event room as she approaches, for it seems overly quiet in comparison to the other parties she’s just passed. Standing in front of the open ballroom doors of the room as stated in the hotel’s directory, she’s surprised to find it quiet other than the music she hears drifting from the room, even the reception table just to the left of the front of the door is deserted.
Frowning a little, she shifts her puffy jacket into her right hand so she can check the dainty dress watch, borrowed from Rose, on her left. She’s right on time, she finds, for it’s now twenty-five past seven and the invitation stated the doors would open at seven for drinks and hor-d’erves. Dinner will start at eight-thirty. Still, frowning a little, she checks the discreetly calligraphed sign at the door.
Skywalker Inc. – Holiday Celebration
She’s found the right place.
Peeking her head in, trying not to look as awkward as she feels, she takes a breath before she walks in to find it is exactly as she’d begin to fear.
There’s no one there but her.
Well, almost no one, for she finds, standing almost awkwardly towards the middle of the beautifully decorated room, stands a single, solitary man. Further, he is not any man Rey finds stationed forlornly alone in this big, fancy hotel ballroom, but none other than Ben Solo, Chief Operating Officer and Vice President (Finance) – the nephew of the firm’s founder and the host of tonight’s event.
Still, there’s not one other single, solitary person present that Rey can see.
Trying not to frown - have they cancelled the event, she wonders, selfishly hopes not – she does her best to act less confused than she feels as she politely approaches.
He smiles a little, she thinks she spies more than a hint of relief in it – so she smiles back.
“Um.” Swallowing, she tries again and goes for an opening she thinks most appropriate for the occasion.
“Hello, and, um, Merry Christmas?”