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Status Report May 8^th: Still grounded and in therapy. Still not allowed anything sharp. Or his car. Or his phone. Or access to the internet. Basically house arrest. They let him have the television, at least. Probably realized that it was cruelty to deprive him of that too. The cops would definitely come for his parents if they did that.

When he expressed that to his parents, however, his dad just rolled his eyes and said, “Sure kid. That’s definitely the reason why. Not like you were preyed on by phone and internet or anything.”

“Han,” warned Leia, her voice that odd mix of hard and gentle it always got to whenever they talked about What Happened. For his part, Ben rolled his eyes. It had been three months, couldn’t she stop tiptoeing around it? It wasn’t like Ben wasn’t entirely aware of it by virtue of having lived it.

Like sure, a weirdly militant abusive cult leader had preyed on him for a few years before kidnapping him and six others and kept them on his property and fed them lies about being “the heralds of a glorious new age” for a year. Sure his Uncle Luke had even left Taizé and flown back and despite still talking to the other brothers with full intent to return hadn’t done it yet. Sure his cousin had been upset (not that she’d show it) by his disappearance so soon after her mother’s death. Sure Ben had nearly killed the officer who tried to get him to leave Snoke’s property because of some awful Stockholm Syndrome. Sure to all those things.

On second thought, it might be possible he was being too blasé about it. Hard to tell. His therapist liked to say that it was a coping mechanism. But didn’t that make it legitimate? It was too early for this, he decided.

“So anyway,” he said. “It’s the three month anniversary today.”

“That’s not how anniversaries work, Ben,” said Rey, calmly eating her waffles. God, he missed waffles. Uncle Luke, the helpful spiritual healer that he was, snorted in amusement.

“Right, well, I got home exactly three months ago today, whatever the word for that is.”

“Where are you going with this?” asked Leia, actually looking up from her phone.

“I was just thinking, maybe I could have my phone back? I mean, Snoke’s in jail and I assume you changed my number, so it’s not like he could get to me.”

“Ben, who would you even talk to?” asked Han. “You’re not in school, your mother’s trying to work from home as much as possible these days for your sake because I can’t, Luke’s flown in from France, who would you need to talk to?”

“Well, what if my friends have some sort of crisis? You know Khee has separation anxiety.”

“You see Cecilia twice a week at group therapy,” said Luke. “All of them, actually.”

“Why are you even allowed in at those?” asked Ben, turning to his Uncle. “Isn’t there some sort of conflict of interest with me involved?”

“Luke is a monk in Taizé,” said Leia, turning back to her work. Homeland Security gave no room to rest, it seemed. “Dr. Kalonia didn’t see why a meditative tradition wouldn’t be helpful. Especially since you were encouraged to meditate so much with Snoke.”

“Good job, Mom, that’s the most direct thing I’ve heard you say about it,” said Ben, tapping his spoon against the surface of his cereal to see it ripple with the moving milk underneath. “Dr. Kalonia would applaud that.”

“Ben, stop antagonizing your mother,” said Luke calmly.

“Sorry.” It was hard to snark when your uncle was a literal monk. Whether or not you were religious, when a monk chastised you, it was hard not to feel guilty.

On the other hand, it was hard not to feel surly when your whole family was filled with naturally early risers who had enough time to make waffles on a weekday and dragged you out of bed to enjoy your cereal while everyone else got fluffy goodness. It was times like this that Ben was surprised that he didn’t actually hate the whole spoons-and-finger-food-only regimen he was kept on in regards to keeping sharp things away from him. Honestly, that time he tried to stab his dad the first day back hadn’t even been that bad. He only had a butter knife and he’d barely managed to actually touch Han.

“Ben, you’ve only been home for three months,” said Leia. “You’re not…I don’t want to say you’re not ready but it’s too soon.”

“Leia, it’s not like he’s going to round up the others and go break Snoke out of jail or anything,” said Han. “There’s just…no one he could talk to.”

“You’re all going to have to get back to normal sometime,” said Ben, staring at his cereal. Cornflakes; honestly kind of bland, incredibly ubiquitous, but his favorite. He’d forgotten about that. God, how’d he managed to forget that? “When you do, do you really want me unattended?”

“It won’t be any time soon,” said Leia. “We’re not going to leave you alone so soon after a really massive trauma.”

“I flew in from France,” reminded Luke over his mug of coffee. The man didn’t even need it, he just liked the taste. Weirdo. “I think I’ve made something of a very strong commitment to helping you recover.”

“Well it’s not like I’m going to be texting you, Uncle Luke,” said Ben. “You live in a monastery.”

“We’re not entirely cut off from the world.”

“Yes, but we don’t have a lot to talk about.”

“The point still stands,” said Leia firmly, “that you won’t be needing it right away. We can revisit this later, how about that? As it is, Rey needs to get to school.”

“I’ll take her,” offered Luke calmly. Sometimes Ben just couldn’t understand why Rey was so calm with Luke being around. Of course, he did miss the initial reunion, what with being spirited away to some shady ranch. “Also there’s a reporter thinking they’re being sneaky sitting in their car across the street, I’ll send them on their way.”

A displeased frown was born on Leia’s lips to hear that, and Han frowned too. Rey looked something near murderous, and Ben just kept tapping his corn flakes. It was weird, seeing people so upset at the idea that he might be upset. Unwillingly, his mind supplied exactly what Snoke might have told him about this same situation had it happened before. Uncle Luke said he saw a reporter outside and everyone looked angry, he’d say. And Snoke would twist it into, Seems to me they’re angry you’re messing things up, drawing such attention.

He felt like an idiot now, for how easily he had been suckered in, but he had only been thirteen when Snoke started talking to him, hadn’t he? Felt so alone and isolated and then Snoke was there and how did he become the story of every internet-scare from the early 2000’s?

“Ben, try actually eating the cereal,” advised Han, and Ben ducked his head at being called out on it. Luke was patting his shoulder in farewell now, and Rey was collecting her bag, ruffling his hair as she passed as if he were the younger one. Still, beginning to eat again, he listened to the front door close while Han asked “So, what great adventures await you today, Ben?”

“Group therapy at two,” he said. “We’re going out for ice cream.”

“That should be fun,” offered Leia.

“Mom, have you ever been to group therapy?”

“Beyond that?” prompted Han.

“A riveting day of nothing.”

“Well as you so beautifully pointed out, you do still have the television. Plus the entire outside world.”

“Until the trial is done, I’d rather he stay inside,” said Leia slowly. “For your own sake, Ben.”

“Just for that, I’m going to take some money, walk to CVS and buy something,” said Ben, shoveling a mouthful of cereal.

“Like what?” asked Han, clearly amused.

“I don’t know, I’ll figure that out when I get there.”

As it was, he ended up buying sunscreen, paying a too cheery cashier whose nametag told him she was named Amber. He recognized that type of cheer, though. That was the sound of someone who was aware of what he had gone through, who recognized him from the news reports. It always made him feel sick, and he probably could have been more graceful than practically bolting out of the store.

Getting ice cream later that day was going to suck.

As it was, he was hyper aware of every car that passed, every dog walker, feeling their eyes on him like hot embers. He kept walking faster and faster each time he felt them adding up. There were dozens of them on him, each their own brand of you’re that kid from the news you’re the kid who got kidnapped into a cult you’re the kid who tried to kill the officer who was getting you out.

It wasn’t like he was the only one, he wanted to scream. Everyone else had been just as unwilling to be taken out everyone else had been just as kidnapped as he was. Then again, this was the reason group therapy had become something of group outings instead, how much they hated being in public. Dr. Kalonia would be proud of him anyway, even if this outing had been promoted entirely out of spite.

When the door closed behind him, however, Ben couldn’t help but take a deep breath of relief. No more eyes. He could still feel them, but they’d go away. Hopefully. Standing there with his forehead pressed to the door, he jumped away when he heard a footstep. Whirling around, he saw Han there, tool case in hand. “Hey kid, you doing okay?” asked Han, brow furrowing in that way that could have been read as either concern or anger. Ben had read it as anger for the longest time and it was hard for him to unlearn that. But he was getting better at it.

At the tip of his tongue was both “Peachy dad, just got stared at like I was a bogeyman come to life by like half the neighborhood” and “no really not I’ve honestly not been alright since I was twelve probably.” Instead he held up the prize clutched in his hand and said, “Spite is a motivator that doesn’t get enough credit.”

“I don’t know, I give it plenty credit. Glad to see you’re taking up the spite banner.”

“Why do you have your tools?”

“Chewie called. The Falcon’s starboard engine’s out of commission again.”

“Are you ever just going to replace it? It’s been cutting out as long as I can remember.”

“Well, she’s not really been in the water while…while you were…” All at once, Ben realized how old his father looked. Han buried it under dry sarcasm, but that whole year, while not actually that harrowing for Ben in the midst of it, was absolute hell on his family.

This was probably when he should say something kind and comforting like “I’m sorry dad I wish you didn’t have to go through what you did.” But the people in his family did generally have a very hard time expressing such emotion to each other, so the best he could actually do was say, “Well, I hope this time the repairs hold.”

Han sighed and set down the tools, and Ben froze, realizing things may have gotten a bit too sentimental. The tools were set down. That wasn’t good. He still had eyes burning into his back, he couldn’t deal with sentiment, let alone from his dad. “Ben, I…I know that you went through something most people are lucky to avoid, and that I know that we’re lucky to have you back at all, let alone after only a year. Most parents don’t get their kids back from what happened to you. And I know we don’t really say things like this, and I know that you’re probably jittery from going out alone like you did, but I’m really proud that you did it, even if it was only because of spite.”

“Is that all, ‘cause…”

“Just two seconds, Ben. I know I don’t say things like this but…” and suddenly, Ben was pulled into a hug. His dad’s hugs were like cornflakes; not that special, not that grand, but still his favorite. And still something he had managed to forget. “I’m real happy you’re back, Ben. I’m not too excited that you tried to stab me, but I’m still just glad you’re home. When you were gone, your mom and I…”

“I know, dad.” There was something to say here. There was some phrase, some word that would make everything alright, make his dad stop giving him cornflake hugs and go back to those pats on the shoulder. This wasn’t who his dad was, they didn’t hug like this, and Ben just wanted to say what he needed to so that his dad could go back to normal. But he couldn’t think of it. So instead, he just let his dad hold him for a long time before Han finally pulled away.

“The year you were gone, part of me thought we’d never get you back. I have never been so happy to be proven wrong.”

Ben really was bad at this. Everyone did this, the deep emotional confessions, affirming their love for him and all that even three months back. He just didn’t know how to respond beyond awkward, weak smiles lest he accidentally say “Thanks, but I actually wasn’t that upset while I was with Snoke. I probably would have gone on perfectly happy if I hadn’t been taken out.” That was probably proof of how badly he needed to be taken out, the fact that he would have been happy in what he now could look back and see as absolutely horrible.

“Alright, I know you’ve had enough and don’t want to hear any more of this but I had to say it. Chewie’s going to rip my arm out if I keep him waiting, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done that we’ve not done for a long time.” Ben nodded, and retreated into the home, unsure what to do now. There was yet hours before Luke would take him to therapy and there were still eyes on him.

Eventually, he found himself curled into the armchair in the living room, staring at the news as the talking heads began to debate about, as they had for months on end, What Happened. They were throwing around their usual fancy words; “destructive cults” “possible underage harem” “toxic medieval ideals” “politically charged formation as evidenced by the abduction of Benjamin Organa-Solo.”

They were playing that damn clip again, the one of them having to be forcibly removed. He’d grown numb to it, seeing it playing on a loop on the news all the time. Well, mostly. Hearing the distressed screams from his friends, even as distorted as they were from the low quality of the video still affected him.

“Ben, why are you watching this?” asked Leia, at the doorway.

“Look Ma, I’m on TV,” said Ben dryly, not looking away even as his mother took the remote, turning it off.

The image disappeared, cutting off the sound at the same time. Leia’s hand rested heavily on his shoulder and her thumb rubbed firm, comforting circles into his back as she said, “People talk, even if they don’t know what they’re talking about. You don’t need to listen to everyone.”

“They’re being really loud, it’s hard not to.”

“And that is why we invented mute buttons. I have some free time until I have to be on a phone call, do you want to watch Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?”

“Since when do you have time to watch Hitchhiker’s Guide with me?” asked Ben, turning to her.

Leia took a breath and said, “When you were….we realized just how precious you were, when you were gone. It made me realize that I probably didn’t value you enough. I realized that without meaning to, I might have made you feel I don’t have time for you. I might have made it easier for Snoke to get to you.”

God, was today going to be nothing but emotional confessions? Was Luke going to come down and spout out some spiritual wisdom next, either in French or in chant? Why not just invite Chewie up, let him have his say? Should he be prepared to blubber over everyone at therapy? Would Rey come home with some great grand revelation about what his absence had meant to her?

Still, soon they were bundled into the couch together, watching Ford and Arthur escape earth when the Vogons came. “I would love a babelfish,” said Leia. “Do you think it would work for binary?”

“Then you could politely ask phones from criminals to reveal their secrets, and not have to ask Apple to code some back door,” said Ben.

“Exactly, it would be so helpful.” If Han’s hugs were cornflakes, so was Leia’s dry sarcasm, and Ben put them all very high on the list of “Things to Never Ever Forgive Snoke For.” The list was very long, they should be honored to be so high up. Not that he’d probably actually ever tell them, but still. Maybe he could write it down, leave it to them in his will.

“Oh freddled gruntbuggly, thy micturations are to me, as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee that mordiously hath blurted out its earted jurtles, into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer,” recited Ben alongside Jeltz as Stephen Fry’s voice drowned out the Vogon to describe the horror of their poetry.

“When did you memorize Vogon poetry?” asked Leia.

Ben shrugged, and decided not to describe the timeline of his life as Before Snoke, During Snoke and After Snoke. He’d do his mother that kindness at least. Instead he said, “Middle school, I think. Not a lot of friends, a lot of time to read.” Immediately he cringed, realizing that his mom would probably take that as more of her After Snoke Guilt (ASG for short, maybe he’d pitch it to his friends. Everyone around them seemed to suffer from it. Who knows, maybe they could afford to pay for Dr. Kalonia’s services with some “Walk for the Cure to ASG”).

“I used to be able to do that. I was in a mock UN when I was younger, I could quote laws and all that.”

“And then you were in the real UN. Must have come in handy.” There was a picture, hanging in the hall, of Leia sitting in the UN with Ben, just a few months old, sleeping in her arms. Why it had to be in the downstairs hall where any visitor could see it rather than upstairs where only those deemed worthy of being upstairs could see it, Ben still wanted an answer for.

The rest of the film passed with little comments made by both of them, Ben saying he would kill for the little toasting knife Trillion used, Leia saying she would kill for a Pangalactic Gargleblaster after a day of dealing with politicians. Small wishes, from a film with pangalactic travel and Improbability Drives. When Ben mentioned that, Leia snorted and said, “The amount of bureaucracy in this film is probably only a thousandth of the actual amount, if the galaxy was truly so united. And that’s being generous. I only want the Gargleblaster.”

“I’ll take that toaster knife.”

“Sure you don’t want that any bigger?”

“Well yes, but if I have to take it as it is, I’d take the knife. Actually, I’d take the Point of View Gun. Like to use that on all the talking heads on the news and all the people who stare at me.” Leia’s hand was suddenly stroking his curls and making Ben feel awful because his mom already dealt with so much when it came to What Happened and with her new venture against domestic terrorism (good old ASG, changing the country) he didn’t need to be piling on his problems with Amber from CVS being too obvious about recognizing him.

Around the time that Slartibartfast came to pick Arthur Dent up from the frozen tundra of Magrathea when the last thing he remembered was Trillion yelling at Zaphod Beeblebrox about accidentally signing the go-ahead for the destruction of earth, Ben realized that he had fallen asleep, and that Leia hadn’t stopped stroking his hair. That was also cornflakes, he decided, blinking his eyes into focus as Slartibartfast told Arthur about the luxury planets and how mice had commissioned earth.

Maybe he needed a better word than cornflakes. Whatever, it wasn’t important.

“You know, your father once gave me permission that if I could, I could go on a date with Bill Nighy without judgment,” said Leia. Ben sat upright at that and stared at her.

“Mom, what?”

“He seems like a very charming man.”

“Does dad have a free pass?”

“Originally it was Madeleine Kahn, I don’t think he has a new one.” Ben just shook his head, chuckling under his breath. His family was so weird. He probably took the cake with the whole cult thing, but if he thought something was weird then that definitely meant things were weird.

Leia had to go to work while The Heart of Gold drove to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and when faced with the jazz rendition of “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish” Ben simply restarted the film. So what if he had literally just finished, he was allowed. It wasn’t like there was anyone who was going to judge him, his dad at the boat, his mom working, his uncle probably in meditation, and his cousin still at school.

God things got lonely.

By the end of the second time he watched Hitchhiker’s Guide that there was just enough time before therapy to do absolutely nothing. He ended up sitting in the window seat in his room and staring down at Ms. Kanata’s lawn next door. She’d changed the garden. Looked less wild. But apparently, What Happened had changed everyone around him, who knew what he had inspired in the neighbors? Especially the neighbors who were dating one of his godfathers (honestly, who had two godfathers?).

The pear tree was still there, at least. Good. If Maz Kanata ever got rid of her pear tree, he’d officially lose it and probably walk right into whatever jail Snoke was in and say “I’m back.”

Second thought, probably don’t even joke about that to anyone. His dad joked that he lived in his head a lot, but how could he be blamed for that if he couldn’t verbalize the dark humor he amused himself with without being immediately bundled into a car to be taken to Dr. Kalonia’s practice to talk about “dependency on familiarity” and “dangerously associating self with objects and people, rather than with himself.”

Speaking of, it was probably time for him to get to Dr. Kalonia to talk with the others about “the dangers of developing agoraphobia in already vulnerable people who have a history of ascribing self with others” and how they were “only limiting themselves by being frightened of being seen when their whole lives were ahead of them.” It wasn’t the being seen, he wanted to say, it was the eyes.

Still, he should probably go rouse the spiritual counselor, or as he liked to call it, knock on Uncle Luke’s door until he gave Ben a ride. Ms. Kanata’s lovely backyard would simply have to wait to be admired by the well sought after regard of Mr. Organa-Solo until after he had suffered through having ice cream and talking about his feelings.

Uncle Luke was living in the guest room, and so he dragged his feet there, unwilling to walk faster to try and drag it out as long as possible. He wanted to see his friends, yes, he just didn’t want to have to deal with the whole group outing thing. This was why he wanted his phone, so he could text them and still have their company rather than sit and stare into the neighbor’s lawn.

He could hear Uncle Luke singing his repetitive meditative prayer songs, and knocked sharply on the door to remind him of the outside world. It wasn’t that his uncle minded when someone came in, it was just that Ben felt uncomfortable in the face of someone’s unswaying faith and earnest offers if he’d like to join in meditation, even if not in prayer. So he’d stay outside thank you.

The door opened and Uncle Luke was there, a brow raised and asking, “Is it time already?”

“Trust me, Uncle Luke, I waited until the last possible moment.” He really didn’t want to do this outing. The ice cream, he didn’t mind. Dr. Kalonia and the others and even Uncle Luke, he didn’t mind. The fact that they were going to be going to get ice cream in public, he did mind.

So, he got a head start complaining as Uncle Luke drove them to Dr. Kalonia’s practice. “There’s going to be people and they’re going to stare.”

“Ben, it is the middle of the day during the week,” said Uncle Luke calmly. “We chose to do it today because there’s not going to be many people there. We’re starting small.”

“But the people who work there are going to stare!”

“Not everyone is going to recognize you. Eventually, this will fade from peoples’ minds and they won’t stare.”

“Can’t we do these outings then?” asked Ben, thumb running on the underside of the safety belt.

“No. Ben, we’ve been over this a thousand times. You were isolated by Snoke, then kidnapped where you had no contact with anyone besides the others and him, and now that you’re back you hate leaving the house. Your trip to CVS this morning, even if motivated solely by spite, was the first time you’ve actually willingly left by yourself in three months. You’re in danger of developing agoraphobia and you’re already vulnerable to codependency. If you don’t get that way with the others, you might feel that way with Leia, or Han, or Rey. It’s the same with the others. You all need to be confident in yourself to go out into public, and to build healthy relationships.”

“I don’t see how ice cream will help with the codependency. Besides, we’re not codependent, we’re just friends. Did any of you ever think of that?”

Luke said nothing, leaving Ben to fiddle with the radio. The radio was a really sad reminder of how much he had missed, half the songs that were playing ones he had missed. Finally settling on some acoustic love song (the words were unfamiliar but the style of song certainly wasn’t), Ben just stared out the window, watching the houses and then the businesses go by as they drew closer and closer to the low slung office building where Dr. Kalonia had her practice.

