Chapter Text
Rey doesn’t see who else is at their usual table for breakfast until it’s too late for her to turn around and find somewhere else to sit in the crowded mess. Finn will notice, even if Ben doesn’t.
She sighs and takes the chair across from Kaydel. The flight controller greets her with a cheerful smile and goes right back to chattering at Ben, who looms beside her like a thundercloud overshadowing a tiny sun. Kaydel is happy, uncomplicated, and sweet; it isn’t surprising that Ben seems to like her. And she certainly hasn’t made any secret of liking him.
Rey hacks off a purple slice of jogan fruit with unnecessary force and asks Poe about the recon mission Red Squadron flew yesterday. She’s listening very attentively to his account of navigating through the Gam Tim'nisi asteroid field when a movement catches her eye and she looks across the table to see Ben bending his head down so that Kaydel can touch his hair. She’s talking about some kind of traditional Alderaani braid as her fingers weave through the dark strands.
“Are you okay?” Finn asks. “Rey? Did you bite your tongue or something?”
“Forgot sweetener in my caf,” she mutters, and seizes the chance to pick up her mug and leave.
Some days, meditation is easy and Rey can sink into the living Force that surrounds her as soon as she closes her eyes. Today is not one of those days.
She’s given up on finding her centre for the moment and is practicing one-armed handstands instead when a fallen leaf blows across the ground, brushing over her fingers before it dances up on a purposeful updraft of the breeze to flick her cheek. Such a minor distraction shouldn’t affect her balance but she sneezes and falls backward. She’d topple to the ground hard enough to bruise, if it weren’t for the gentle press of buoyancy from the air around her.
It’s Ben, of course. Rey stays flat on her back as he walks toward her. “You distracted me,” she grumbles.
“What’s going on?” From this angle he’s upside down, but his hair is still pulled back from his face in that elaborate braid and she can clearly see the frown creasing his eyes. “You’re a little off this morning.”
Rey reaches for the first excuse that comes to mind. “Didn’t sleep well.”
He might suspect she’s lying, but he’ll never call her on it. She can count on one hand the number of times he’s used the Force to read her since the interrogation—and never once since he defected to the Resistance.
He holds out a hand and she grabs it, using it as a fulcrum to flip upright on to her feet. The instant that her toes touch the ground, she sweeps her right leg out, but Ben has caught the flicker of intention in her eyes and is ready for her.
They spar, whirling across the training ground in elaborate, exaggerated spirals as they attempt ever more complicated unarmed combat forms. He gets in one good blow that sends her neck snapping back and will leave a mark on her jaw, but mostly they’re just playing.
This is what Rey needed, not the stillness of meditation. The burn and strain of pushing her muscles to the limit of their range empties her mind and smooths out her ragged impatience.
Ben drops under a kick that she expected him to block and grabs her foot, using her momentum to throw her sprawling over his back. She turns the fall into a somersault and pops up, grinning. Abandoning finesse, she launches herself at his legs again; exploiting her lower centre of gravity is the only hope she has in these hand-to-hand matches.
He goes down in a heap, but even then he’s so long that Rey has to stretch almost out of her balance point in order to brace a forearm across his neck.
“Feeling better now?” He’s laughing, the muscles of his throat moving under her bare skin, and his hair has fallen into the tousled mess she’s used to, half-hiding his eyes.
“Yeah. Thanks.” Rey jumps to her feet and starts brushing off her leggings as thoroughly as she can. Ben waits a moment, but when she doesn’t offer a hand he gathers his ridiculously long legs under him and rises unassisted.
“You need a haircut,” she blurts. “Finn’s pretty good at it—he’s done mine, and Poe’s.”
He pushes the waves out of his face, running a hand through them self-consciously. “I guess it is getting a little out of control. Kaydel was making fun of it too.”
Rey stomps across the clearing to pick up her canteen. It’s good to see others talking to Ben. Really. It shows that he’s finally being accepted by the Resistance. She can’t be so petty as to wish for the days when she was practically the only one who spoke to him, and then under protest.
“Can I…?” He gestures at the water bottle and she holds it out. As he takes it, their hands don’t touch but the inch that separates their fingers hums with charged static.
He tips his head back and drains at least half the bottle in a single gulp. Rey turns away, but it doesn’t matter where she's looking; she could chart the precise location of every point on his body relative to hers with her eyes closed.
“Leave some for me, will you?” she snaps.
“Don’t worry, I know better than to drink all your water.” He’s joking, but not really, because Rey will never go anywhere without a full canteen of potable water; it doesn’t matter whether she’s headed to the training ground for half a day, or to the Unknown Regions for a month. The brutal lessons of survival stick with you.
And this is another one, Rey reminds herself: don’t ask more of someone than they have to give. Ben is her ex-enemy, her comrade and fellow Jedi-in-training, and (she hopes) her friend. Their weird affinity is precarious enough, without the risk of unbalancing it by adding the weight of feelings he doesn’t share.
It’s too much; it’s not enough. But it’s what she can have.