As usual, they were the first ones there. “Good afternoon, Ben,” said The Good Doctor Kalonia, speaking with that tone balanced like a ballerina on her toes between sincere and sarcastic. Ben liked her, even if he didn’t like the forum in which he met her. “How are you?”

“Can we wait until the others are here before you cross examine me?” asked Ben, collapsing into his usual chair.

“Ben’s been feeling very spiteful today,” said Luke. “So much so that he went to CVS today all by himself, bought himself some sunscreen.”

“It was the first thing I saw that I could afford.”

“Very good job, Ben!” praised Dr. Kalonia. “Just try your best this afternoon, alright? Even if you’re tired from this morning just do your best.”

“When do I not?”

“I can think of a few times. Brother Luke, can I talk to you?”

Another time he could do with a phone, Ben thought, staring up at the ceiling. But then, would he be so well acquainted with the ceiling of this therapy room? There was something that looked like a scuff mark on the ceiling, and if he had a phone, how on earth would he be able to have a list of theories of how that scuff got there?

He was startled out of debating which was more plausible, a thrown shoe or someone with dirty hands being dared to touch the ceiling, when the door opened and in walked the girl he knew as Nova, her aunt going to talk to Dr. Kalonia and Luke. “Nova!” said Ben, launching himself out of the chair.

“Lily,” stressed the adults from their knot of discussion.

“Lily. I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“What did you do?” asked Lily, her eyes sharp despite the smile twisting up the corner of her lips.

“I walked to CVS this morning and bought sunscreen.”

“How? And why sunscreen?”

“Spite is a powerful motivator and it does not get enough credit. And it was the first thing I saw that I could afford and I wanted out as soon as possible.”

“And now they’re going to say that if you can do it we can.”

“If Dr. Kalonia and Uncle Luke don’t, your aunt might.” Lily let out a choking groan of annoyance before going to her usual chair, sitting across from Ben.

“Are you ready for our ice cream outing?” she asked.

“I’ve got four dollars in my pocket and am bracing myself. Ready as I’ll ever be,” said Ben.

Slowly, the others trickled in, Cecilia sitting close to Ben’s side, Luke in his chair next to Christopher, Deepika running her fingers over her bracelet next to Lily. And no one looked pleased at the idea of what they were to do that day. “Soon as Gregory gets here, we’ll head out,” Dr. Kalonia was saying. “The ice cream shop is walking distance. We’re going to sit and eat and leave when everyone’s done.”

“Sounds like fun,” muttered Christopher.

“I’m making a prophecy,” said Deepika. “It’s going to go okay by therapy standards, but it’s going to be painful and awful for the rest of us and we’re all going to want to retreat and never go out again because we’re going to be exhausted by it.”

“If you go in expecting it to be something difficult, you’re going to have a harder time than if you just trust yourself and do it,” said Brother Luke, fully in his spiritual role to the point that even Ben was thinking of him as Brother Luke. It was almost creepy how he did that.

“Are you talking about joining a monastic community in rural France or are you talking about us codependent budding agoraphobes getting ice cream?” asked Ben, making Lily snort and Cecilia hide a grin behind her hand.

“The point still stands, Ben.”

It was then that the door opened again to admit Gregory, the tall dark skinned boy who stepped in arms wide as he declared, “Nothing like shared trauma to bring people together, eh?”

“You’re late, Tem,” said Luke.

“Gregory,” corrected Brother Luke, though not unkindly.

“Well I’m here now,” said Gregory, the spread of his smile more than a little forced. Each of them dealt with it in their own way and Gregory’s bravado wasn’t the worst way to do so.

“And we’re leaving,” said Lily, getting to her feet. “The sooner we go, the sooner this will be over.”

It was good to be together, the walking part was the easiest of these outings. They couldn’t get together outside of these meetings, and so they took what they could and chatted now. Group therapy was twice a week, but that was still five days they didn’t see each other when they had been their only social peers for a year.

“How did you even manage to go out yourself?” asked Lily as they walked along, Cecilia on Ben’s other side.

“You went out?” she asked. “Where? Why?”

“I walked to the CVS near my house,” explained Ben. “Mom was saying she didn’t feel comfortable with me leaving the house while there’s the whole trial and all, and I decided I’d go buy something out of sheer spite. So I did. Hated every second of it, though. When I got home I watched Hitchiker’s Guide twice and then stared into my neighbor’s yard.”

“I’ve done lots of yard staring too. Most exciting thing, two weeks ago my neighbors mowed their lawn.”

“So you went out of spite?” asked Lily.

“Yes,” said Ben. “It’s quite the motivator.”

“I’m impressed. Want to hide behind me at the ice cream place?”

“Now that’s just pathetic, I will not be hiding.”

The knots of the group shifted and changed as they walked, catching up with each other as Brother Luke and Dr. Kalonia spoke quietly to each other. Eventually Ben found himself walking next to his friend Luke, comfortable silence between them before Luke said, “I heard you talking to Lily and Cecilia, god it’s weird calling them that. I admire you, that you could go out like that, but I sort of hate that you could. Because now my parents are going to assume that I can do it too now.”

Ben sighed as he said, “They’re going to expect me to be able to do it on command too. I’ve just made everything harder for everyone, haven’t I?”

“Not if we make a solemn pact not to let the rest of our families know. And if one of us pitches a fit it won’t do anything but if you do, then Brother Luke won’t expect it and he’ll talk to your parents and there you go, all the time we’d need.”

“I’m not going to trash the ice cream parlor.”

Luke shrugged, the easy movement of his shoulders disturbed by the uneasy look of his eyes as a woman walked by with her golden retriever. “It was worth a shot.”

“Here we are,” declared Dr. Kalonia, and all seven of the teenagers turned to look at the building in front of them.

“I used to come here with my parents all the time,” said Christopher quietly. Sounded to Ben like he was having a cornflakes realization. “I can’t believe I forgot about it. We’d walk here in the evenings, I’d always get a waffle cone because it came with a malted milk ball at the bottom.”

“Maybe this will be a happy outing, then?” said Brother Luke, sounding so earnest as he opened the door for them.

The outings always had something of a set pattern from those around them that they had come to expect. It didn’t make enduring it any easier, but at least they could recognize it now. First, there were some distrustful looks for seven high school aged teenagers walking into a place of business in the middle of the day during the school week (“They think we’re delinquents,” Deepika had once said when they had all gone shopping for one article of clothing each, while clutching the scarf she was going to buy. “Honestly, they’re not wrong.”). Second, someone would have some spark of recognition, and they’d start whispering. Third, they’d either try and cover for it with too bright smiles, or they’d stare a little too openly. Either way, their eyes would burn holes into their backs until they could flee.

Whenever Ben had tried to explain how horrifying and awful it felt, it never managed to sound as bad as it felt. Maybe that was why they kept getting pushed into doing these things, he reflected as he watched the man who was stealing what he thought to be subtle glances scoop up his bowl of black cherry ice cream. Cecilia had drawn close to his side again, seeking out the one who had protected her from Snoke’s rages as if the ice cream shop workers were going to throw one of their scoops at her. Taking his bowl, Ben twisted his pinky finger with hers as Cecilia said with a voice that spoke perhaps a breath too fast, “A cone of raspberry sherbet please. The small one.”

Christopher got his waffle cone of coffee flavor while Luke ordered a cone of chocolate chip. Deepika wanted pistachio, Gregory got the plain chocolate, and Lily was already sitting at a table, stabbing at her bowl of lemon sherbet with all the frustration that plagued her by the stares they got. Dr. Kalonia joined them with a bowl of vanilla with all the ease they were lacking, and Brother Luke had only a bottle of water.

“How is everyone feeling?” asked Dr. Kalonia, and if there was one sentence that Ben despised above all others, it was probably that one. Followed closely by what she said next. “On a scale of one to ten, where do you rate yourselves?”

“They keep staring,” said Lily, finally putting some of her sherbet into her mouth.

“Maybe we should try and look more obviously traumatized,” suggested Gregory.

“That’ll only make things worse,” said Deepika sullenly, her fingers dancing over her bracelet.

“Why would that make it worse?” asked Brother Luke in that serene tone of his.

“Because they expect us to burst out sobbing any second and keep staring because they don’t want to miss it!” snapped Luke, pointing to the workers some of whom looked away hurriedly and were suddenly very concerned with their scoopers. “They stare and stare and think they know us just because the news talks about us all the time!”

“Luke, stop shouting.” Scowling, Luke obeyed, biting into his ice cream in the way that always made Ben shudder. His own teeth were far too sensitive to bite into ice cream like that.

“He’s right though,” said Ben, suddenly spooning at his black cherry ice cream while Cecilia sat silently beside him, watching the drops of sherbet sliding down her cone to make her fingers sticky and stain them dark red. “Everyone stares at us like we’re some sort of…some sort of movie about human suffering that they can learn some valuable lesson from. Like we’re some sort of learning experience and not people who actually want to get on with their lives, thanks.”

“People look for meaning in suffering,” said Dr. Kalonia carefully. “Try and find the reason for it. Some say it’s sin, or karma, or any number of things. The forces of the universe making one bad thing happen to avoid something worse, even. If there must be suffering, there needs to be a reason for it. So, people romanticize it. Just look at the Romantics in the nineteenth century, they were obsessed with death. Some people believe that suffering will make you a better person, and they look to you for whatever wisdom they think you’ve gained.”

“I’m not any wiser,” said Cecilia, her voice frustrated. “I just look back at what happened and realize how fucked up it was and how much it fucked me up.”

“That’s the thing, everyone tries to see it but don’t actually care to ask you what you felt.”

“So we end up looking like a Hallmark film. Great.”

“This life isn’t always fair,” agreed Brother Luke. “That is why the last shall be first and the first shall be last, we’re all due a sweeter life beyond this one, but those who suffer the most deserve that sweetness before all others.”

The teenagers exchanged glances. Brother Luke’s advice was usually sound, really, but it came from a place of religion and faith and there was only so much of that a bunch of cynical ex-cult member teenagers could accept. “We’re not asking for fair,” Lily said finally. “We’re just asking not to be stared at like we’re a pod of rare dolphins at the aquarium!”

“Odd metaphor,” said Christopher.

“Oh shut up. I just want things to–to be normal. Yes I know they can’t be because of what happened and all, but I don’t want to be treated like I’m made of glass. Frankly, I’d like use of knives and forks again! And pens for that matter! I don’t want people to look like they’re about to cry whenever I say I forgot I liked something! Like Chris with this ice cream place. My aunt bought poptarts and I told her how I forgot how much I loved those, and she nearly started crying. Over strawberry poptarts.”

Cornflakes, thought Ben, letting a spoonful of ice cream melt on his tongue. It was the cornflakes again.

“Alright, here’s what I want you all to do,” said Dr. Kalonia. “Buy a notebook, get a pen, and write that down. Write down what you forgot you liked, write down how people react to you when you say that. Write down everyone who stares at you, write down everyone who doesn’t recognize you and treats you normally, write down everything.”

“Why?” asked Deepika. “What will that accomplish?”

“Eventually you’ll stop seeing people looking like they want to cry, or people staring or whispering,” said Brother Luke. “It’ll be good for you to look back and see how far you’ve come.”

The rest of the outing was passed with less drama, and soon enough they could flee (with a perfectly sedate pace thank you) back outside. The eyes were still on them though, and where they had dragged their feet on the way there, now Dr. Kalonia and Brother Luke were the ones following behind the teenagers eager to get inside where the eyes would leave them.

“You all did very well today,” assured Dr. Kalonia. “Remember the journals.”

“Trust me, I will not forget medical professionals telling me I can use pens again,” said Ben.

“What about forks? Knives aren’t on the table I know that, but like…how many utensils can we have?” asked Gregory.

“Still only spoons and chopsticks,” said Dr. Kalonia, her tone apologetic. “I’m sorry, but there needs to be a little more time.” There was no small amount of sighing, but three months had been a bit of a stretch to be allowed anything that could actually do significant damage. “Brother Luke, I’ll call you to talk about next week’s outing.”

“Brother Luke, I swear I will actually go to church if you make next week’s outing easier,” said Luke.

“Church is not a bargaining chip, Luke,” said Brother Luke, but he was smiling.

“Is there no solidarity in having the same name?”

“None. I will see you next week.”

The others trickled out while relatives came to pick them up and drive them, and Ben stared at his uncle as he transformed back from Brother Luke of Taizé to Uncle Luke. It was a subtle thing, but there it was. It wasn’t as if he was two separate people, even, but suddenly he could think of him as uncle as not as Brother.

Finally, when the others had gone and their parents and guardians had all spoken to Uncle Luke and Dr. Kalonia about letting them have pens and notebooks, Ben finally got up, nodded to the doctor and started out to Luke’s car. “Mom probably has a notebook I can use,” he commented as they drove, listening to some bright pop song he didn’t recognize.

“I’m sure she does,” agreed Luke. “Are you that excited to have a pen?”

“You have no idea.” It was true, to be allowed a pen was to have people realize that maybe he hadn’t been turned into some sort of dangerous felon barely contained. He hadn’t had one of those fits of passion in a long time, at least a few weeks now. Honestly he was better, and this would help people see that. He wasn’t normal, he couldn’t be, thanks to What Happened, but he was better than when he had first got back. And if he could be treated normally and trusted with forks, for instance, then he’d feel more normal and maybe going out would be easier.

This was a small thing, in the scheme of things, but it was important all the same.

He was so caught up in his imaginings of how everything was going to finally go uphill that he almost missed that they were home. Granted, he could miss it because he hadn’t expected to see the moving van at the house next door. With people moving things into the house. Jolting in surprise, Ben twisted in his seat, staring at it as they pulled into the garage, craning his head to watch as long as possible. “Ms. Kanata doesn’t live there anymore?” he asked, turning to Luke in disbelief. He didn’t give Luke any time to answer, however, clambering out of the car and running into the house to find his mother typing furiously away at her computer to demand the same of her. “Ms. Kanata doesn’t live next door anymore?”

“Welcome back Ben, how was therapy?” she asked dryly.

“It was awful but Dr. Kalonia says I can have pens now. Why didn’t you tell me Maz left? Where’s she living now?”

“She’s moved in with Chewie.”

“Ah, old people love.”

“Middle aged, Ben, they’re not old. Now what’s this about you being allowed pens?”

“Who lives there now? Mom this is kind of a big deal, what if they chop down the pear tree?”

“I don’t know who lives there, Ben. Maz didn’t say, she was too busy with moving in with Chewie to care about who our new neighbors are. If you’re that curious we can go over later, welcome them into the neighborhood.”

“But the pear tree.”

“It’s their property now, I suppose,” said Leia, still working. This used to feel like casual abandonment. God, how his perception had been warped by Snoke. She still didn’t understand him all the time, though. That pear tree was important, he couldn’t possibly bear to see it go. “Honestly, Ben, what’s this about pens? I thought you weren’t allowed anything sharp.”

“Only pens, we’ve been given an assignment of keeping a journal of things we’ve missed and peoples’ reactions and stuff.”

“Oh, that should help you see your progress,” she said, and actually looked up at him, suddenly producing journals and pens for him to choose from. He took a blue pen and a plain black leather bound journal, stealing away fast he could to the window to stare at the house in hopes of seeing the new neighbors.

Shouldn’t someone have warned them? “Don’t buy the house, you’ll be moving into the crazy neighborhood.” Who’d even want Ms. Kanata’s house? Maz Kanata was a packrat whose house had always been full of shelves overflowing with knickknacks, some were even antiques. There was a constant flow of visitors, and she’d always waved them to sit down with that no nonsense glare of hers, and gone to make them drinks. Whenever he’d gone over for dinner with his parents she had always put a square or two of chocolate in the bottom of the mug and poured hot coffee over it and let him go pick pears to eat in the backyard after the meal. Her house had been too cramped in some spaces and too open in others, and he couldn’t imagine anyone but that irate short woman living there. It just felt wrong.

Still, he couldn’t help the chuckling laugh that escaped him imagining what Chewie’s house looked like now. There’d be Ms. Kanata’s knickknacks sitting on top of those antique boat motors Chewie insisted on decorating with, old tool boxes probably converted into kitchen herb gardens. It must be anarchy there.

So far he could only see movers in the house, their shapes passing by windows. What would the neighbors be like? Maybe it was another grumpy old woman. He quite liked old people, liked listening to their stories. He’d not mind that, unless it was one of those old people like the one at the park last month who had decided to tell them that it was people like them who were making the integrity of the country collapse by abandoning the government or whatever that old man had been saying.

Finally, someone stepped out into the backyard, just standing on that patio they used to have cookouts on (Ms. Kanata had always made Chewie do the cooking, passing him a hair tie to hold back his shaggy mane of brown hair while she went to talk to everyone). Ben’s eyes widened, and he hoped really hard that this Neighbor was staying. He didn’t care if there was a grumpy old woman anymore, not if Neighbor got to stay.

Neighbor, as Ben had dubbed him, was a tall lanky boy roughly his own age with pale skin and red hair that was slightly tousled, probably from work. He looked starkly opposite from Ben’s own worn skinny jeans and hoodie, dressed in slacks and a button down with the sleeves carefully rolled up to his elbows. In the moment, with Neighbor’s hands perched like birds on his hips as he stared out across the tame lawn (Ben knew it had looked too tame to really be Ms. Kanata’s), Ben remembered how much he liked seeing cute boys.

Neighbor turned then, and Ben dove out of view, hoping he moved before Neighbor saw him. Peering cautiously out, he saw Neighbor was turned to angle his head back inside, before fully turning and returning inside. He hadn’t been looking at Ben’s house at all. That was a relief.

Ben opened the journal, and using the blue pen he wrote down:

The Cornflakes List (AKA Things Never to Forgive Snoke For Letting Me Forget I Liked)

1) Cornflakes
2) Dad’s hugs
3) Mom’s sarcasm
4) Black Cherry Ice Cream
5) Seeing cute boys

He frowned at that last one, but decided it could stay. For now. If it caused trouble, he’d scribble it out. For now it seemed orderly enough.

Right, that was enough personifying lists. Anyway, he had some spying to do, trying to discern with whom Neighbor lived and what sort of family was to live there. Single parent? Multi parent? Multigenerational? Did Neighbor have siblings?

This was perfectly reasonable he decided, going to his room where he could see a little into the dining room in what used to be Ms. Kanata’s house. These people were to be his neighbors, after all. And he was the perfect candidate to be a crazy neighbor.

Actually, that wasn’t too flattering. But he’d figure that out later. For now, this was new and exciting if even for the sole reason that it was new, let alone that Neighbor was cute. Who could blame him for being interested in the first new development in three months? Yes it manifested itself in a weird way, but that was beside the point. This was like his black humor about What Happened. It wasn’t harmful, just different.

Granted, he didn’t know how Dr. Kalonia would react if he brought this up in their one on one therapy. So, he decided, he’d just not bring it up.

And then from downstairs, he could hear the garage door opening to admit his Uncle Chewie’s roar of a laugh. It was time to go to the source.

Uncle Chewie, his dearest godfather (and that wasn’t a lie, even Before Snoke he barely spoke to Mr. San-Tekka except at that awful New Year’s Party his parents threw), was laughing at something Han had said as they slowly migrated through the kitchen to the backyard where they’d either lay in lawn chairs or play a game of Kubb and argue about the rules the whole time. Ben just had to catch them in the kitchen while they both got bottles of peach iced tea (why did they even have so much of that stuff?).

“Uncle Chewie,” he started, but was swept up in an embrace from the burly yacht club general mechanic. There was no escaping those hugs.

“Ben, ça-va?” said Chewie, refusing to let him go. Honestly, Ben thought distantly, sometimes it seemed like Chewie was a voyageur and who had slipped forward in time from his beaver fur trades and just shrugged and went with it. That or he was one of Paul Bunyan’s lumberjacks.

“I’m okay,” he managed, and only then was he let go, Han grinning from where he leaned against the fridge. “Uncle Chewie, did Ms. Kanata move in with you?”

“We forgot to mention that, didn’t we?” said Han, while even massively tall Chewie seemed to shrink under realization.

It happened while Ben was still gone, actually just before he was taken out, they told him, pressing a bottle of peach iced tea into his hands. When he came back they were a little preoccupied and then it just was how things were and they forgot they hadn’t told him. When they were done, Ben just nodded and said, “It must be a mess at your place, Uncle Chewie.” Just like that, Chewie gave one of his roaring laughs, and things were okay. He didn’t like it, but he had to admit, the therapy was helping.

The two of them did end up playing Kubb, while Ben retreated to stare at who might be moving in next door. At least to try and discern who beyond Neighbor lived there now. And he was there until he heard the front door open and slam shut, with Rey’s voice close behind. “Ben!” she called into the house at large. “Ben!”

“Welcome home Rey,” he said, finally abandoning his window to greet her. God, his time with Snoke really had done a number on her hadn’t it? “High school still the absolute hell hole I remember?”

“It isn’t that bad,” she said, but grinned to see him. Finn and Poe were with her, Poe must have given them a ride over. And they were doing that staring thing. It was both better and worse with them, seeing as they had been in school together before What Happened, so they sort of looked at him like his family did, but sort of like strangers did. So, Ben ignored them and stuck by his cousin as she breezed through the house to the kitchen.

Leia was there, talking with Luke as the two of them sat at the table. Looking up, they began that usual ritual of asking Rey and her friends about her day. And as usual, Ben wondered why Rey was so okay with Luke being there. Halfway through Rey telling of some excitement in her biology class, Leia looked up at Ben and said, “You haven’t eaten since breakfast have you?”

“I had ice cream,” he muttered, but when her brow raised he obediently went to make himself a sandwich. As he did, he listened with half an ear to the conversation and craned his neck to keep half an eye on the house next door.

“Ben, what are you doing?” asked Rey.

In answer, Ben just pointed to the window and said, “People.”

“Yes, Ben, those exist.”

“I know that, but they’re moving in. Who’s letting them move into the crazy neighborhood?”

“Ben, we’re the crazy house. No one else is crazy. Just you.” Even as he glared flatly at her, Ben thought to remember to ask Uncle Luke to bless Rey. Poe and Finn were both dancing around him after What Happened, meanwhile Rey was championing the “treat Ben exactly the same” approach, and he really appreciated that. Even in those first days back when he had tried to stab his own father, Rey’s eyes hadn’t burned his skin like everyone else’s had.

“I’m not crazy, Rey. I was just kidnapped and brainwashed by an abusive militant cult leader. There’s a difference. Don’t insult the mentally ill like that. Seriously, who let those people move in next door to the crazy house?”

“Maz, presumably,” said Leia calmly. “Considering she sold her house to them.”

“A horrible idea, really,” he said, biting into his sandwich.

“If you’re that curious about them, we could go over and welcome them to the neighborhood. You could warn them about possible stabbing attempts.”

“That was once and I didn’t actually cause anything more than a scratch that was dealt with using band aids and Neosporin.” Finn looked desperately uncomfortable, and Poe was resolutely fiddling with the top of his bottle of peach iced tea (seriously, who in his family liked that stuff enough to keep buying so much of it?) and part of Ben felt haughtily pleased that they weren’t looking at him even as part of him hated that they were like everyone else who couldn’t see that he was better and didn’t need to be treated like glass. “And honestly I don’t need those people trying to dance around everything and staring at me like I’m some sort of Shakespearian tragedy they can learn from.”

Uncle Luke sighed at that, Leia actually looked saddened, Rey’s friends looked like they wanted to bolt from the conversation, but it was Rey’s sad eyes that made Ben tense up in response. Rey had always treated him the same; halfway between being exasperated by him and amused, and even when he came back she treated him that way, excepting that first tearful embrace that her cousin was back after he had, in her eyes, abandoned her. To see her look sad now was the last straw of a stressful day and Ben couldn’t deal with it anymore.

“You know what? I’m going to go read a book, or maybe make full use of the fact that I’ve been trusted with the dangerous tool that is a ballpoint pen,” he said, fingers clenched in the sandwich he held. “If you need a figure of human suffering, google images has thousands of pictures of that statue of the guy with the snakes.”

Scooping up his new notebook and pen as he went, Ben retreated to his bedroom window seat where he had stared into the neighboring yard that morning and flipped to a further back page and wrote:

Things I Hate (An Abridged List, So As To Spare My Hand)

1) People staring at me like I’m a rare dolphin (thanks Nova Lily)
2) Rey treating me like everyone else does
3) People forgetting to mention big things like Maz moving in with Chewie

He could probably have gone on, but instead he took a breath to calm himself with mixed success and turned to the front of the notebook to The Cornflakes List and wrote very deliberately before he forgot:

6) Rey treating me like I’m annoying her 100% of the time (this might not be acting, for the record)

He was still frustrated, so he made liberal use of his new pen allowance by scribbling across whole pages, rendering them a mass of blue spikes and scribbles and scratches. And when his pen actually tore one of the pages, he threw it across the room with a frustrated shout, wishing there was something more satisfying than just a thump as it fell to the ground without actually hitting anything.

Pitching a fit wouldn’t do anything, probably just get Dr. Kalonia called, and everyone would stare at him with those pitying eyes like this was still being caused by Snoke. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t gotten this frustrated Before Snoke, surely they knew that! They just liked to pretend that every part of him they didn’t like was put there by Snoke, like it absolved them of the blame.

So, if in an effort to not have to deal with that if rather than any desire to actually calm down Ben forced himself to take deep, measured breaths and calm himself down. It had been a stressful day, and it was…was it really only just after three? There were at least four more hours until dinner, and Ben was beginning to wonder if he could manage that.

His days were so empty it was killing him. Four hours until dinner, and then he’d go to sleep, be woken in time to eat cereal while his family probably had pancakes, and then what? Do nothing until lunch, then do nothing until dinner. God, he was going insane.

So if he sat in that window seat spiraling into muted furious frustration, who could blame him? It left him staring without really seeing, his eyes slowly tracking across from where the notebook lay to turn to stare into the lawn of his new neighbors. He should have realized Maz didn’t live there anymore, it was too clinical, not at all like the short woman who had been dating his seven foot tall French Canadian beaver trade lumberjack godfather for honestly as long as Ben could remember.

Honestly, anyone who moved in to that house would be too clinical compared to the woman who shouted over their fences to get his father’s attention when she needed him to do something for her. Even if at least one of them was infinitely cuter.

Oh, he thought, suddenly startling out of his trance. There he was. Neighbor, standing in the backyard again, staring out across it like it was a battlefield and he was a general.

Neighbor was handsome. Incredibly so, even from this distance. Verging on beautiful, like there was a line between the two and Neighbor was a tightrope walker, constantly leaning this way and that way to stay on the middle. God, when did he get poetic?

“Ben, stop staring at the neighbors,” admonished Leia, and Ben turned around at that, not aware she was in the room. “I’m sorry about earlier. I’m sorry we upset you so much.”

1“It’s been a hard day,” said Ben. “Sorry to freak out in front of you. And anyway, the neighbors are new! Can’t blame me for looking at something new. It’s a whole lot of same old same old aside from this exciting new development. Just house and therapy.”

“You managed to go to CVS today. All by yourself, even.”

“Yeah, well, never again.” He turned around again, but Neighbor seemed to have gone inside again.

“Well, when you’re done staring at the neighbors, come help me with the laundry, alright?”

“He’s gone back inside anyway. Did I scare off Finn and Poe?” asked Ben, following Leia to the laundry room.

“Those two aren’t scared off that easily. They weren’t scared when you first got back.”

“That is saying something. Do you trust me with the iron?”

“You stab, not burn,” said Leia, shoving an armful of still warm shirts into Ben’s arms for him to iron and fold or hang up as necessary.

This had always been an important thing for the Organa-Solo family, the family working together on laundry. Rey, awkwardly and recently embraced into the family, hadn’t gotten into it, but Han soon joined them as things should be. When he had been little, Ben had liked to dig his hands into the piles of warm laundry, either messy from the dryer or neatly stacked after his father had ironed it, helping hang things up. Already, Ben had another entry for The Cornflakes List:

7) Laundry with my parents

Had he really stopped doing this with his parents by the end? Had he really withdrawn from them so much? He wondered if that could stand up in court to get Snoke thrown even further into jail. “Your honor, Snoke made me stop doing laundry with my parents, trust me that is evidence he’s as poisonous as arsenic.”

Yeah, that would certainly convince a jury of Snoke’s peers.

“Have you gotten a good look at our new neighbors?” asked Han suddenly, folding a tablecloth with Leia as the washer rumbled out its watery song and the dryer hummed accompaniment to the staccato bursts of steam from Ben’s iron.

“No, but Ben’s been watching,” said Leia.

“They’re new,” defended Ben.

“Chewie’s tall enough to see over the fences, we’ve been playing kubb so he could spy on who’s moving in,” said Han. “Looks like it’s a father and son.”

“Since when are you the neighborhood gossip?” asked Leia fondly.

“It’s not gossip, it’s information. They’re our neighbors, we might as well know about them.”

“By spying on them instead of talking to them, of course.”

“Alright princess, what’s your plan to know who’s moving in? Casserole or jello pudding?” Ben snorted at that, taking one of his father’s shirts and beginning to iron it out.

“We could always unleash Ben onto them.”

“Glad to know you appreciate me, mom,” said Ben. Snoke had poisoned that too, the smiling ribbing of each other that his parents did of each other and of him. That would be number eight on The Cornflakes List. And Exhibit B after laundry.

“My first thought was to invite them to dinner, but I don’t want to make Ben’s…limitations on utensils that obvious. We should just go over with a housewarming gift, not spy on them.”

“Have fun with that.”

“Do you not want to meet those neighbors you’ve been staring at?” asked Han, sounding confused.

“I get stared at by everyone around me like I’m a public curiosity or something, and if I go over then it’s only going to be worse because they’re neighbors to the freak show.”

“We’ll go, you don’t have to,” said Leia calmly.

“We’ll tell them not to be worried about the boy always staring at them, it’s just our weird son,” said Han, and in response Ben raised the iron and sent out a hissing burst of steam in his direction.

When laundry was done, Ben found himself (and that really was the best descriptor, he thought. It wasn’t as if he had consciously decided this) sitting in the living room, nose in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe while Rey, Poe, and Finn were piled together watching Steven Universe. They were a universe room, he thought with a swallowed smile,

While the brightly colored gems danced to morph into a giant four-armed woman with a giant hammer on the screen, Ben read very specifically about Zarniwoop’s virtual intergalactic cruise. Yes, his wasn’t any more serious, but at least his didn’t include something called “Crying Breakfast Friends.” It was a small victory, but he clung to it.

“I like Sardonyx, she’s probably one of my favorite fusions,” said Poe suddenly.

“I like Garnet best,” said Finn amiably.

“Stevonnie’s my favorite,” said Rey. “Ben, do you have a favorite?”

“I don’t watch this show,” he reminded them, turning a page.

“I’m going to take a guess and say it’s Sugilite. She did break the warp pad and injured Steven.”

“Someday you’re going to have to let that go. Even dad has.”

Rey just laughed and asked, “How was laundry?”

“Better than having you mock me, that’s how. Also, I’ve only been gone for a little over a year, you can’t tell me high school’s stopped assigning mountains of homework.”

“It’s only like four,” said Poe, raising a brow. “I think the details may have escaped you.”

“I remember spending hours on chemistry homework, and aren’t you taking an honors chemistry? And aren’t you all getting close to exams?”

“You sound like your parents.”

“I very firmly resent that.” Already though he had the ninth entry planned for The Cornflakes List; Poe treating him just like everyone else, even if the sarcasm was a little sharper edged than for others.

“Well you have neighbors now, so try not to scare them off,” said Finn, watching as Steven and Amethyst saw not Peridot coming to the communications tower but Pearl.

“Finn, I will break you.”

“No breaking my friends,” warned Rey. “Or else I break you.”

That wasn’t an idle threat, and Ben knew that perfectly well. Rey was a violent predator when she felt the need to be (it had been fun watching her tear into that reporter in one of the early days, even if he had been halfway to falling apart), and Ben was afraid of that being pointed at him. So, as Pearl stammeringly confessed to Garnet her crimes, Ben turned his attention back to Zaphod and Zarniwoop and hoped Rey didn’t find cause to break him.

Eventually, after watching Steven talk Lapis into returning the oceans and the adventure of the cheeseburger backpack, the television was turned off by none other than Uncle Luke. “I don’t mean to cut short the fun, but it is getting late…” he said, trailing off with a tone almost uncertain.

“Late in Taizé is not late for high schoolers in America,” reminded Rey, but all the same she got to her feet and asked, “Do you still need help with that Macbeth paper, Finn?”

As the two of them set to work discussing The Great Chain of Being and where humans fell on it in the play, Poe quietly began to work on his chemistry homework, leaving Ben to peacefully read about the Heart of Gold in Zaphod’s pocket and how it was reconstituted to reunite Zaphod with Trillion, Arthur and Ford.

And then, out of nowhere Poe asked him, “Why do you like those books so much?”

Ben looked up at that, his ring finger marking his place as he looked at Poe before saying, “Because they’re really funny but they also destroy the earth, prove that no one will ever know the meaning of the universe, the very Ruler of the Universe isn’t entirely convinced it even exists, things like that. I like dark humor and I like sci-fi.”

“Ben doesn’t like a thing unless one or more planets get blown up,” said Rey. “That’s why he likes the new Star Trek films.”

“Can I make a formal request for you to stop and leave me alone?”

“You can, but that doesn’t mean I’ll approve it.”

“The love is real in your family,” said Poe under his breath, turning back to his catenation or whatever it was he was working on. Looked like a lot of carbon either way.

This was his life now, Ben reflected, turning back to his book. Honestly, it wasn’t as bad as Snoke had made him think it was. So far, none of them had been called in to court, but at this point if it came to it Ben was going to have a notebook of things Snoke had poisoned for him. And indeed by the time Poe and Finn took their leave, Ben returned to his room to write in the Cornflakes List laundry and

8) How my family teases each other
9) How Poe (still unsure about him beyond this) treats me just like he treats literally everyone

Dinner was a normal affair, but Ben’s family had learned how much therapy days drained energy from Ben, and it wasn’t even ten by the time he went up to his bedroom for sleep. The lights were still on next door, and as Ben stripped off his shirt to sleep, he muttered under his breath, “You have no idea what you got yourselves into, moving in next to us.”

Next morning was omelets, not pancakes, courtesy of Luke who was probably in line for becoming a saint due to his miracles when it came to making eggs. Even in his mind Ben cringed and decided not to voice that.

As it was, this was something he could eat with a spoon, and he rejoiced that he wasn’t stuck with cereal again. Even if the Cornflakes List had its name for a reason, he had barely been allowed much else and he’d take what variety he could.

That day was all set up to be a riveting day of nothing, without even therapy to fill the hours. Instead he curled up in his window seat as he had most days the last three months and flipped his pen between his fingers, trying to think of what to write. He could probably expand upon the Things I Hate List, but it was too early in the day to be put in a bad mood.

Instead he started writing, an imaginary letter to Snoke full of curses and condemnations. He was halfway through telling about how Snoke was going to be taking up the number one spot on his revised Things I Hate List when he heard the front door open and close. Looking up at the noise, he wondered vaguely who was going where or who was coming from where. No one really visited except Chewie, so it had to be someone in his family.

But the idea didn’t catch his attention long, instead turning back to his furious letter. Scribbling down his anger was probably not what Dr. Kalonia had in mind when she approved use of pens, but he could be wrecking rooms in his anger, so she should be proud, all things considered.

He was trying to decide what expletive to sign off with, tapping the pen against his chin when he noticed movement in the house next door. Must be his parents going to welcome them to the neighborhood. “Welcome to the neighborhood, beware of us, we’re the crazy house,” he muttered under his breath, watching the little bit of motion he could see. In the dining room, it looked like. And then, to his surprise, Neighbor appeared there, craning his neck as though for the sole purpose of looking at him.

Deep breaths, Ben, a cute boy is looking at you and isn’t acting like those people who recognize you. This is the first time that’s happened in over a year. You can get through this. Say something charming. Wait there’s two houses in the way. Write a sign with something charming. No that’ll take too long it’ll be weird. You want him to not think you’re weird. At least for now. What’s not weird? Should I hide? I could put this off until later if I hide. Get a plan together. Wait, he can see me that defeats the purpose. How do people not seem weird? Wait, I could wave. Waving! Yes! Wave!

With careful casualness, Ben raised a hand waving slightly. Neighbor kept looking at him for a long moment before retreating back into the house. Now that Neighbor was gone, Ben stared ahead into space before silently turning to a new page and writing

People Who Haven’t Recognized Me

1) Neighbor

That was the most exciting thing to happen in weeks. He deserved a moment to savor that. And if that savoring meant drawing a little smiley face next to the title of the list, it was completely within reason.

And so it was, for days Ben’s normal place in his window seat, where he used to be able to see Ms. Kanata puttering around the yard, now provided him a view of Neighbor and who his parents had reliably informed him to be Neighbor’s father (Mr. Neighbor, in Ben’s mind) fully moving in. That didn’t mean much, as Ben couldn’t actually see beyond a bit of the dining room, but he could see them constantly moving around inside, and Neighbor occasionally coming to stand outside to stare down the yard.

Why did he do that? That was the question, wasn’t it? The yard wasn’t actually that interesting, with just a small patio and then a plain yard with the pear tree. Ms. Kanata must have taken her Sugar Moon Roses with her, dug them up and carried them to Chewie’s place.

Every time that Neighbor looked at the lawn like it was a battlefield, he started noticing Ben in his window seat and retreating inside soon as he did. It wasn’t like he was a stalker or anything, he was perfectly in his rights to be in his window seat as much as he wanted to be thank you, Neighbor maybe this is your problem stop glaring at me.

Neighbor was lucky he was cute, otherwise Ben would hate him. Instead, Ben just wanted to try and prove that hey, he could be in his window seat and he could be zoning out, and if he was looking at Neighbor, it was probably because he wasn’t registering what he was looking at.

There was a knocking at his door, his mother there to remind him he had one-on-one therapy in half an hour. That was both harder and easier than group therapy; he didn’t have to do an outing, but he did have to deal with Dr. Kalonia’s attention being solely on him. Which was always fun.

She didn’t bring up the notebook, and Ben certainly wasn’t going to do so if she wasn’t. Instead she talked to him in his halting, unwilling answers and short sentences about how empty his days were and how it left him with a sort of drifting malaise. Those were not his words, those were Dr. Kalonia’s. There was more poetry in the phrase “Drifting malaise” than in the entirety of Ben’s body.

“Lonely” would be the word Ben would use. And his cure would involve maybe having a phone so he could talk to his friends. Dr. Kalonia actually seemed somewhat amenable to the idea, which was encouraging.

Nothing felt resolved when he left, as was normal. To Ben, it felt as if he had just told the same stories over again, not like he’d had any revelations or made any progress. But it did manage to leave him feeling drained, and beyond a few quiet bits of interaction, his family didn’t press him.

Which made it a surprise when his mother knocked on his door. And doubly surprising when she said, “Someone’s come to see you, Ben.”

“What? Who?” asked Ben, still not moving from his window seat.

“That neighbor you like to stare at. Come on.” Cautiously he followed his mother downstairs, to find Neighbor there. He was cuter in person, with pale eyes and almost painfully pink lips. Who allowed this? Who let him into the house? Why was he at the house?

“Could you please refrain from staring at me like I’m some sort of animal at a zoo?” he said, voice clipped and British. And he was saying nearly the same thing Nova had complained of. Ben would have smiled, but that would probably only make things worse. “I am not here for your entertainment, so please stop acting like I am.”

Ben opened his mouth, and then closed it. That was what he wanted to tell Amber from CVS and every person who stared at him on those group outings. And Neighbor was just saying it. Had come over for the sole purpose of saying it.

“Are you going to stare at me like a goldfish or are you going to apologize?” asked Neighbor sharply.

“Yeah, sorry, just…do you know how long I’ve been wanting to say exactly that?”

“That you’re sorry? It’s really not that difficult.”

“Not that. The staring thing. People stare at me like I’m a rare dolphin.”

“Yes, I’m sure there are plenty people always staring at you from their windows when you’re in the backyard no matter the time or day.”

“Not then, no. Why aren’t you staring?”

“Trust me, you’re not that handsome.”

“I got kidnapped into a militant cult,” he blurted out. Behind him, he could hear Leia sighing, but Neighbor didn’t react beyond a blink.

“This house seems respectably suburban.”

“I only got out three months ago. I was gone for a year. Nearly killed the officer who was trying to get me out because I didn’t want to leave.”

“Does any of that mean you have to stare at me all the time?”

“No, but it does mean that I can’t leave the house unless it’s for therapy because the cult leader is still going through trial and people love to stalk and theorize about us victims. So I can read, sleep, watch television, or sit in my window seat and zone out. That’s all I’ve been doing for three months. You’re the first new thing in three months. Sorry.” And there was the oversharing. Good job, he thought to himself, you can scare off Neighbor by telling him all about your issues. Better this than trying to write a note with something charming. Clearly “charming” was not a word that was destined to be used to describe Mr. Benjamin Organa-Solo.

Neighbor heaved a sigh and said, “Look, if you insist on staring at my lawn, you could do it at my house. Stop being so weird.”

“That’s a tall order,” warned Ben, eyes wide at the thought that Neighbor could be so calm about it.

“Give it a go.” And with that Neighbor turned and left, leaving Ben rather shocked about how calm he had been.

“Look at you, making friends,” said Leia, sounding noticeably less shocked than Ben felt she should be. He, for one, wasn’t entirely sure that he hadn’t dreamed everything up. “Just promise me you won’t be over there all the time? I worry about you, I want to be able to keep an eye on you.”

“Oh my god, he gave permission for me to go over oh my god,” said Ben.

“Deep breaths, Ben.”

“See, this is when I’d like to be able to text my friends. Because I don’t know how to handle this.”

Han was proud of his son for managing not to scare someone off, Luke did that enigmatic smile thing he liked to do, and Rey had just stared at him for a long moment before giving the loving and helpful advice of “Try not to mess this up, okay?”

“Your faith in me is so encouraging,” said Ben.

“Yes, because you inspire such confidence.” If he made a face at her, that was rational. He would defend it to be so.

And the next day Ben was comatose with boredom after lunch, a day after group therapy (a wonderful outing to the sandwich shop, stressful and painful when another patron pointed at them when whispering to another), Ben took a breath, stole a leaf out of Gregory’s book and embraced wild bravado as he walked out the door, went next door, and knocked on the door to the house he used to be able to just walk into. The door was opened and there was Neighbor, looking shocked.

“Hello, I’ve come to stare at your lawn,” said Ben.

“You’re actually here?” asked Neighbor.

“Yeah. It’s that or just stare at the ceiling.”

“Alright, I’ll let you have a different view of the lawn.” Stepping back to let Ben in, Neighbor was already turning and heading back inside. It was different, seeing the house not full of knickknacks and photos and paintings. It felt weirdly empty, even if there were still boxes around.

“I’ve seen the lawn from the patio, one of my godfathers’ girlfriend used to live here.”

“You have multiple godfathers or your godfather has multiple girlfriends?” asked Neighbor, actually stopping and turning.

“Two godfathers. Maz Kanata moved out so she could move in with my godfather.”

“And then we moved in.”

“You moved next door to the crazy house, congratulations.”

“We’re plenty crazy ourselves,” muttered Neighbor under his breath, leading Ben through the kitchen (and it was weirdly uncluttered and blessedly without dirt from the herb garden) to the patio. There was a bowl out, and the makings of cereal. Cornflakes, he noted with a smile. “Here’s the lawn, have at it.”

“I can see my house from here,” said Ben dryly, listening to Neighbor snort. “Come on, sit down, I promise I’m actually not as bad as the whole cult thing makes me seem.”

“If you were really dangerous, I don’t think the State would let you live in the suburbs like this.”

“You’d be surprised. Listen, I don’t want to be the creepy neighbor, I actually want to know you so you don’t feel threatened. I know how it feels to be stared at by strangers, trust me.” Neighbor stared at him a long, long moment before saying,

“You are the strangest boy I’ve ever met.”

“Thank you?”

Neighbor ended up sitting in a chair next to him, perched elegantly on it and Ben might have despaired a little bit because first he was cute and now he’s elegant. “So you’re Ben Organa-Solo,” he said. “Your parents mentioned you.”

“Believe it or not, I don’t actually know your name. I don’t think my parents mentioned it.”

“I’d believe it. It’s Hux.”

“You can’t fool me, that’s your last name, they mentioned that.”

“Yes but I don’t like my first name.”

“Why not?”

“Because ‘Brendol’ sounds like some spoiled Edwardian heir at Oxford or something.” Ben shrugged in response. He couldn’t really dispute that, it was pretty accurate. “And it’s not even like it’s just that, I have the same name as my dad, so I’m Brendol Hux junior. The only way I’d sound more like a spoiled Oxford Edwardian heir is if I decided to be Brendol Hux the second.”

“You really don’t like your name, do you?” asked Ben, almost awestruck.

“It’s why I’d rather go by my last name, all things considered.”

“Okay.” Hux turned to him then, his gaze somewhere between surprised and angry and Ben immediately felt the need to defend himself saying, “Well you said you wanted to go by Hux, so I’m going to respect that.”

“You really aren’t as bad as the whole cult thing makes you seem.”

“Told you,” said Ben calmly, leaning back on his hands and looking across the lawn. “So, I’m not in school because I’m a weird ex-cult member who can’t really go back to school because I’m in therapy most days and unable to really handle being in public, but why aren’t you?”

“Every senior has already been accepted to college, so they just let us off in May. Most people find internships or jobs, I…helped with moving instead.”

That was a significant pause, but Ben didn’t draw attention to it. Just because he chronically overshared didn’t mean he’d make anyone else do it. “So you’re going to college in the fall? I’d be going into my senior year.”

Hux nodded, finally turning to Ben instead of staring out across the lawn. “I’m going to Caltech in the fall. I’m going into the physics program.”

“So you want to be a physicist?”

“Astrophysicist, actually. Did you know in the nineties a mathematically sound method was discovered for faster than light travel?”

Now Hux was speaking his language. “That’s amazing! Why haven’t we built it, yet?” asked Ben.

“Because it’s only mathematically sound, but it requires we make an artificial black hole, and so far that’s not possible.”

“Promise me you’ll find a way to do that, please. If you’re going to be an astrophysicist, use your powers for good.” Hux smiled, and Ben grinned to see it. He made a cute boy smile with his love of scifi, and that was probably the most impressive thing he had ever managed to do.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Conversation managed to flow pretty easily after that, Ben overwhelmed with relief that Hux didn’t seem to ever be hung up on his issues the way his family did. Even if they were able to talk about it, they were still prone to getting somber and emotional about it. Hux, on the other hand, only ever raised a delicate brow. He really, really hoped that he wasn’t scaring Hux off.

And then Ben saw on Hux’s watch (who wore a watch who wasn’t fully grown anyway?) that it was just after three in the afternoon. “Shit,” he said, staring at it. “Shit, I have to go.”

“I thought you didn’t go anywhere?” asked Hux, watching Ben scramble to his feet and wipe his hands off on his sweatpants.

“Usually, yeah. But I have to get back before my cousin gets home from school.”

“Your cousin?”

“Yeah. I’ll explain next time we see each other, but I really have to be there.” Too late, Ben realized that he had simply assumed they’d spend another afternoon lazily talking on the back patio. “I mean, if you’re okay with that. Sorry. I have to go.”

“I don’t understand it myself, but apparently it’s very important,” said Hux, standing and following Ben back into the house and through to the front door. “Tell me about it next time. Good to truly meet you, Ben.”

“You too, Hux. I gotta go.”

“So you’ve said.”

Nodding, Ben immediately turned and hurried back to his house. His father was in the dining room on the phone and with numbers in front of him, gently breaking the news to some poor boat owner about how expensive some fix would be. Distractedly waving at him instead of giving him that patented Han Solo Is Disappointed In You Glare, Ben sighed in relief. Rey wasn’t back yet.

There was the distant sound of Leia tearing into someone over the phone, which was always fun to bear witness to, but instead Ben waited in the kitchen, drinking peach iced tea (this stuff was weirdly good, he thought. Maybe that was why they had so much of it) and reflecting that he had just hung out with Neighbor Hux for a really long time.

And then the garage door opened and Rey’s voice called out, “Ben? Ben?”

“Here!” he called in response, going to greet her. “Any exciting stories of school?”

“Not really,” said Rey. “I mean, the college counselors have shifted their attention unto us younger students, but that’s nothing new.” Luke was moving past, and Rey barely turned to him as she asked, “Are you going to meditate?”

“Dr. Kalonia and I are going to discuss the next outing, but then yes,” said Luke. “Ben, any choices of where to go?”

“The deep wilderness where the only things that would stare at us are startled deer?” tried Ben.

“I don’t think that’s going to help.”

“Thanks, Uncle Luke.”

“I see you’ve bowed to the peach iced tea,” said Rey, nodding to the bottle in his hand.

“Why do we even have so much of this stuff?”

“I don’t actually know. We just sort of do. Hey, have you retained any math ability?”

“I have no guarantees.”

Sitting in the living room and trying his absolute hardest to help Rey with her math, he didn’t quite notice his father coming in before he ruffled both their hair simultaneously, drawing twin complaints from the two. “How’s math?” asked Han.

“I have forgotten literally everything,” said Ben simply.

“I’ll never ask you anything again,” Rey added.

“Ben made a friend today, Rey,” said Han, grinning at the two.

“Was there a spider on your window seat or something?”

“I am feeling personally attacked right now,” said Ben, frowning heavily.

Thankfully his father didn’t let the teasing go on as he said, “No actually, Ben went next door and proceeded to spend the next few hours sitting on the back patio with one of our new neighbors.”

“Good, so you didn’t screw it up, good job!” congratulated Rey.

Why did he love his family again?

Still, it went on the Cornflakes List as a very comfortable number 10:

10) Talking to people and just enjoying it

At the same time, he went back to the People Who Haven’t Recognized Me and corrected the entry:

1) Neighbor Hux

He ended up going over to Hux’s place more and more, seeing them move in more and more, and quietly noticing and quietly not commenting on a few of his new friend’s habits. He had a thought, but he wasn’t going to say a word. And still, at three every day, he hurried home to be there in time for Rey to come home, once or twice returning after having greeted his cousin.

“Why do you do that every day?” asked Hux as they sat in the half unpacked living room, Ben sprawled sideways across the couch and Hux sitting calmly in an armchair. How It’s Made was running quietly on the television, teaching them how Dippin’ Dots Ice Cream was made. The question was so surprising, that it actually made Ben turn to look at him, taking his eyes off the hypnotic movements of the machines.

“Do what?”

“Go and greet your cousin every day. You start running like a startled ibex the second you think you’re going to be late.”

“First, that is an incredibly weird animal analogy, second, it’s because Rey has some issues with abandonment and despite it all I really do like her, and I don’t want to make things harder on her. See, her mom, my aunt by marriage, died last year, and she moved in with us because my Uncle really wasn’t in the picture because he moved to France to become a monk when she was like, two, and–”

“Your uncle is a monk in France?”

“Yeah, in Taizé. You know, they do a lot of singing and meditating while they pray? You can look them up, if you want, they’re actually sort of a big deal. Anyway, she came to live with us, and she was already pretty fragile what with being a fresh orphan, and then I leave because I’m in a cult like a week or two after she comes, and everything goes sideways for her. I’ve only seen Rey cry a few times; when she first came to live with us, and when I first got back from Snoke. So, ever since, she comes home and the first thing she does is call for me, and I have to go greet her. She doesn’t need a hug or anything, but she needs that.”

“That is oddly considerate of you, Ben.”

“I can be, don’t look so surprised. I’ll have you know that I have done all the talking for all of my friends at least once when we’ve been doing those awful group outings for our therapy, and I took beatings from Snoke so he wouldn’t hurt the others.”

That last bit would make his dad take on that expression that could fluctuate between anger and sadness, would make his mom look moments from either crying or unleashing hell, would make Rey look like glass that he couldn’t tell if it was bulletproof or not, like she could shatter or ricochet at the next hurt. Ben winced at the thought, but Hux just looked at him and said, “That was incredibly brave of you.”

How did one react to that? How did one react that literal seconds later, Hux was back to watching Dippin’ Dots get packaged? Ben, for his part, turned back as well, and quietly created a new list in his mind to write down later.

They got through four more episodes of hypnotizing factory work when the sound of the garage door opened, and Ben swung himself upright, realizing that he was probably only moments away from meeting Mr. Hux Senior and not sure how he’d react to a severely underdressed rare dolphin delinquent laying on his couch.

Mr. Hux, it turned out, was halfway to imposing with a greying beard and head of red hair just like his son’s, with sharp grey eyes that didn’t seem to change color like Hux’s did depending on how the light was feeling that day. The sharpness of that was dulled only slightly by that he was wearing a sweater vest under his suit jacket. Still, it looked like that was about it for physical similarities – Hux must have gotten the rest from his mother. He knew better than to ask about her, but he was a bit curious.

“Who’s this?” asked Mr. Hux, staring at Ben. But it didn’t feel burning like the eyes of everyone else. Hux didn’t feel like that either.

“This is Ben,” said Hux. “From next door.”

“Oh, the one who has a vested interest in the lawn. I see Bren’s got you watching the Science channel.”

“He did mention he wants to be an astrophysicist,” agreed Ben.

Mr. Hux gave a noise halfway to a grunt at that before saying, “Soup tonight, Bren, and no getting out of it.” Hux actually colored at that and made to speak but his father continued on, saying, “I was thinking clam chowder. I’m going to see if we still have some sourdough to go with it.”

“We did,” said Hux, eyes fixed firmly on the show in front of them. “But it…it had gone bad.”

“Did you throw it out?” Hux nodded tightly. “Alright, we’ll have something else to go with the soup, can’t rightly fish it out of the trash. Ben, I’m sure your parents want you back for your own dinner, we’re going to be eating in an hour, and I’m sorry to say we only have room for two.” Without another word, he turned and was gone, his footsteps fading as he went upstairs.

Ben blinked before turning back to Hux, who was still red and staring resolutely at the television as the narrator calmly described the making of wooden clogs. “So…that was your dad,” he said carefully, not wanting to comment on the “no getting out of it” comment, or that pause in saying the bread had gone bad.

“He’s doing his best. Things have been hard, and he’s trying,” said Hux, refusing to look at him.

Doing his best with what? Still, it wasn’t his place to ask, not unless Hux wanted to tell him and that didn’t seem likely, with how he was folding into himself, the color on his face strong as ever. So Ben said only, “I’m just saying that he’s a bit much and that’s coming from someone who joined a cult.”

“I thought you were kidnapped into it.”

“Eh, willingly.” That made Hux turn, no longer looking like he was trying to use some sort of magic to disappear into the chair.

“Sorry, how do you get willingly kidnapped?”

“Snoke kidnapped me, but then explained that is was time for me to join him or some other sort of malarkey, and I said ‘oh, well then that’s fine.’”

“God you were deep in it, weren’t you?”

“I was in on the ground floor. Or what would have been the ground floor. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I’m out, but I was pretty gone. And that’s why I get to go to therapy. That reminds me, tomorrow I’m having an exciting outing to Starbucks, any suggestions what I should order?”

“Regular coffee?”

“Ms. Kanata, the woman who used to live here, my godfather’s girlfriend, whenever I came over, she used to pour coffee over these squares of chocolate for me. Do you think they’ll have anything like that?”

“Most people call that a mocha, Ben.”

“Yeah, but with actual chocolate, not syrup.”

“Probably not, actually. You’d be able to get that at a high class place, but not Starbucks.”

“Well, mocha it is, then.” There was a strange sort of look to Hux, and it made Ben ask, “What is it?”

“Just…you tell me about your therapy outings all the time, why are you so outright about it?”

“Because I chronically overshare. I don’t really know when it’s best to shut up, I’m sure you’ve realized that by now.”

“Yes, somehow I puzzled that out.”

Ben made a face at him before saying, “If it makes you uncomfortable, I can probably stop.”

“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable, but I’ve never met anyone who’s so casual about talking about stuff like that.”

Ben merely shrugged and said, “I don’t know, I never really felt like it was a secret? I mean, half of it is in public at this point anyway, and last I checked they’re still talking about us on the news.” Taking a breath he forced the change in conversation as he said, “Anyway, I should probably go, your dad wasn’t very subtle about it.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Hux, my godfather is seven feet tall, built like a mountain, still speaks Quebecois half the time, and I’m pretty sure he was either a voyageur selling beaver furs in a past life, or he was one of Paul Bunyan’s lumberjacks. I live with unsubtlety, if it bothered me I would have gone insane years ago. Your dad kicking me out was actually very polite.” Standing and tucking his hands in his pockets, Ben nodded in farewell and said, “See you later, you hoopy frood.”

“‘Hoopy frood?’” echoed Hux, looking baffled.

“You know, Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?” The facial expression didn’t change. “Okay, I’m bringing the first book and the movie, we can’t be friends if I can’t call you a hoopy frood.”

“I await enlightenment,” said Hux dryly, standing to walk him to the door.

The next day, at the exciting world of Starbucks, Ben was grateful that college and high school students could probably ignore an actual apocalyptic event this close to the end of the school year, because they didn’t seem to care about their small group.

“You know my neighbor used to make something like this for me,” said Ben, staring into his mocha. “She’d put squares of chocolate at the bottom of a mug and pour coffee over them.”

“Starbucks is lower quality than that,” warned Deepika, sipping at her cappuccino.

“I did see syrup and not squares of chocolate.”

“Speaking of neighbors, don’t you have something to share?” prompted Brother Luke, tranquil over his tea.

“Love you too, Uncle Luke,” he said sullenly, but Dr. Kalonia was smiling. This is what happened when he told his therapist about his new friend and his uncle was too involved in the whole therapeutic process. He didn’t even do anything.

“Did you scare one of your neighbors?” asked Luke, stirring in a frightening amount of cinnamon into his cocoa. “I think I did that the other day.”

“I did, and then somehow we became friends. So, I’ve now made a friend who didn’t recognize me, and has been incredibly calm whenever I’ve told him something about What Happened.”

“How did you manage that? All I’ve done with the neighbors is hide from them when I think I see them,” said Gregory.

“I don’t know? It just sort of happened? I would have told you, but I didn’t have a chance to.”

“That’s the most exciting thing I’ve heard all week,” said Lily.

“It’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in months. This is better than the pens.”

“Brother Luke and I have been talking, and to your parents and guardians as well,” said Dr. Kalonia slowly. “You’ve all said that you suffer terribly from boredom and isolation, what with your peers all in school and your parents all working and so on. The reason for these outings are to get you used to life again, separate from Snoke. But for the majority of the week, you’re still isolated.”

“Meaning…?” ventured Gregory, mixing the whipped cream of his frappucino in best he was able.

“Meaning that we’ve only been continuing your isolation. You’ve all told me separately and together that you were never codependent on each other and none of you have shown anything more than friendship, barring Cecilia’s separation anxiety.” The youngest among them blushed and stared down into her refresha, refusing to look up even when Ben reached to rub his hand soothingly up and down her spine without thinking.

“So you’re saying we’re going to be doing more of these outings?” asked Ben.

“No. I’m saying that we’re going to even go one step further than the pens.” At that, even Cecilia looked up to stare at her. “I’ve told all your parents and guardians, and I’m going to allow you all to have phones again, so you can talk to each other.”

It probably had been her plan, to tell them this life altering news when they were already in public and didn’t want anyone to look at them more than they already did. As a result, instead of the jubilation and exhilaration this would usually bring about, they had to be much more controlled about it. As it was, Cecilia’s hand crushed the plastic cup she held, sending her drink shooting up like Old Faithful from the straw, and no one but Dr. Kalonia and Brother Luke could really go to fetch the napkins.

“Shit,” breathed Christopher, with feeling, speaking for them all.

“Phones are more difficult to get to you through than, say, the internet,” Dr. Kalonia was saying. “And even if anything should happen, now your parents and guardians know what behavior to look for, between normal want for privacy and hiding affiliations with a cult.”

“Yeah I don’t think that’s going to be happening again,” said Cecilia. “But, we’re allowed to talk to each other outside of these now?”

“Seeing as phones are used solely for communication, yes.” Luke took a deep drink of his cinnamon cocoa and coughed when it proved still too hot for such a deep drink. But truly, there were precious few reactions possible beyond that.

“We’d have each other’s and our families’ numbers, but would that be it?” asked Ben. Hux was going to Caltech in the fall to start off towards the stars. If he was something close to normal by then, would he let Ben keep talking to him?

“You can get your new friend’s number, Ben, yes.”

“I don’t think you’ve realized this but you have changed our lives,” said Gregory.

“And all our parents agreed to this?” asked Deepika. “They just…just said yes? They’re letting this happen?”

“I wouldn’t have told you that you could have this if I wasn’t entirely sure you could,” assured Dr. Kalonia. “You seven have been lied to enough, I think.”

And she hadn’t been lying. When Uncle Luke, back to being Uncle and not Brother, got him home, Leia had a phone for him, already with the contact information of his friends in there. Cecilia had already texted him three times, and Gregory twice.

First order of business, change the contact names. Okay, first embrace his mother and thank her over and over and try not to tear up but in his defense, this was one of the biggest leaps towards being normal he had gotten in a long time, not since the allowance of the pens and the notebook.

“You’re welcome,” Leia was saying, patting his shoulder as he curled himself around her like an affectionate giraffe. “I’m glad you’re ready for this.”

“Me too,” he agreed with absolute sincerity.

Now curled into his window seat with an entry freshly written into the Cornflakes List

11) having a phone

 he made a point to change the names of the contacts.

Cee:      What should I put you in as a contact? I honestly think of you as Ben just as much as I do Kylo

               Benlo? Kyben? KEN?

               Ok you’re Benlo. WE HAVE PHONES!!!!!!!

Ben:      PHONES! (Also I’m calling you Cee)

Cee:       Oh I like that

               Also I’m going to never leave you alone

Gem:     So I might have cried a little when I got this thing

               But I assure you they were very manly tears

Ben:      I don’t doubt you, you’re a very manly man

Gem:    THE MANLIEST!!!!

Ben:      I don’t think I really expected to be able to have a phone for like years

Liva:      Me neither

             btw I’m calling you Benlo bc I texted Kheelia about it and that’s what she’s calling you so

             do you think my aunt’s going to suspect me of trying to bring down the govt now that I have a phone?

Ben:       I’d not be surprised if you managed it honestly

Liva:      Terrific let’s do it

Obsipher: Do you know what this means?

Ben:         That we’re one step closer to being allowed forks?

Obsipher: Yes, but also I can finally talk to cute girls again because now I have a number to give them

Ben:         You’re more likely to use this to order some weird infomercial thing than actually manage to talk to anyone, cute girl or not

Obsipher: You speak the truth, but you sting my soul. I’m looking ahead-long term goals

Luke Tor: Does this mean I can simulate when I used to ambush you shirtless using tacky mirror selfies?

Ben:         Please don’t

Luke Tor: TOO LATE

                 Attachment: 1 image

Ben:         Why do you do this to me?

                 What have I done to deserve this?

                 Also your bathroom is very nice

Ben:         What’s your estimate on forks?

Deepinah: Late July, *maybe*. Also Moulin Rouge is a good film and everyone involved should be proud

                I can’t believe I forgot that I like this film

Ben:          I’ve been having so many realizations like that recently

Deepinah: Started a list for Kalonia’s notebook project?

Ben:            Eleven entries so far. You?

Deepinah: Fifteen

Cee:            WHAT IF I CALLED YOU BENTO

                  I’VE DECIDED YOU’RE NOW BENTO BOX I HOPE YOU’RE OKAY WITH THAT

The privilege of having a phone was a great one, and even Rey didn’t decide to be snarky about it when she came home from school, calling out his name as usual. It was incredibly exciting, and even as it was exciting to his family that he could be trusted with something like this, it was even more so to Ben, who was starting to finally start feeling like he wasn’t destined to be That Weird Ex-Cult Member for the rest of his life.

And if he wrote something of an overly expressive and sappy ode in his notebook about it, then he’d rip it out before anyone else got to see it.

“You’re nearly like every other teenager in the world now,” said Han, and wasn’t it odd that even just a few months ago Ben would be hurt by that, taking it as some sort of insult?

“Except that I can’t go out in public without getting stared at, I’m not trusted with most cutlery, and people still try and spy on me so they can talk about What Happened in the papers,” said Ben, and then winced. Hux didn’t really react to things like that, but his family sure did.

And there it was, that sadness creeping into his father’s face. He just couldn’t handle that anymore, the sadness and all of it.

“Dad, just…it’s okay,” said Ben, cutting his father off before he began. “It’s fine. I know you all feel guilty about it all, just…I can’t deal with that right now. Sorry, just today has been exhausting.”

“Of course. That’s totally fine, Ben.”

There was silence, for a long time punctuated by the occasional buzz of someone (likely Cecilia) texting him. But there was still that sadness in his father, and Ben realized, suddenly and painfully, that that look was probably never going to go away. He could be trusted with steak knives someday, could someday drive a car again, could move out and get a job and a life, but his family would never lose that sad and guilty look. That was what happened when someone lost their child to a cult. No matter that they got him back, they’d always be touched by what happened.

It hurt to realize that. Suddenly he wanted to be laying on Hux’s couch watching How the Universe Works with him as he unpacked book after book into the bookshelves that Ben still felt should be filled with weird knickknacks, pointing to every clip on Outrageous Acts of Science and asking “can we do that?” only to have Hux roll his eyes and say “no, I don’t think the state would allow you to do anything with hot air balloons.”

Hux would never make that face. It just wasn’t possible, he hadn’t known Ben Before Snoke, only After, and he could never look guilty and heartbroken that he had lost Ben. Maybe that’s why Ben liked spending time with him so much.

The thoughts were choking him, and he didn’t want to think them anymore.

“Dad, you were talking to Uncle Chewie about new batteries for the Falcon?” he finally said, blurting out what he had overheard them talking about last time Chewie had come over.

“Yeah, the starter batteries are doing fine, but the ones that power everything else are dead. The bilge, the lights, the radios…he’s going to get some new ones delivered, I was going to replace them soon as they came in.”

“Can I help?” he asked impulsively. Han stared at him, with good reason too, Ben hadn’t asked to help with anything on the boat since he was fourteen, and now three years later he was suddenly volunteering his services again?

Finally, Han warned, “Each one weighs 125 pounds.”

“Then you’ll probably need me, you’re getting old.”

“Getting old?” echoed Han, but there was a glint in his eye, and with it, the knot at the base of Ben’s throat began to unwind and the rocks in his stomach began to lift. His dad wasn’t ever going to stop making that face, but it didn’t mean his dad wasn’t still his dad.

 And that was a great comfort, honestly.

The next day Chewie and Maz were coming over for dinner, and as they always did, they arrived hours before actual dinner. Maz had brought clippings of fresh herbs, grown from her kitchen herb garden, and immediately took control of the kitchen, making Rey some sort of heavily steeped spicy tea as she pulled out a few squares of chocolate from who knew where, and placed them in the bottom of a mug, preparing coffee as she did.

Chewie and Han ended up on the lawn chairs, shooting the breeze as they always did, Luke was sitting in the lawn to meditate (though without the singing), Leia was stretched out in her own chair reading, and Rey was letting Maz fuss over her. Ben was in for it next, he knew that. Soon as the coffee was poured over those chocolate squares, he’d be getting the exact same treatment.

Ben:            Help, my godfather and his girlfriend are here and she’s going to fuss over me

Deepinah: No can do, I’m not allowed to drive anymore, remember?

                    Can’t you just go next door to your new friend or something?

                    Also most people don’t invite godparents over

Ben:            Clearly you’ve never actually seen my dad and my godfather together

                    I think one of them owes the other a life debt or something

Deepinah: Chin up, you’ll get through

                    And if you don’t, I’ll cry at your funeral

Ben:            I love you too

“Now Ben,” Maz was saying, pressing the mug into his hands so he had to drop the phone by sheer necessity, “the phone is new.”

“I was allowed it yesterday, all of us were,” said Ben. “It’s very exciting.”

“Yes it is. Is this treatment designed to help you, or to make you fit in again, though?”

“It’s meant to help us. If we don’t do it, then we’ll be shut ins for the rest of our lives, slowly starving to death because we can’t hold jobs so we can’t afford food. Who knows? We might end up joining some shiny new cult.”

“I will personally go drag you out and strangle whoever tries to take you away like Snoke did.”

Her voice was steel, and her eyes no softer, and Ben stammered a moment before saying, “I-I was joking.”

“I know you were, but that doesn’t change that I would still do it.” That was oddly touching, and Ben couldn’t say a word to it, instead taking a deep drink of that homemade mocha Maz always made for him. Maz then nodded towards her old house and said, “My boyfriend tells me you’ve made friends with whoever’s living in my house now.”

“Yeah, he’s nice. He puts up with my weirdness, anyway.”

“Sometimes that is all we need,” she agreed. “What is his name?”

“Well, their last name is Hux, and he hates his first name, he says it makes him feel like an Edwardian heir at Oxford, so I just call him Hux.”

“Chewie watches Downton Abbey reruns. I’d think there are plenty better things to be than an Edwardian Oxford boy. Does he know?”

“I overshare early and often. He knows.”

“And are you alright with that?”

Ben bought some time by taking a long, slow drink, the sweetness now beginning to permeate through the bitterness of the coffee. How to phrase it? “I…I’m okay with it, yeah. He didn’t know me before, so he can’t treat me differently. If that makes sense? I don’t have two different ways of being treated by him in my head, just the one. And I like that.”

“Is that one way he treats you good?”

“He doesn’t seem terribly impressed with me, but it’s…I want to say it’s somewhere between fond and amused? I don’t know, he’s hard to read. He’s got a lot going on himself, I can tell that, so he doesn’t have time to deal with my problems? Just sort of knows that they’re my issues and not his, so he doesn’t have to try and fix them for me? It’s hard to describe, but I like it.”

Maz nodded solemnly and said, “Good, I’d hate to think that my house is home to those who don’t deserve it.”

“You didn’t have to sell it to them, you know.”

“Ben, someday you’re going to fall in love with someone and get to move in with them. And when you get to move in with them with thousands of dollars in your pocket? That makes it better.” Ben snorted a laugh, and Maz patted his knee as she stood to go bother Chewie with something or other.

“So Maz hasn’t changed since you last saw her?” asked Rey, suddenly at his side with her tea in hand.

“Oh no, not at all.”

“So you didn’t think it was weird that you didn’t see her at all the three months you got back before our new neighbors were here?”

“Not really?” Rey gave that breathy, scoffing laugh she usually gave when she thought he was being ridiculous, but that wasn’t anything new. In fact, it was basically number 6 on the Cornflakes List.

They sat in silence together on the steps of the patio, watching Luke meditate out in the yard and listening to Chewie and Maz describe how they were going to renovate the master bath. It was deliciously normal, and Ben’s drink was getting more and more chocolatey the longer he drank from it as the chocolate melted more and more.

“Why are you so calm about Uncle Luke being here?” asked Ben suddenly. Rey turned to him in surprise before saying,

“He and my mom divorced when I was like two, and he set off to become a monk in France. I don’t really remember him being my dad, he always was just sort of an idea to me. Like that there was this friendly monk in France who I could go talk to if anything went wrong. Sort of like feeling I had a fairy godmother or something out there, you know? And then everything did go wrong, and here he is. It feels right, in a way.”

Of course Rey’s imaginings of a fairy godmother were of a French monk. That sounded just about right.

The next day brought Ben to the Hux doorstep, book and film in hand. But Hux, so Mr. Hux told him, was at a doctor’s appointment.

“You can wait here, though, he’ll be home soon enough,” he was told. Mr. Hux was gruff, but Hux hadn’t lied, he really wasn’t that bad, and it was clear that he was trying. Hux just ran with Ben and his issues, but his father seemed to almost…stutter around him, something in how he acted if not in the way he spoke. According to Hux, he was a headmaster at some school (and Ben would never leave him alone for that, who called a principal a headmaster, Hux you pretentious weirdo), and if he cared to, he could see how Mr. Hux was trying to treat him like he would any other teenager, but stuttering because Ben wasn’t any other teenager, he was a pile of issues years in the making.

Settling on the corner of the couch he was starting to think of as his spot, Ben made himself comfortable and looked around. The bookshelves were finally done, not a box in sight. And there in the center, the only book not tucked in with the rest, was an old looking copy of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

Shaking his head and resolving to ask about it, Ben turned back to his own book (one infinitely more fun) and began to read, waiting for his friend to get home from the doctor.

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

He was in the midst of reading of Ford and Arthur’s outing to the pub (Hence a phrase which has passed into hitch hiking slang, as in “Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.” (Sass: know, be aware of meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)) when he could hear the door from the garage opening. It still gave that godawful scream when it did. Good to know not everything had changed when Maz Kanata moved out.

He tried his best to look not at all creepy or weird (a tall order indeed) when Hux entered the living room, stopping short and looking surprised. There was something fragile about him, something in the line of his mouth and the set of his shoulders. Still, he wasn’t going to say a word, it wasn’t his place.

“Your dad said I could wait here,” he defended. “If you want, I can leave. I just told you I was going to bring you Hitchhiker’s Guide and make you watch the film, but that can wait…”

“No, it’s…fine,” said Hux, his voice quiet. “Just…give me a minute?”

“This is your house. Besides, I have a book, I’ll do just fine waiting for a bit.” Hux nodded, perhaps a little jerkily, before heading through the living room, his footsteps sounding up the stairs.

Nestling quietly on top of the towel in Ford Prefect’s satchel, the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic began to wink more quickly. Miles above the surface of the planet the huge yellow somethings began to fan out. At Jodrell Bank, someone decided it was time for a nice relaxing cup of tea.

When Hux came back, that fragileness hadn’t quite gone away, but now he had bundled himself up in a cardigan that looked incredibly comfortable. Ben was almost jealous, if not for the fact that his hoodie was marvelously soft on the inside and adding a cardigan would just be ridiculous even for him.

“You brought that film you’re obsessed with?” asked Hux, hand held out for it to set it up.

“Yes, but first, a question. Are you related to the Huxley family?” Hux raised a brow and Ben spread his hands and defended, “You’ve got like half their name, you’re British, and you’ve got Brave New World practically on display, it’s a legitimate question!”

“Distantly, yes.”

“Cool.”

“It’s not like a Pre-Raphaelite is going to come paint us or anything, it’s a distant relation and besides all the artists of that style are dead.”

“And that’s just a crime.” That tense fragility was already beginning to recede, and when the movie began, Ben settled back and kept half an eye on Hux as the smooth voice of Stephen Fry said calmly,

“It’s an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem.”

Hux, in typical fashion, seemed only mildly amused by everything that happened onscreen, until Zaphod and Ford met up and Ford was described as a “zarkin frood.”

“You called me that,” he said, turning to Ben as Arthur and Trillian spoke to one another.

“No, I called you a hoopy frood. Admittedly, a bit of a redundancy, but whatever. You can call someone hoopy and that means they’re really together, a frood is an amazingly together person. A zarkin frood is how awesomely cool someone is and how well they keep their towel on them.”

Hux stared at him a moment before asking, “Why can’t you be into normal scifi?”

“Because normal scifi is boring, or if you’re Stanley Kubrick really really unsettling.” That drew a breathy chuckle from Hux, and Ben counted it as a win. “Here, fun game, find one thing in this movie you’d like to have in real life.”

Hux’s answer was only a minute or so later when he said, “That. The food sensor.”

“Yeah, you won’t get anything like that when you do go to space.”

“I’m not going to space. I’m not risking my life with the atmosphere, do you know how many space shuttles have killed their crews? No, I’m saying safely on earth and doing all the studies and equations to understand and study what astronauts can’t.”

Ben just smiled and turned back to the film, losing himself in the familiar hijinks. They didn’t speak again until Slartibartfast took Arthur to see the planet being built. He was explaining how they used to build luxury planets before the galactic economy crashed, and Ben was pulled out of remembering his mom’s apparent free pass to go on a date with Bill Nighy when Hux said, “I’d love my own planet.”

“You would,” agreed Ben amiably. It was supposed to come out scathing, but apparently that wasn’t to be. Hux was lucky he was cute, he was spared a lot of Ben’s cutting sarcasm because of it.

And when the Vogons were carted away after being defeated by Marvin holding the Point of View Gun and Earth was restarted while the heroes flew off to the end of the universe, Ben tossed Hux the book. “It’s way more fun than Brave New World,” he said as Hux began to flip through it.

“Most things are, as Aldous’ book is a study of a dystopian society separated into brainwashed castes and how that system destroys those who dare deviate,” said Hux. “Incidentally, the brainwashing they suggest barely even works.”

“How do you know that? Should I be worried? Who have you tried to brainwash?”

“No one, Ben. But trying to plant information into someone’s mind as they’re sleeping is impossible, the only state of sleep one can absorb anything in is one where your conscious brain is active. It isn’t truly learning anything in your sleep. As for the whole training infants to feel unwell by flowers, that would only work if they saw flowers on a constant basis. After a few months without reinforcement, the human brain will reject conditioning, if the infants they’re brainwashing to hate the countryside don’t see the countryside, that conditioning won’t stay with them.”

“So you’ve researched this?”

“We studied it in my psychology course, we read Brave New World and watched A Clockwork Orange, specifically the brainwashing scene.” Ben nodded slowly, wondering if his school had even offered a psychology class. He could probably ask Rey.

“So are you going to read it? I know you don’t have any relation to Douglas Adams unless you want to tell me something, but I think it’s fun.”

Hux didn’t say anything for a while before saying, “There’s a bar in Paris.”

“Oh god, do you even hear yourself?”

“Hush. It’s quite well known, it’s called ‘The Bar at the End of the World.’ It’s supposed to be something of a scifi geek bar. I think you’d like it.”

“Yes, well, next time I’m in Paris I’ll look it up.” But really, he was touched. Hux thought of him, thought of something he’d like, and had told him about it.

“I’ll read it, I’ll give it a go,” said Hux, his hand clenching about it in decision. Ben grinned at him in response.

His phone gave a short buzz then, and when he checked it, he blinked in surprise

Dad:      The batteries are down at the docks, if you still want to help

Ben:       Yeah, I’ll be there soon

“What was that?” asked Hux, still flipping randomly through the book in his hands.

“My dad wants my help working on the boat,” he said. That made Hux look up.

“You have a boat?”

“My dad does, Millennium Falcon. She’s an old wooden one, and she was dry docked the whole time I was away, and now there’s a thousand things going wrong. More than usual. The batteries need replacing, and I still think the starboard engine does too. That’s never worked for a whole season, it always gives out at least once.”

“I thought you were only just trusted with pens. Also, since when do you have a phone?”

“Since the day before yesterday. Right now all I have are the others in my group therapy, my therapist, and my family.”

Hux nodded slowly before saying, “If you’re to become a shiphand, I’ll give you my number. That way I can text you what I think of the book.”

“If you like it, I’ll give you the next one.”

“How many are there?”

“Six.”

“Six?”

“Yes, and I’ll lend them to you, if you want.” Ben watched as Hux got to his feet, collecting the DVD, and asked against his own better judgment, “Are you doing okay now?” Hux turned to him sharply and Ben said slightly more softly, “You didn’t look yourself earlier. Your dad said you were at a doctor’s appointment. Are you okay?”

“I’ve not contracted some deadly disease, you can rest assured of that,” said Hux, his voice a little too obviously placating for it to be any comfort.

“That’s not what I meant. But you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Why?”

Ben shrugged, and took the offered DVD as he said, “Because you’re my friend, Hux. I want to make sure all my friends are okay. I’ve taken beatings for the others, and done their talking for them even when I really didn’t want to because they weren’t okay. I don’t think I’ll have to do anything so dramatic for you, but I just want to make sure.”

Hux didn’t say anything, but eventually held out his hand and said, “Give me your phone, I’ll put in my number.”

Only a few minutes later, Ben was sitting with his dad in the car, grinning quietly to himself. Leaving aside literally everything else surrounding the event, he got a cute boy’s number! He’d never done that before! He listened with only half an ear as Han described how they’d be switching out the batteries, wheeling the old ones out before bringing in the new ones.

Millennium Falcon was an old boat, still beautiful but a piece of junk when it came to the mechanics. Her engines would look like they were overheating while the temperature caps were stuck and required revving of the engine to get them to finally pop and let water in to cool the thing down. If it wasn’t that, the starboard engine gave out. And if it wasn’t that then then it was something else.

Honestly, dead batteries were far from surprising.

Lifting up the floor in the Salon, Han dropped into the middle of the mechanical mess down below as he said, “Come on Ben, I’ll show you how to take them out, then you can put the new ones in.”

“I can see from up here. Besides, didn’t the acid bite through your pants?”

“Yes, but we can buy you new pants if you need them. Come down.” Sighing, Ben dropped into the cramped space with his father, watching as he showed how to disconnect them. Hauling them out of there was harder. Han hadn’t lied, they were over a hundred pounds and very compact.

“So these are drained, are the new ones going to weigh more?” asked Ben, hauling them out to rest on the floor.

“No, they’ll weigh about the same,” said Han calmly, climbing out onto the dock, leaving the boat to rock from his sudden lack of weight on the edge.

“Oh joy.” Still, he passed the batteries to his father, heaving them over the edge of the boat as it rocked from the shifting of so much weight. But it was a comforting rock. His family had spent hours and hours every Saturday just anchored and enjoying a beautiful day, with a picnic lunch, the radio playing, and Ben hadn’t ever been able to stay awake the whole time they were out, the rocking of the boat on a lazy Saturday lulling him to sleep.

It had led to sunburns on the back of his neck or at odd angles slanting across a leg, but he still didn’t have any truly bad memories on the boat. Even when Snoke tried to convince him that his father would rather spend time anywhere else than around Ben, it had always been other boats, or the docks in general, never once Millennium Falcon. And wasn’t that odd?

“Alright, the new ones are up in the office,” said Han, sliding them onto one of the rolling trolleys that were left at every entrance to the docks. “Come on, we’ll switch them out, there’s battery disposal coming tomorrow, I told them they’d be at the office.”

That meant wheeling it down the docks, up the ramp, through the dry docks, and then finally to the office. Fun.

But for all his griping, this was…good. This was what life had been, before. It was peacefully nostalgic in a way, leaving him calm even as he groaned loudly shoving the trolley up the hill. Anyway, he was a firm believer that grunts and groans helped the strength of a motion.

The office was the same as always, split between Chewie and his dad, almost impossible to tell the difference between the two unless you knew the difference between the two of them. Chewie had knickknacks that Maz had bestowed on him, Han had knickknacks from his and Chewie’s travels together and both had (embarrassingly) some of Ben’s childhood art.

Identical sides, but Ben could tell the difference. Snoke took most everything, but he couldn’t take that.

Ben had to lean almost entirely backwards, wheeling down the ramp with the batteries, feeling like he was horizontal as he shuffled down. He may have looked ridiculous, but there weren’t that many boat owners out and about to stare at him. That was the downside; boat people were ridiculously friendly, and they had no qualms just hanging into the Salon to chat.

This was Ben’s first time down at the docks in ages, and honestly, he didn’t know if the eyes of the people he knew would burn like others had or not. He didn’t really want to know, either way. So if he ducked deep into the task he had been given to avoid the footsteps he heard approaching, who could blame him. His dad hopped off the boat to try and keep them away, noticing how stiffly Ben had bent to his task, but Ben whipped back upright when he heard his father say, “Come on aboard.”

He couldn’t help it, he blurted out in surprise when he saw who was coming aboard, “Uncle Lando?”

“Hey kid,” greeted Mr. Calrissian, grinning down at him. “I heard you were back.”

“We’re coming up on four months home,” confirmed Han. “And this is his second voluntary outing, but the last one was really just born of spite.”

“A powerful motivator. So are these the new batteries, then?”

“Yeah, dad showed me how they get hooked up, so I’m doing it now,” said Ben, nodding to his work even as Lando knelt down beside him to watch.

“They don’t trust you with a fork but they trust you with boat batteries?”

“Ben stabs, he doesn’t bludgeon or burn,” countered Han. “I think I have some beer in the galley, do you want one?”

“I really should probably go back to mine, I’m doing some varnish work on her aft. But I’ll stay and see how Ben does with the batteries.”

“Your confidence is astounding, Uncle Lando,” muttered Ben, turning back to his work. Still, he managed to attach the battery plenty well, and the bilge began to pump immediately too. So the satisfied smirk on his face belonged there as he helped replace the floor.

“You’re spoiled for choice of a first mate, between Ben and Rey,” said Lando easily, clapping a hand on Ben’s shoulder. And despite that he was so much better about it now, a thread of that old fear was plucked inside him. Snoke’s final blow was his parents’ replacement of him in Rey, despite that he knew better. His dad had said the boat had been dry docked, why would Rey have had anything to do with it? Han and Chewie did the sealant of the hull themselves and brokered no help, Rey wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, but why else would Uncle Lando start making noise about Rey being around the boat?

“That’s always going to be Chewie,” reminded Han, pointing to where he and Chewie had carved their names into the helm (Han Solo – Captain; Chewie Bacca – 1^st Mate) years and years ago, back when they travelled the Great Loop. “Leia’s second mate, Ben and Rey are just shiphands.”

Ben smiled to hear it. Yes, it was the lower rung, but that’s how it always was, he had always been a shiphand, it had been ridiculous to let that thread that Snoke had wound be plucked. Maybe that was something he should talk to Dr. Kalonia about, but he’d rather not, all things considered.

His phone rattled against the helm, and he went to see who had texted him while Han explained to Lando how Ben had been trusted with communication again. There were a few texts, most from fifteen minutes ago or so from when they had been away from the boat. But two recent ones.

(15m) Luke Tor: My grandmother’s come to visit and I swear she hasn’t stopped crying the entire time.

(15m) Liva:         So I made a pile of all the books I’ve read since I’ve gotten home and I want you to see it

                         Attachment 1 image

                           LOOK AT IT. IT’S HUGE.

(13m) Cee:        I have a scheduled exposure tonight and can I just…run away instead? Stay with you?

Hux :                This book is stranger than the film. It’s probably the strangest scifi I’ve ever come across. Why am I not surprised, knowing you?

Rey:                  I’m going out with Poe and Finn, we’re going to that bubble tea place for a while. Uncle Han says you’re at the boat, you don’t have to go sprinting                          home. Thanks for that though

Grinning quietly at his phone, he listened to Han and Lando talk. It was talk equally of the extent of Ben’s phone privileges and what varnish Lando was using on his boat.

“Rey’s going out for bubble tea with Poe and Finn,” said Ben. “She wanted to let us know so we wouldn’t hurry home.”

“Good, so you can come aboard Bespin,” said Lando, and Ben sighed, realizing he’d be here until Rey told them she was on her way home.

Say what you would about how Han tried to hold himself something aloof, the key word was always tried. So reflected Ben as he sat and watched Han and Lando discuss sanding and varnish with great excitement. His father liked to try and cultivate some sort of suave persona (his mother always said he was trying to be Clint Eastwood) but that crumbled in literal seconds as soon as someone started talking to him about things he liked.

Han was a dork, he just didn’t like to admit it.

Eventually they said their goodbyes, and father and son were back on the road home. “I’ve missed it, down there,” said Ben quietly. “I forgot how much I like it.” That would go on the Cornflakes List for certain, a strong number 12.

“Well, I’m willing to bring you along when I go down. Why did you stop wanting to come?”

“Snoke,” said Ben flatly. And wasn’t that just the answer to everything? His father didn’t say anything, but his hand settled on Ben’s shoulder, squeezing slightly. It was a little too emotional, but what did he expect, bringing up Snoke?

They arrived home at about the same time as Rey, who climbed out of Poe’s car almost before it came to a stop, ducking into the garage to catch up with Ben as he climbed out of Han’s. “Ben, I realized I haven’t said thanks,” she said, rushing as though she’d lose her nerve. “You’ve been here every day to assure me that you’re here, even when you were at your worst, you helped me with my issues when yours were much bigger. You’ve never missed a single day, and I realized that I never said thanks. And I’m sorry that you’ve had to do that.”

“Rey, I’m the last person to judge you on having issues.”

“Well yeah that’s true, but you were only just home, you tried to stab your dad, and at the same time I freak out when I come home and you aren’t immediately there to see me because I start feeling like you’ve abandoned me or some shit, and I’m sorry. You had plenty to deal with, and then I made you deal with my issues too.”

“I mean, it really wasn’t that bad…” tried Ben, but Rey wouldn’t hear of it, and threw her arms around him in a brief but crushing hug.

“Look at that, cousins bonding,” said Han, grinning at them both.

“If I had money, I would pay you to stop talking,” Ben told his father, only barely turning to him.

“You’re getting along so well, for really only living together for a few months.”

“Rey, do you want to steal his kubb set?”

“Oh yes,” she agreed, turning and heading inside with him. In minutes, they had the wooden blocks set up outside, throwing sticks at blocks to knock them over.

“I don’t know what magic you’re using, but that should not be upright,” said Ben, shaking his head at the block he could have sworn he hit.

“Don’t you know, Ben? I’m a witch,” said Rey with a grin, collecting the sticks to throw her return volley.

“A witch with terrifying aim, you’re destroying me.”

“You’re the one who suggested this, remember.” And with a sharp clunk, one of his last two blocks was knocked over.

“And I’m regretting it.” Gently tossing forward his knocked down block to advance best he could, he didn’t notice Rey’s eye being caught until she said,

“Do not turn around too fast or react in a weird way like you’re probably going to do.”

“Why would I react in a weird way?” he asked.

“Because the neighbor you have a crush on is staring at us from a window.” His head shot up to stare at her. “See, that’s the weird reaction I knew you’d have.”

“When we first met, he was scolding me for staring at him in the backyard, and now he’s staring at me?”

“Well, you are engaging in a strange ritual of wooden blocks with a witch.”

“I can’t argue that.”

“I notice you also didn’t argue that you have a crush on him.”

“Please shut up.”

“One of us has to be the gay cousin, Ben. It’s law. And what are you doing?”

“It’s a troll top.”

“It’s grass on a block.”

“It’s a counterspell against your witchy magic.”

“Does it work?”

“Well give it a try, we’ll see.” And amazingly, the block was upright after Rey threw all six sticks at it. “Oh my god, it worked.”

“Oh my god,” said Rey, grinning. “Okay, it’s official, if I’m a witch, you’re a weird lizard – wizard! Wizard!”

“I’m a lizard?”

“I meant wizard!”

“Oh I can’t wait to reveal my secret, let everyone know I’m secretly a lizard.”

“Ben, oh my god.”

Ben turned around, and saw Luke in the kitchen, probably getting one of those peach ice teas that everyone in his house decided they needed to drink. “Uncle Luke! I’m a lizard!”

“Congratulations, Ben!” called back Luke, clearly amused.

“Do not encourage this!” shouted Rey.

“Embrace the truth, Rey, I’m your weird gay lizard cousin,” said Ben, catching her around the neck, halfway between a hug and a chokehold. “It’s like the X-Files! The truth is out there and it’s in the backyard!”

“Ben, let go of me!” But she was laughing just as much as she was frustrated, and as they stumbled around, nearly losing their balance in the backyard, it felt like how things should be. It felt like hope, like they could get there someday, where Ben and Rey could just tease and jostle like everyone in their family did without looming therapy or fears of abandonment.

That was a long way off, but they weren’t even here two months ago.

And then they stumbled over the King Kubb and knocked it over as they fell, Ben’s side landing on top one of the sticks, making him groan in pain. He’d get a bruise, that much was sure. “That’s what you get, Ben!” said Rey, sitting up.

“I’m definitely feeling it.”

“Ben, what did you do to yourself?” asked Leia, leaning out the window while her twin laughed behind her.

“I landed on a kubb stick,” he called.

“They’re called batons, Ben.”

“Well I landed on one of those, then.” Groaning, he sat up, rubbing his side in pain.

“That’s what you get, being an idiot,” said Rey, even as she grinned. “Also, your crush has been watching the entire time.”

“Great.”

“I get why you don’t go to school, but why doesn’t he?”

“Apparently seniors at his school get May free, most get internships or jobs, he helped his dad move.”

“Oh. Are we going to finish the game or are you too injured?”

“No we are finishing this, I can make a comeback.”

“You have three hits to your kubb blocks left, how can you make a comeback?”

“My lizard magic, of course.”

“Oh my god.”

Rey defeated him soundly, which Ben really wasn’t surprised about. But he was never going to let that lizard comment go. Not if he could help it.

While Rey was working on homework and Luke was up in his room singing Laudate Dominum omnes gentes alleluia for probably the next half hour at least, Han was running the books over the phone with Chewie about slip rentals and what boats were to be craned into the water (all while complaining about how those owners really should have been getting their boats in earlier in the season) and Leia was on her own phone, speaking in calm soft tones to whoever was on the other side.

And while they were doing that, Ben was with his notebook and texting with his friends up in his window seat.

12) the docks/Millennium Falcon
13) Kubb

Ben:       How was your exposure?

Cee:       The absolute worst. But I survived. No thanks to you.

Ben:       I don’t think my kidnapping you would do any favors for either of us

Cee:       You’re right but I REALLY wish you weren’t

Luke Tor:  attachment 1 image

Ben:           What have I done to deserve this?

                   Is that a hallway mirror selfie?

Luke Tor:  I’m sending you shirtless selfies from every mirror in my house

Ben:           I thought your grandmother was crying over you??

Luke Tor:  Mom took her out for dinner so we’d both have a break

He was expecting some sort of snarky text from Hux asking about his spill in the yard, or something else about Hitchhiker’s Guide, but it didn’t come. He was fairly certain that he knew Hux, at least somewhat, he didn’t expect him to watch Ben playing a lawn game with his cousin and dragging her to the ground when he was fooling with her and not tease him about it.

Still, if he was to be spared teasing, he’d not turn it down.

The next day was the delight of therapy, and joy of joys group therapy was after that, with a delightful outing to the art museum. Looking at the decorative screens full of samurai and the snowy landscape paintings, only Christopher really had anything to say about the art. The others all mostly nodded along, and suffered through the convention of not talking in galleries, because then people only whispered, and the whispering was almost as bad as the eyes.

It was the day after that outing that Ben was roused from an accidental nap in the living room by Rey, who shook his shoulder and said, “Neighbor’s here.”

“Hux?”

“Yes, Ben, because none of our other neighbors come for you. He was here yesterday too, while you were at the art museum.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, he left when we told him you weren’t here. Now come on, get up. Don’t be rude.”

Hux was there, with that quietly fragile look on him again, but it was a different flavor. Still, it was a little concerning. Hux shouldn’t have that look on him, Ben thought. It wasn’t right, that he should look like that. Still, he knew when he felt like that, he didn’t want people calling attention to it, so he simply grinned and said, “Last time you were here you were yelling at me. Are we going to continue the tradition?”

“No, but can I talk to you in private?” said Hux. Ben nodded, and gestured for him to follow.

“We can talk in my room, I don’t know where else would be private at this point.”

“Your family is that nosy?”

“Well there are four other people, we’re going to be in earshot of at least one of them unless we do go up to my room.”

Luke was in his room in prayer, Ben could tell as they walked past and heard him singing (“Veni sancte spiritus veni sancte spiritus veni sancte spiritus…”). Hux though seemed confused, slowing as they passed his door.

“That’s Uncle Luke,” said Ben. “He’ll be singing that for ages. It’s what they do in Taizé, I think, or at least what he’s doing while he’s here.”

“You mentioned he’s a monk. They sing?”

“Yeah, they’re really well known for it. People go visit Taizé from all over the world, apparently a pope even visited.”

“Well that’s a mark in their favor.” But Hux lost that confidence as soon as they were alone, Ben sitting in the window seat and gesturing for Hux to join him. He did, perching like a concerned bird at the very edge of the cushion. Maybe it should feel awkward, inviting his friend into his room, but he didn’t really have that much stuff in there. He didn’t really have that much of a personality before he left, that had been rather discouraged by Snoke, and then crushed out of him. There wasn’t anything incriminating there, not really.

“So…how have you liked Hitchhiker’s Guide?” tried Ben when the silence got a little long.

“It’s good,” said Hux. “I can see why you like it so much, it’s a lot like you. It makes light of incredibly dark premises.”

“Yeah, my therapist says that’s a coping mechanism for me, but I figure if it helps me cope, then it’s fine.”

Hux nodded and then said, “You’re getting better, aren’t you?”

“I mean, for a given amount of better. I’ve gone out in public of my own free will twice in the four months I’ve been home, so…”

“But you go with your group therapy twice a week.”

“Once a week, the other meeting is regular group therapy without an outing. But yeah, once a week we go out somewhere. We were at an art museum yesterday.”

“Your father said that, yes.”

“So you met my dad. I’m so sorry.”

“I met him before, when he and your mother came to welcome us. He’s quite different from my father.”

“Yeah, I noticed that. Mom says he’s always trying to be Clint Eastwood.”

“Your father? I’d believe that.”

“But he has a boat, so he’s like a pirate cowboy? I don’t know.” Hux was smiling, a little one, but it made that fragile look start to go away, so that was enough for Ben. “Why are you over here? Not that I don’t appreciate it, but I’m usually the one bothering you.”

“You don’t bother me,” said Hux. “You’re one of the few people I talk to, these days.”

“Oh.”

Hux gave a huffing sigh and said, “You’re dealing with years of abuse and being kidnapped and all, but you’ve gone out of your own free will more than once, you keep going out once a week, you were playing with your cousin the other day and fooling around with her, how are you constantly getting better?”

“I don’t know, I don’t feel like I’m getting better at all. I’m just…really blasé about it when I probably shouldn’t be. Also why do you sound so…angry about it?”

Hux surged to his feet then, pacing as he said with such strangled intensity, “Because you’re getting better from this massive trauma that should have messed you up, and it’s impressive and I am impressed, don’t get me wrong but you’re getting better from something huge and I’m not getting better and I just…”

“What are you trying to get better from?” asked Ben slowly, not sure how to react to this. Had Hux come over to rant like this?

But his friend didn’t even seem to register that Ben was talking, and Ben was beginning to worry that maybe he should do something. “You were kidnapped and brainwashed and you’re getting better and that was huge and I’m still not over my damn freak out and it’s been ages since then and I’ll have to face everyone again in a few days and I should be over it and I’m not!”

“Hux!” said Ben, standing and moving in the way of Hux’s pacing. “What’s wrong? How can I help?”

Ben couldn’t manage to get him to look at him though, Hux turned away and stared at the ground, fists clenched as he muttered, “This was stupid, I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“I won’t bar you from leaving, but I’m not going to forget that you’re so upset. So you can tell me now, or I can be obnoxiously concerned until you end up telling me later just to get me to shut up.”

“Is there an option where I don’t tell you?”

“I feel like you’ve taken that option before, and we’ve ended up here.”

“You’re weirdly perceptive.”

“Group therapy, does wonders for being able to read other people. Look, I have a hard time talking to my therapist and she already knows everything that happened to me. I know how hard it is to tell anyone anything. So…you don’t have to look at me or anything. You don’t even have to tell me anything right now, if you don’t want.”

“I came here with the intent of telling you, I shouldn’t back out now. Selfish as it is, I wanted to be able to leave if I had to.”

“I understand that,” said Ben, sitting back down on his window seat and watching Hux, waiting to see what he would say or do.

“You have been incredibly open about everything you go through, you tell me about your outings and you make jokes about your time in that cult like it’s nothing and I can’t even tell anyone that I have to do an exposure, let alone what for.” (Cee does exposures, thought Ben, eyes tracking Hux as he paced the length of Ben’s room) “You remember that I told you seniors at my school get May free? That they usually do internships?”

“And you helped your dad move instead…”

“It’s required to do an internship or get a job. It’s required. The only reason I’m not doing that is because I had a major meltdown in the middle of school and I had to leave. I’ve been going to therapy once a week since, and doing exposures almost daily with my father and it’s exhausting and I hate it, and then we moved here and then you’re there and you treat me like I’m normal because you didn’t know me before and you just think I am normal, the only reason you stared at me was because I was new, not for any other reason, and I can’t keep lying to you after you’ve been totally open with me.”

“I mean, that’s more my fault than yours.”

“Please shut up, Ben.”

“Shutting up.”

“God, this is so stupid…” Ben said nothing, just like he promised, and let Hux work his way through it. He certainly went silent more than once when it came to talking about some instance with Dr. Kalonia. But just as Ben did, eventually Hux started talking again, a little fast to get it all out as fast as possible. “It’s OCD. I have OCD. But it isn’t normal compulsions, no mine are all about food contamination. And it’s not even easily handled, I can’t scrub the oven with bleach or anything because then I’m terrified that the bleach is going to get into the food and poison my father and I. So instead I just have a notebook that lists the expiration date of everything we own and I have to check it every day and make sure nothing’s gone bad and throw it out if it has. Do you know, I’ve thrown out unopened bottles of milk before because it was the date printed?

“And then, joy of joys, I have a meltdown in the middle of school over the food. It was the dumbest thing too, just someone coughing at the table, but I thought it got into my food and I freaked out. And everyone got to see and graduation is in a few days and I get to see everyone again and they know and I’m going to have to go stand onstage in front of everyone and it’s not like rumors stop when you aren’t at school anymore and the only one of my friends who I even talk to anymore is Gwen and even then I barely talk to her because her internship is out of town and…” a hissing breath through his teeth. “I wanted to tell you because I’m going to graduate from high school and have to shut myself in my house and not come out until I go to California.”

“So I’ll come visit you,” said Ben. “I mean, that’s what we’ve been doing so far. I know I get exhausted for the day after my therapy, let me know what days I shouldn’t come bother you and I won’t.” Hux stared at him a long moment, his pale eyes wide. “Hux, I joined a cult. You have compulsions about contaminations, that’s okay, I’ll just try not to contaminate anything.”

“You are incredibly accommodating.”

“Only to people I like. And that’s not being accommodating, Hux, that’s called being even vaguely considerate. What sort of friends did you have if me trying not to aggravate your OCD is ‘incredibly accommodating?’”

“The more time I spend with you, of all people, the more I realize that they weren’t very good ones. Except Gwen, she’s actually stuck by me.”

“Have you not seen any of your friends since you left? None of them wanted to see you?”

“No. Except Gwen. But then she left town and we moved.”

“I’ve seen people from school, they’re over here a lot, because they’re Rey’s friends. I still see my friends twice a week and I’m almost constantly texting them. Hux, if I have better friends than you, something is probably very wrong.”

“I don’t know, being the inaugurating members of a cult seems like something you can’t help but bond after.”

“That’s beside the point.” Ben took a breath to steel himself and said, “I’ll go to your graduation, if you want. I’ll do it, so that way people will look at me instead of you. They won’t be looking at the kid who had a meltdown from his OCD if they can stare at the kid who joined a cult and almost killed the guy who got him out because Stockholm Syndrome was a little too strong.”

Hux stared at him before saying, “You’ve only gone out willingly twice, you’ve said so.”

“Yeah, but I also once took a beating from Snoke because otherwise he’d hurt Christopher. You’re one of the few people I actually like, Hux. I’ll do a lot of things for those I like.”

“Clearly.” But there was something almost awestruck in his voice, and despite the preemptive burning of the eyes Ben could feel, something like pride began to glow in his chest. He could do at least one good thing for his friend, and if Hux would allow it, he would. Also, he was lucky he was so cute; Ben would not have so easily suggested that if he wasn’t. “It’s on Saturday, but you really don’t have to come.”

“Unless you tell me not to, I will.”

“Why are you willing to do that?”

Ben shrugged then, his own brand of self-conscious as he stood and went to grab the photo album he had smuggled away years ago and no one bothered to ask him for. It was all the old pictures, the only way he got to see his grandparents. Flipping it open, he pointed to an old photograph of his grandfather, passed out asleep with infant Leia asleep on his chest. It was one of the few pictures where you could see his arm without the prosthesis. “That’s my grandfather, Anakin. He was an amputee, see?”

“And what does that have to do with anything?”

“Because he lost his hand to save his best friend Ben. And yes I was named after him. Grandpa lost a hand for his friend, I can go to your high school graduation if it will make it less awful for you. I won’t be losing any limbs there, will I?”

“Well that’s one way to emulate your heroes,” muttered Hux, but his tone wasn’t as scathing as it could be.

“And unless you tell me not to, I am going to be at your house first thing in the morning on Saturday.” Hux said nothing, but he looked pleased, and that was enough for Ben.

They sat in silence for a minute or two before Hux said, “So you keep the family photo album in your room?”

“No one else wants to look at pictures of my grandparents,” he defended.

“Not even your mother?”

“She had a really difficult relationship with her dad, so no. They were too similar, you know? Dad says I’ve got a lot of Grandpa in me too, but he should really look at who he married about that one.”

Hux gave a small smile and stood as he said, “I should be going, I’m sorry for coming over here just to yell about my issues at you.”

“Hux, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but recently even the national news has been talking about my issues because Snoke’s in the Supreme Court. Yours are refreshing and new and honestly not that bad.”

“Why is he in the Supreme court?”

“Lily’s from a different state, she’s staying with her aunt while she’s in therapy with us. I don’t know everything about it, but because of state lines it has to go to the Supreme Court or something like that.”

“Shouldn’t you be more involved?”

“We’re all underage victims, I guess they’re trying to be nice to us. Dr. Kalonia’s involved, I know that. I mean, maybe they’ll call us in eventually, who knows.”

“You are incredibly blasé about it, aren’t you?”

“Warned you.” Still, he stood to walk him out of the house, ignoring how Luke was still singing his Latin chant. Galloping down the stairs with Hux taking a more sedate pace behind him, he probably should have expected it, but was still surprised to hear Hux say from behind him,

“Wait, Ben, what is this?” He turned, and groaned, for Hux was looking at that picture of Baby Ben with Leia at the UN.

“Forget you ever saw that, please.”

“Is this you when you were little?”

“Mom took me to UN meetings, yes.”

“You were adorable, what happened?”

And yes, there was a blush on Ben’s face, what of it? “Look, not everyone manages puberty as well as you did. We can’t all turn out as handsome as you!” Realizing what he said, Ben folded his lips and stared wide eyed at Hux before saying, “Forget you heard that.”

“So you think I’m handsome?” he asked, a wicked grin growing on his face. Ben wheeled around behind Hux, and began to push him in front of him, towards the door.

“The door is this way, I’m sure your father is very concerned where you are, let’s go.” Hux was laughing, which made his blush all the worse. When the door was finally closed, Ben found his way into the living room where his father was watching some cowboy film with Rey, both of whom raised their brows at him when he fell face first into the couch.

“So what was making Hux laugh so much?” asked Han, watching as a gunman counseled three men to hire gunmen, not buy guns.

“Nothing, we’re going to pretend it never happened,” muttered Ben.

“Was I dreaming when I heard you describe him as handsome to his face, then?” asked Rey, a twist to her voice.

“Yes you were, that never happened.”

Han snorted and said, “Both of you be quiet.”

“We’re watching your movie, Ben,” said Rey, not heeding Han.

“My movie?” he echoed, turning his head to look at the screen. He’d recognize Yul Brynner wearing that dark blue shirt anywhere. “The Magnificent Seven?”

“You and your friends make seven!”

“Yeah, but we weren’t riding to Mexico to liberate a town from marauding bandits!”

“You think these seven are upright pillars of decency?”

“I’ve been offered a lot for my work, but never everything,” said Chris as Han turned up the volume, forcing the cousins to quiet.

Despite that he made fun of his dad for being a pirate cowboy, it was easy to be drawn into these films. And if the “very young and very proud” Chico reminded him uncomfortably of himself from time to time, then that was neither here nor there.

The shootouts were exciting, at least. The deadly precision of the gunslingers was a refreshing change of pace from scifi’s constant blaster firing without any contact made. Vin shot seven times, he killed seven men, Britt ducked behind a shield of a wall that shield stayed up. If the Vogons shot seven thousand times and they might hit someone by sheer math and probability, the Enterprise was shot once and the shields were already destroyed.

There was an invincibility around the gunslingers that might have made for a boring story, but the film knew that the Wild West had to be just that, Wild. So, Harry died whispering of gold in Chris’ arms, not wanting to die “a sucker.”

“I’ll be damned,” breathed Harry at the lie Chris wove of half a million dollars in gold, head falling limp with death as Chris lay him down gently, murmuring in his rumbling baritone,

“Maybe you won’t be.”

The quietly poetic moment was destroyed, predictably, by the window shattering under the bandits trying to break in, leading the shootout to continue on.

“I see you’re watching the same films you were watching when we met,” said Luke from the doorway, making them all jump, almost perfectly in time with another stock gunshot noise.

“They were good then, and they’re good now,” said Han, but he was grinning at Luke. “I’ve even got the scifi kid watching with me.”

“They have better aim in these movies,” said Ben. He hadn’t sat up at all, and now Ben was cringing at the idea of getting up because that meant turning his head and that was going to hurt.

“That is sort of the idea of a gunslinger, Ben,” said Rey.

“Okay but even in action films, bullets are flying and no one gets hit.”

“He’s got a point,” said Han. “They’re going to sheer number over skill these days.”

“You know they’re making a remake of this, right?” said Rey. “Maybe they’ll all be top notch gunslingers again.”

“Is Yul Brynner in it?”

“Yul Brynner died of lung cancer and is buried around three hours east of Taizé,” said Luke. “I know that because you insisted we go visit his grave when I was first visiting the community.”

Of course he had. Ben wished he could be surprised.

Still, Luke ended up joining them, watching as the heroes continued on their quest to free the village from Calvera, even as Bernardo died to protect the village children and Britt and Lee were shot down. There was something in the way he watched the film that was eerily similar to how Rey did too, as if he was unenthusiastically dragged into enthusiasm. For all that Uncle Luke had always been a hazy memory informed by pictures from the family photo album for Ben, and for all that he had been Rey’s imaginings of a fairy godmother, there was a part of Luke that never vanished under the whole “Monk in a Rural French Monastery” bit.

It was the bit that he passed on to Rey before he and Aunt Mara sat down and agreed that while he was “the best of husbands, while I had him” (Aunt Mara’s fond words), there was a serious meditative religious calling for him, and it wasn’t fair for him to be miserable. It was the bit that let him watch The Magnificent Seven and laugh along with his daughter and nephew when Han whispered alongside Calvera’s dying words,

“You came back…a place like this…why? A man like you, why?”

Despite that Luke had been away in France for thirteen years, it didn’t feel weird having him around. Maybe that was final proof of how weird their family was.

As Chico settled with Petra and Chris and Vin rode on past the graves of the four dead, Chris’ magnificent baritone rumbled out, “The old man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We’ll always lose.”

“I thought westerns were supposed to be exciting adventure films,” said Rey as the film closed. And immediately Han launched into a detailed thesis about how Westerns were truly about the instability of the West (thus the Wild West) and how the gunslingers, though heroic sharpshooters, were instead symbols of how wandering alone without home only continued that instability and made a good man bad. He was in the middle of referring back to the movie’s “Gunfighter Arithmetic” and comparing it to The Man with No Name from the Dollars Trilogy when Ben finally levered himself up and rolled his head wincing from the crick that hurt badly from the near two hours he had lain with it at an odd angle.

“Uncle Luke, do you know where Mom is?” he asked.

“She was going to take a nap last I was aware,” he said calmly. “Are you sure you don’t want to listen to Han’s dissertation?”

“I have heard it so many times it’s imprinted onto my brain,” said Ben, turning and leaving the room.

Leia indeed was napping in her and Han’s room, but hummed awake when Ben crawled in beside her, breathing in the lavender oil she sprinkled her pillow with and tucking his elbows in as he moved to tuck himself against her. “Hello sweetheart,” murmured Leia, an arm reaching around him. His shoulders were too wide for her to really hold, but it never stopped her from trying. “I thought you were watching The Magnificent Seven.”

“We finished, dad’s giving his presentation to Rey.”

“Mmm.” She was drifting off towards sleep again, but blinked her eyes awake when Ben whispered,

“Mom, I think I made a bad decision again.”

“What is it, Ben?”

Ben fidgeted, ducking his head and pressing his face more firmly into the pillow to breath in more of that lavender scent before he said, “Hux was over, and he was afraid of being stared at.”

“By you? Ben, you two resolved that ages ago.”

“Not by me. His graduation’s on Saturday, he’s going to be stared at by everyone there. He’s got really bad anxiety, mom, and he’s my friend, and he said he was going to be stared at and I know what that’s like so I promised I’d go be there for him, so people would stare at me and not him. Why did I say I’d do that?”

“Oh Ben. You said it yourself, he’s your friend.” Her hand began to stroke kindly through his curls. “You’ve done worse for your friends.” Her hand slid along his shoulder to touch that scar he sustained protecting Christopher from Snoke’s wrath. In the space of a breath, it was back to his hair, which was a comfort. He made light of his time away, but there were just some things he couldn’t talk to his parents about. “Do you regret that you said you’d do it?”

At length, Ben said, “No, but I didn’t regret Snoke until I was a few weeks home. I have a really bad track record, mom.”

Leia hummed again and said, “You know, even Luke fought with our father a lot?” It came out of nowhere, Ben looked up at her with great surprise to hear it. “Father and I had a very difficult relationship, but his and Luke’s was far more complicated. It’s a bit much to get into now, but it was certainly something to see. Luke was always frustrated that father couldn’t be better. Kept saying that for all that he was a good man, he did a piss poor job of showing it.”

Ben snorted at that. He couldn’t quite imagine serene Uncle Luke saying that. “I guess that’s when he perfected that disappointed stare?”

“No, I think he picked that up sometime in monastic training,” said Leia. “I know you love grandpa, and he was ultimately a good man, but he wasn’t perfect, not at all. But the important thing is that he tried. He didn’t always succeed, and Lord knows we all fought, but he tried. When he was dying, he admitted that it really was Luke’s chastising that made him as good as he was. Sometimes you need someone else to give you a reason to be better, or just a reason to try.”

“What if I can’t do it? What if I try and I can’t?”

“Then you’ll have tried, and if your friend doesn’t appreciate that you did all you could for him, then that tells you what sort of friend he is.” Ben said nothing, just pressed his face further into the pillow, letting his mother stroke his hair. “Ben, you’ve barely gone out in public outside of therapy, why are you going now?”

“Hux was really upset, mom. He asked me how I kept getting better after everything that happened to me, sounded almost angry about it. He was angry at himself, I think, because I was getting better and better after the whole business with Snoke while he wasn’t getting better from this breakdown he had two months ago. And that breakdown was at school and he had to leave and when he goes back everyone’s going to be staring at him and I know what that’s like and don’t want him to have to deal with that. And you can’t say anything because I didn’t mean to tell anyone.”

“Don’t worry Ben, I already knew you overshare.”

“Dr. Kalonia and Uncle Luke take us out only to places there’s not going to be that many people in, and Dr. Kalonia’s been the one talking for us in court because she said it wouldn’t be smart to have us face Snoke so soon. Did I make a bad decision by saying I’d go to such a big thing? I don’t even know how big Hux’s school is, there could be hundreds of people there.”

“Ben, you forget that I talked to his father, Han and I went over to visit. I looked up the school, it’s a private school, there’s only about eighty students per grade. It won’t be that bad. And as much as I don’t really want you out and about until the court case is done, I’m very proud of you, volunteering to do something like this for your friend.”

Ben said nothing, just tucked himself closer to his mother, curling to make himself smaller. If someone were to say “cuddled” or “snuggled” he would probably never even stand close to his mother for ages afterwards, but there was no one there to say anything, and so he was just fine staying close and quiet with his mother.

Or at least until Uncle Luke knocked on the door, holding Ben’s phone. Why did he have that?

“Ben, Cecilia is panicking,” he said calmly. “She’s called you and you didn’t answer and her anxiety kicked up. She’s been talking to Gregory, and Deepika’s been texting you furiously and me as well, telling me to get you to do something. I think you need to call her.”

Ben was up and out of the bed in seconds, grabbing the phone and darting up to his room, already calling her. It barely rang twice before it was answered with Cee’s breathless and teary voice gasping, “Bento Box?”

“Hey Cee, I’m so sorry, I didn’t have my phone on me, I didn’t know you were panicking and trying to talk to me,” he said, curling up in his window seat. If Finn or Poe ever were anxious about anything, he’d probably shove them off to Rey and not think twice about it. If literally anyone from his own grade back when he went to high school was the same he’d ignore them and just direct others to take care of it. He’d only do this for Cee, or at least he had thought so. Apparently Cee and Hux were the only two he’d try and do this for.

It took a long time before Cee calmed down enough to explain, apparently she had been high strung all day and Ben’s lack of response just had tipped her over the edge. “Uncle Luke apparently got a lot of angry texts from ‘Ninah, she was basically yelling at him to get me to call you.”

“She yelled at Brother Luke?” asked Cee, a quiet giggle under her words.

“I’m honestly not surprised myself, I feel like it was only a matter of time.” This was the easier side of Cee’s anxieties, the cheering her up side.

Eventually she sounded herself again and there was even a smile in her voice as she said, “I think my parents are going to let me get out of our exposure tonight.”

“Silver linings, I guess. Say, Cee, can I ask you something about those?”

“My exposures? What about them?”

“Well, my neighbor friend? He mentioned doing them too.”

“Bento Box, you can’t do any exposures,” she said, he voice suddenly very strong and very ready to lecture. “You’re not his therapist, you’re not his exposure coach, you have to step back. If he asks for help, feel free to accept, but don’t force an exposure on him. He has to know it’s coming and what it entails, you can’t just drop him in the middle of it, he’s going to panic and it’ll be worse than if you just left well enough alone.”

“No, I just meant, what does it mean to do one?”

“They’re basically what we do with our outings. It’s a controlled situation for a controlled amount of time, and we know what it is and when it is. Honestly, you could probably call our outings exposures too. They’re the worst, but you can tell that it’s getting easier over time. Very slowly, but it works.”

“So, how long until you’d recover from a breakdown?”

“Like the one I just had?” And oh, her voice was exhausted again. “I don’t know, a day or two? I’m used to them, I used to have them a lot more often when we were all first separated. In general, it all depends on what the breakdown is about and who the person is and how bad it is. All this stuff is really complicated, Bento Box. There’s a reason Kalonia has a PHD.”

“And how are you doing now, Cee?”

“I’m exhausted and I think I’m going to bed early tonight. I’m going to eat whatever my parents are making me, and then I’m going to bed.” A static laden sigh hissed across the phone line before she spoke again. “In fact, my mom’s telling me food’s ready now. I cannot wait for today to be done.”

“I understand that. Go eat, and sleep well.”

“I can do that.”

A half hour later, Ben made certain to text her, wishing her goodnight. He didn’t want her to be left hanging, even if it meant Rey giving him something of a look over dinner when he pulled out his phone to send it.

And after dinner that night, when he was up in his room, Ben sat down with his notebook and wrote

14) Dad’s westerns
15) Having friends who trust me with secrets

Saturday and Hux’s impending graduation with all its stress and public nature came far too quickly for Ben’s liking. But he had a feeling it came too quickly for Hux as well. Seemed that way, when the day dawned breezy and clear, with wispy clouds racing across the sky. Ben had actually made a vague effort, wearing nicer pants than ragged skinny jeans and forgoing his usual hoodie for an actual button down. He felt ridiculous, but hey, it was apparently a private school.

Honestly, he wished he could be surprised.

Mr. Hux was in a suit, without the sweater vest, and suddenly Ben felt like he should be wearing a suit too. Especially when he saw Hux with his hair slicked back and wearing dress pants and a sports jacket. Instead, he laughed it off and said, “You look like you’re graduating next to Fitzgerald!”

“Fitzgerald went to high school in Minnesota, actually,” said Mr. Hux. “Before he went to New Jersey. Come on, we’re going to be late.”

“How does your dad know that sort of thing off the top of his head?”

“You actually came,” said Hux wonderingly, instead of actually answering Ben’s question.

“Well yeah, I said I was going to, didn’t I?” And if Ben was making the decision not to mention the whole asking-his-mother-multiple-times-if-it-wasn’t-just-another-in-a-long-list-of-bad-ideas thing, then no one was to judge him.

It was halfway through the ride to the school that Ben realized three things at the same moment. First, he actually was doing this. Second, Hux hadn’t turned him away and asked him to not come. Third, he Was Doing This.

“Holy shit I’m doing this,” he breathed aloud.

“Yes you are, and please try not to swear? People tend to invite their grandparents to this,” said Hux. Ben glanced over at him, and he was doing that fist clenching so tight it trembled thing again.

“Sure you don’t want to boot me out and make me walk home, then?”

“Ben, your mother will probably call governmental forces out if you go missing again,” said Hux, and Ben could see Mr. Hux frowning at such blunt wording, but Ben was more than fine with it. That was why he liked Hux so much, he never flinched away from it like most people did, but he was never invasive about it either. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want a SWAT team bursting down my door.”

“Fair enough.”

The school was…nice. It was clearly built in that period of time when no one was that concerned with making it pretty, but there was a nice enough lawn out back for the ceremony to be held in. Ben had threatened to sit in the very front row, but the look on Hux’s face persuaded him to instead sit a few rows back. Still, they were there unbearably early, so Ben set off to explore the school before it was a normal time for him to go sit down.

It danced that line that every high school had to dance, the careful balance between trying to look cheerful and welcoming and actually looking like a morose prison. And like all schools, the prison feeling won out, just a little bit.

The library was nice though. Lots of big windows and rows and rows of bookshelves. There wasn’t any back corner for any couple to slip behind, which was probably by design, but that hadn’t ever really been Ben’s priority, even when he had been in school. He could imagine Hux here though, working on homework or talking quietly with whoever gravitated towards him. He had mentioned someone called Gwen, his only friend who actually still talked to him, and to Ben it felt inevitable that others would be drawn in towards Hux, even if they weren’t his friends. He was magnetic, and very cute.

How many girls had watched him and harbored secret thoughts of how much they liked him? How many boys? Had Hux looked at anyone and had those same thoughts?

How was it already time for Ben to go sit down and watch?

He found a spot next to some kid’s family, a grandma who looked curiously at him a long moment with eyes that burned into him before turning back to her family. This was going to be so much fun.

By the time the graduates arrived, Ben felt like he was going to burst into flame from all the burning sensations going on across his body. Hux honestly didn’t look much better, and when they caught eyes for a single split second, Ben nodded solemnly. They were in it together.

The speakers were long and boring and Ben remembered viscerally why he hated high school so much, listening to poetry being waxed about “bright futures” and “brave new worlds.” The last made him wish so much that Hux was next to him so he could snort and make some joke about Cousin Aldous, but instead he decided to bravely wait until the reception promised by the little program he was fiddling nervously with.

He was like Anastasia at the Russian Ballet, twisting apart her program. Only he didn’t have Dmitri to pull his hand away. Rey had made him watch that plenty times during family gatherings when they had been kids, she had loved that film. Did she still like that fairy tale of the amnesiac Russian princess and her hunt to find her family? He’d have to ask.

And there was someone whispering behind him. His whole body tensed up, ready to run and get out of there, but they were finally handing out the diplomas, and if there was a worst time to run, now was probably that moment.

He got a good look at all of Hux’s classmates, walking up one by one as they were. They were all normal, reminded him of his own old classmates. And then walked up Gwen Phasma. God, he hoped this was the friend Hux had mentioned because if she wasn’t, Ben was going to be so disappointed.

Finally the ceremony was done, and finally there was the promised reception and it had cake and he zeroed in on Hux and maybe things would be okay. “Oh my god I’m going to throw up everyone is staring at me I can feel it,” he said, sitting heavily beside his friend.

“I’m glad you had a good time,” said Hux, but there was a tight edge to his voice.

“I mean, it happens every time I go out anywhere. So I get used to it. Still sucks though. Cake?”

“Ben, I’ve told you about the food thing.”

“Right. Well, come with me while I get cake. I deserve a reward for directing stares. Do you know how much whispering I was hearing around me?”

“Thanks for doing that. I don’t think anyone in my class saw or recognized you, but it helped.”

“Your welcome. Also your school looks like a prison. To be fair mine did too. Am I rambling?”

“Only a little.” But there was a little smile on Hux’s face, and that made it mostly worth it. Finally they found some back corner to stand in, Ben with carrot cake and Hux just watching people.

“So this is only half as pretentious as it could have been,” commented Ben.

“The commencement speaker was awful,” said Hux bluntly.

“The second he said brave new world I was wondering if he read the book.”

“Chances are he was referencing Shakespeare.”

“That’s in Shakespeare?”

“That’s why Aldous took the title. Miranda from the Tempest looks at this group of men who exiled her and her father to live on a deserted island, and she declares the brilliance of mankind and the brave new world she’s going to enter.”

“Is there anything you don’t know about?”

“What?”

“Well, you know Shakespeare and Brave New World and the Pre-Raphaelites and physics…”

“‘Jack of all trades, master of none. But better that than master of one.’”

“Well I did hear your dad talk about producing well rounded individuals during his speech.” Hux snorted, amusement clear on his face, eyes tracking those who milled about, talking. And then, from the crowd strode the Amazon that was Gwen Phasma.

“Found you!” she declared, eyes sharply alight at seeing him there. “Are you sure you’re not going to be a magician? Because most astrophysicists can’t do that sort of disappearing act.”

“I didn’t want to deal with everyone,” said Hux, waving it off like it was nothing.

“Yeah, there was a whole lot of talk after you left. You know how it is, things get exaggerated.” Good, thought Ben. She was just as straightforward. “Who’s this?”

“This is Ben, he’s my neighbor.”

“Oh I’ve heard of you.” Sticking out her hand she said, “I’m Gwen, nice to meet you.”

“You’ve heard of me?” asked Ben. “What exactly have you heard?”

“Well, first that you were a weird neighbor who likes to stare at people in their lawns, then that you were an oddly endearing scifi nerd with a cowboy pirate for a dad.”

“You think I’m endearing?”

“Shut up and eat your reward cake,” said Hux.

Eventually, Gwen moved on, groaning but letting her family take pictures. When she was gone, Ben looked at Hux and quietly said, “You didn’t mention the cult thing.”

Hux shrugged, looking at where a group of boys were sharing a (now legal) cigar and each choking horribly on it. “It didn’t seem like something I should just share around.”

Ben smiled to himself, comforted by that. Eventually he said, “Do you still want to barricade yourself in your house and not leave?”

“Honestly? Yes. But I’m not going to see any of these people again after this, so I take comfort in that.”

“Not even Gwen?”

“She is a notable exception.” Ben snorted a laugh. “Also, I feel I should warn you, we’re not going to be able to leave until everyone else is gone. I’m used to it, but…”

“You forget, I grew up in UN meetings. I can wait.”

Hux hadn’t lied, and it was late afternoon when the two of them were sitting on a low wall near the school building proper, watching the chairs being taken down as Ben’s skin started to cool down from the burning eyes. Everyone else had gone, but since Mr. Hux had been the one to give them a ride, they had to wait. Hux looked very calm waiting, but Ben was texting his friends, unable to just sit like his friend.

“Who are you texting?” asked Hux eventually.

“Cult friends,” said Ben. “Gregory’s bothering me because he doesn’t want to deal with his family right now, and Deepika is texting me updates about her first voluntary outing.”

“Do they know you’re here?”

“No, and I’m not telling them. This is the third time I’ve left the house of my own free will, and I don’t want to make them feel that they have to just because I was able to.”

“Why are you so surly about being a good friend?”

“I’m not being surly about it.”

“Yes you are.”

“I am not, and if you’ll excuse me, Deepika is buying shampoo, and Gregory is avoiding his parents.”

“And you’re avoiding me.”

“Yes, you’re very observant, I can see why you graduated high school.”

“Do you think you ever will?” asked Hux, voice not laughing anymore.

“I don’t know. I…I don’t think so. It doesn’t seem like a possibility, really. But on the plus side, I’ll have one hell of a college essay to write about overcoming hardship.” That startled a laugh out of Hux, and Ben grinned to hear it.

Deepinah: I should buy conditioner too, shouldn’t I?

Ben:            It is something to consider.

Deepinah: But that’s so HARD. And three people have asked if they can help me with anything.

Ben:             Be brave

Gem:     If I call you, will you pick up?

Ben:       I’m with my neighbor friend. So no

Gem:     Stop having friends who aren’t me

“You really bonded with them, didn’t you?” asked Hux.

“I mean, we didn’t really have much choice but to bond. Everyone seemed to think we were all codependent, but we weren’t, not really.”

“You don’t call your friend’s updates about buying shampoo codependent?”

“No, I call it excitement and commiseration. Luke texts me shirtless mirror selfies because he used to ambush me at Snoke’s shirtless because it made me laugh. Lily and Gregory both like to complain at me, Deepika’s always just talked about thoughts she’s had, Christopher tells me about whatever pretty thing he’s seen that day be it a person or a cloud, and Cecilia likes to shoot the breeze. We’re friends, we’re not dependent on each other.”

Hux had something of an odd look on his face then, staring at Ben’s phone as it vibrated in his hand.

Obsipher: Have you ever had a toasted peanut butter Nutella and banana sandwich?

                   I just have and I am in LOVE

                  Just look at this thing it’s BEAUTIFUL

                  Attachment: one image

Ben:          So no more cute girls for you? Only sandwiches?

Obsipher: Yes. Bc look at that thing it’s beautiful

                    I’m lying btw

“Sorry, Christopher was being a weirdo about sandwiches,” said Ben.

“Sandwiches?” laughed Hux.

“I don’t know what’s going through his head half the time, I really don’t.”

“So as of today, you have seen and met every peer and friend I’ve had for the last four years of my life. When do I meet your fellow cult members?”

“Oh pray that you don’t. I love them, but we are horrible people. We joined a cult!”

“I joined a debate team.”

Ben laughed aloud, forehead bending down to his knees as he laughed, “What? What sort of debate team were you in?”

“Listen.”

“Who looks at a cult and thinks ‘oh yes, reminds me of my debate team?’”

“We did things for the sole purpose of intimidation. At meets, Gwen walked in first in heels, a suit, and carrying two suitcases.”

“Okay, what?”

“The league supported Lincoln Douglas Debates, where you bring with you every piece of evidence you have or might ever need, people saw the suitcases and assumed she was doing one of those and were terrified.”

“You are so weird, and that’s coming from me,” said Ben, still laughing.

Eventually Mr. Hux collected them, dropping Ben off at home before the small family went out to a celebratory dinner. Entering his home, he saw Rey sitting in the dining room, papers everywhere around her, and it barely looked like she had moved from when he had left that morning.

“How was that graduation?” she asked, looking up.

“It was good,” said Ben. “Have you moved at all?”

“Barely. Do you know how much peach tea I’ve drunk today?”

“I’m going to guess ‘too much.’”

“Probably. I just have three more days of school and then I am free.”

“I believe in you.”

“At least one of us does.” She waved him off, muttering about him being useless and distracting. Granted, when it came to studying for finals, he was, so he didn’t feel too offended. He did feel his phone buzz, however, and so he turned his attention to that, curling into a chair in the living room.

Liva:      So schools are starting to let out, right? My sister is going to be coming to visit me. Save me.

Ben:       Is it really that bad?

Liva:      You’re funny.

               I haven’t seen my sister since I was dragged to live with my aunt

               LAST TIME I SAW HER I LITERALLY TRIED TO BITE HER

               I CAN’T DO THIS

               HELP

Ben:       I don’t know what I can do

Liva:      I thought you were the leader

Ben:       Snoke was the leader

Liva:      You know what I mean. Just, at least moral support I’m begging you.

Family really was hard for them. Ben wasn’t alone in his attempted harm of his own family members when so freshly home, and as much a comfort as that was, it was also objectively awful. That they couldn’t handle shows of sincere emotion from their family, it almost felt like proof that they were too damaged.

But Hux had been right, they were getting better. It didn’t feel like it, but looking back, even just four months he was already so much healthier as a person. Which was weird to think of, looking back. He didn’t feel that different, but he hadn’t had any of those rages he used to have, he had gone out by his own choosing, he really was better than he had been before.

Lily was scared for her sister to visit because she had tried to bite her before, not because of any other reason. Family was a difficult thing for them, but it was difficult for better reasons than before.

Ben:            Are we better with our families?

Deepinah: I like to think so. Don’t you? I’ve not tried to hurt any of them recently.

Ben:            Me neither, but none of us really talk about them beyond complaining

Deepniah: That’s because that’s easier to do. It’s hard to be honest about how we’re liking them more.

                 I was thinking about it, you know. How it’s hard to tell positive things. We weren’t really allowed to be happy with Snoke, you know?

Ben:             If we were unhappy, he had power

Deepinah: Exactly. And we still carry that in us, a bit. This idea that we can’t be happy.

Ben:            You should tell Kalonia that

Deepinah: And make us deal with more than what we already do? No thank you.

                   It isn’t a question of liking them, it’s a question of being able to say that.

                  I think we’ve got big enough problems without adding that one on

Ben:          Psychological triage?

Deepinah: Exactly that. Once we stop feeling the eyes, we’ll deal with being able to like people

There was a reason that even with Snoke, Ben had found ways and time to sit down and listen to whatever thoughts Deepika had. She was very good at articulating her thoughts, at making them come out right. Ben couldn’t manage that, not Before Snoke, not During Snoke, and so far not even After Snoke. Deepika was probably too smart to be only sixteen. He should probably ask and check, see if she hadn’t been lying about her age.

Hux:       I didn’t say thanks for coming, I don’t think. So thanks.

Ben:       It’s been 84 years since I’ve heard such gratitude

Hux:       Alright, cut the sass Rose Dawson

Ben:       Aren’t you at dinner with your dad? How are you doing with that? Food wise and all.

Hux:       Do you always check in on these things?

Ben:       Yes

               Are you okay though?

Hux:       For now, yes.

Ben:       Then stop texting at the table

Wednesday evening, Chewie and Maz came over again to celebrate Rey being done with exams. Rey looked exhausted but relieved, and yet she still destroyed her father in a game of kubb in the lawn while Maz laughed outrageously to see it.

“She’s a witch with magical powers I swear she is,” said Ben, sipping at the drink Maz had shoved into his hands, sitting next to his mother and watching Chewie and Han argue over the food preparation.

“I used to think the same thing about Luke,” said Leia. “It’s a mix of talent and just pretending, I think.”

“I’d believe it.”

“Han’s got the Millennium Falcon up and running. Took her out with Chewie on Saturday. We were going to invite Poe and Finn out on a picnic on her.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Ben. This is the first time she’s been in the water since you disappeared. And this is the first boating season where Rey will be with us.”

“So?”

“So are you going to come with us?”

“Mom, I like Rey, I really do, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to be in a confined space with her friends.”

“What if you invited one of your friends?”

“I’m not doing that to them, Deepika only went out by her own choice on Saturday, I don’t want to take them out to where there’s friendly boat people stopping by.”

“What about our neighbor?”

“Hux?”

“He is your friend, isn’t he?”

Ben shrugged, drinking the warm chocolatey drink and turning to look at the house next door.

And that night, after Maz and Chewie finally departed and Ben went back up to his room, he looked at the house next door and texted Hux, worried about what he’d say.

Ben:       So this isn’t calling in a return favor or anything, just so you know, but do you want to go down to the family boat for a boat picnic soon?               Bc Rey’s bringing her friends and I can’t handle being in an enclosed space with them.

Hux:       What a glowing review of your cousin’s choice of friends

               What does a boat picnic entail exactly?

Ben:       We go anchor and eat lunch. Everyone brings a book, we tend to hang out for hours.

Hux:       And you need moral support?

Ben:       Yes.

Hux:       Let me know when, I’ll see if I can come

Ben:       You zarkin frood, you are a beautiful human being

Hux:       I know, you did call me handsome to my face

Ben:       Shhhhhhhhh that never happened

Hux was probably laughing at him, Ben decided, and in his notebook he turned to one of his lists and quietly added a new entry.

The Hux List (AKA Things I’m Learning I Like)

Having someone never stare at me like a dolphin
Someone treating me like I’m just a weird teenager (which I am thanks)
Not having to censor my dumb jokes about What Happened
Eyes on me that don’t burn
Being seen, but not Looked At
Being able to call someone a Frood without them looking at me like I’m a weirdo (even though I really am)
Having a friend that isn’t completely messed up
Someone who just sort of goes with whatever nonsense I’m spouting
A friend who trusts me with secrets (even if they tell me by yelling)
Someone laughing at me but not Laughing At Me

A buzz from his phone surprised him, but he turned to it, eyebrows raising when he saw the message.

Hux:       Tell me this before I forget to ask; what is that game your family is always playing?

Ben:       It’s a Swedish game called kubb. You pronounce it koob. It’s fun.

               Is this you saying that for all the grief you gave me, YOU stare into MY yard?

Hux:       Don’t press your luck

              Ben, if I do go on this boat picnic with you, you have to let me check the food. I’m better with it, I think, but I’m not all the way better.

Ben:       If we unpack the food into the galley then you can check without us having to say anything.

Hux:       Unless Gwen comes to drag me out of the house that day, I’ll go.

Friends who are willing to do things for me

The next day drew the joy of being the only person of the cult that anyone knew anything about. Leia’s presence in the government, barely less now that she was working from home most as she could, and her new diligence about domestic terrorism meant that people knew who one of the children abducted by Snoke was. So the interest of journalists was focused heavily on Ben.

Their nosiness was an ebb and flow, based solely on Snoke’s trial and how that was going. So, the fact that one had been knocking at their door on and off for at least twenty minutes wasn’t new, much as Ben wished with all his heart that it was.

“Who do we unleash on them today?” asked Ben at breakfast. “The disappointed monk, the angry government lady, the angry pirate cowboy, the concentrated cherry bomb, or do we call in the furry giant?”

“Am I the cherry bomb?” asked Rey curiously, cutting her omelet with perhaps a little too much force.

“They have to give up eventually,” said Leia. “I’m not engaging them, I am nowhere near in the mood.”

“Isn’t this some sort of invasion of privacy?”

“Not really, they can wiggle their way around it. If we open the door it’s only going to get worse.”

“What’s Snoke been doing in court?” asked Ben. “They usually only show up when something’s come up in his case.”

“The sooner they throw him in jail the better,” muttered Han darkly. “His defense brought up in theory you all came willingly. I know the man’s only doing his job but god he’s easy to hate.”

“So they want to come bother us and see if that’s true?”

“I am willing to go lecture them,” offered Luke serenely. “French can be a very effective language to be angry in.”

And then, dimly, there was the sound of shouting. It didn’t sound like the general calls for attention by whoever was bothering them that day. For that alone they turned their heads, and Leia got up from the table and went to the door, Han close behind her. The others followed, but at a slower pace, Ben in the back.

And after a moment of silence there was a sharp rap at the door, very different from those invasive pounds. Leia took a breath, clearly ready to become (in Ben’s words) an angry government lady, and opened the door to show none but Mr. Hux there.

“That delightful young woman was disturbing the peace and I told her if she continued on I would be forced to call the police,” he said. Making eye contact with Ben he said in a voice probably gentler than Ben had ever heard it, even when the man had been speaking to his own son, “Don’t worry Ben, there are plenty of people in your corner.”

It was weird, but that didn’t mean Ben was ungrateful. Hux had told Ben the very first time he had met Mr. Hux that he was trying. “Things have been hard and he’s trying,” Hux had said. If this was trying, then there was hope yet for British fathers everywhere.

Ben:       So your dad came to my rescue today. Would he appreciate flowers?

Hux:       What?

Ben:       Some journalist and I use that word loosely was pounding on the door all morning trying to get someone to open the door. Happens a lot.

              Uncle Luke was about to unleash “Disappointed Monk Speaking Angry French” on them, then your dad threatened to send the police and               scared them off.

              Would he appreciate flowers?

Hux:       No, he’s allergic to pollen. He scared away a reporter?

Ben:       Yeah? You didn’t notice your dad go outside to yell at someone?

Hux:       Gwen dragged me out for a stroll which was closer to a jog. I’ve really only just got back.

Ben:       So you didn’t unleash him?

Hux:       I think my father actually has come to like you, weird as that is. That or he likes quiet mornings. One or the other.

The day of the boat picnic was that Friday in the late afternoon, when Leia had managed to clear her schedule. Hux, who wasn’t denied by the State and his therapist from use of a car, met them at the Yacht Club.

Ben, who had been waiting on the steps of the office with Chewie, jumped up at the sight of his friend carrying two books. “Hux!” he said, bounding over.

“Ben, who is the hairy giant? Because he’s always at your house and now he’s here?”

“That’s one of my godfathers, the French Canadian lumberjack fur trader one. He and my dad probably have some sort of life debt thing going on, they also run the Yacht Club together.”

“Even excluding the whole cult thing, your life is so strange.”

“Thanks for keeping me company, Uncle Chewie,” he called back to his godfather before dragging Hux down to the boat, already filled with family. Hux was generous and kind and neglected to mention how old the boat was to anyone beyond Ben, which was immediately going to be a mark in his favor for Ben’s parents.

“It’s…rather antique,” said Hux while they unpacked lunch, letting Hux check every date on every package.

“It’s old, you can say old. I say that all the time.”

“Yes, but I am a guest.”

“Fair enough. Yeah, my dad has owned this boat longer than he’s known my mom. My dad and my godfather, you’ve seen him, they travelled the Great Loop together in this thing.”

“And what is the Great Loop?” asked Hux, looking over a package of potato salad.

“It’s this giant circle of connected waterways, you go down the Mississippi, along the Gulf of Mexico and around Florida, up along the east coast, and then you travel all these canals and through the Great Lakes before you eventually get back to the Mississippi.”

“And your father did this?”

“Lots of people do,” defended Ben.

“I never doubted that.” It wasn’t quite as scathing as it could have been, and sounded something close to fond.

“Ben, stop unpacking food and help cast off,” said Rey, ducking her head into the galley. “We’re the shiphands you’ve got to help.”

Eventually the boat was out in the water, anchored and bobbing gently. Lunch was set out in the Salon, and every teenager took a plate and escaped, leaving Han, Leia, and Luke alone inside, Luke with binoculars to watch birds while Han and Leia settled against each other, reading and eating in equal part. Rey helped Poe and Finn not fall into the water as they climbed onto the bow, while Ben and Hux escaped to the aft.

It was a beautiful day, his friends were all in high enough moods that when he let them know he was signing off for a few hours for a family thing they just wished him fun. Things felt…okay. Hux wasn’t anxious over the food, Ben didn’t feel threatened or upset to be out and about, things were for that one moment totally okay.

Yes, things were still messed up, yes things wouldn’t be okay until Snoke was firmly in jail and Ben and his friends were allowed use of forks, knives, and automobiles again and maybe even long after that. But for now, Ben tilted his head back to turn his sight slightly blue from the sun streaming through his eyelids and felt like things were okay.

“You know, I’m going to miss you when I’m in California,” said Hux, staring across the water and very sincerely not looking at Ben. “I don’t think I’m going to meet anyone like you out there.”

“Well, Alexander Graham Bell did invent a little thing called the phone,” said Ben. “It’s not like the second you leave we’re going to lose all contact until next summer. We can still talk.”

“I know, but it’s not like I’m going to find someone who will make me read weird scifi novels and who thinks their grandfather is the best model of friendship. That’s really only you.”

“You’re probably not going to find someone only a few months home from being in a cult either.”

“Those are rather rare, only around seven, as I understand it.”

Ben laughed and lay down, stretching out on the aft cabin’s roof and pulling his book to read, Life, the Universe and Everything. He was reading of the adventures surrounding the planet of Krikkit, rather enjoying the hijinks of the book, when he felt Hux lay down next to him.

“So you brought two books, what are you reading now?” Ben asked, turning a page.

“The Bookman’s Tale, I bought it on a whim but it’s reasonably good. The other book is Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I realize I forgot to give it back to you before.”

“And you liked it?” then he turned, looking at Hux’s steady, elegant profile.

“I did.”

“I’ll convert you eventually.”

“Good luck with that.”

“I have around three months to convince you, I have faith in myself.” Chuckling, Hux turned back to his book.

It was an easy sunny warm June day, some Chopin piece was playing on the radio, Rey and her friends were sitting on the bow with their laughter drifting back over the boat, Han, Leia, and Luke in the Salon. It felt calm and warm and everything felt soft edged and it put a seed of bravery in Ben’s stomach. They were as alone as they were going to get, and Ben took advantage of that, his free hand reaching to rest on Hux’s.

They stayed like that a minute or two, neither of them actually reading anymore, as they both simply lay there and stared at their respective books. Eventually, Hux turned his hand over, and held Ben’s hand back. It made reading harder, but neither let go, holding hands on the sundrenched aft cabin, rocking and bobbing slightly as passing boats’ wakes nudged the Millennium Falcon gently.