She stops on the side of the road near the sign marking the town. Falmore, New York. Population 3497. She likes the name, speaks to her love of all things Irish, and especially the music. It seems like as good a place as any to stop for the time being. She's been on the road for the past few years, stopping in various towns, picking up odd jobs, and then packing up and going on her way. She likes it that way. Lots to see, lots to experience, no ties to anyone.

It's not that she's antisocial, not really. Rey likes people well enough.

But people disappoint.

People leave you.

They abandon you in the parking lot of Walmarts when you're only five and can't fend for yourself. We'll be back, sweetheart.

But then they aren't. They never are. And so she leaves before others can leave her.

She finds a café on Main Street and orders up the biggest sandwich she can find on the menu. Her eyes almost bug out of her head when the waiter drops it off at her table.

"I told you to order the half size," he says.

Rey laughs. He doesn't know her, clearly. "I'm celebrating."

"Celebrating what? Needing another pant size?"

"That's rude, Finn," she says with a frown.

He looks panicked, his dark eyes almost comically wide, as he glances back toward the tiny woman currently seating an older couple on the other side of the diner.

"I can call you Finn, right?" she continues on with and takes a bite of the sandwich. Her eyes almost roll back in her head. It's amazing. Just the right amount of seasoning on the chicken, enough ham to be present but not overwhelm, mayo and mustard and some sort of "special sauce" that she'll eventually finagle out of someone. And pickles. Loads of pickles. Because one can never have too many pickles on a sandwich.

"Are you ok?" he answers.

"Yeah, yeah." She waves him away as she takes another bite of near-orgasmic bliss.

Finn is back in a few minutes to refill her water glass. She's already nearly halfway done with the sandwich. You learn to eat fast when that food can be taken away at any moment. "You're…"

"I was joking," she interrupts him with.

"Joking…"

"About your being rude. You're a good waiter."

He smiles than and she likes that. Making people happy. She hasn't made a lot of people happy in her life, so she cherishes every one of those moments.

"Thanks," he says.

He seems to finally take notice of the instrument case she has half-tucked under the seat. She won't leave it in the car. Instruments made of wood don't fare well in the chilly weather of Upstate New York.

Finn touches the hard case with his toe. "What's that?"

"It's my bodhran," she says and then realizes just what she said. "Oh…right, sorry. It's a type of Irish drum…"

"I know what it is," he says and he almost sounds breathless. "I play box."

She blinks up at him. Box is what other Irish musicians call a button accordions. She hasn't heard the term in some time. She certainly doesn't expect to hear it here, in some tiny town in the middle of nowhere New York. But she supposes it was named after an Irish town, so why not?

"Well, aren't we just two peas in a pod," she mutters. "The most hated instruments in the music."

He laughs. "You forgot banjo."

"I don't play that."

He shrugs. "Too bad. We don't have one of those."

"We?"

"There's a session here." And now his voice sounds excited. "Every Friday night. Down at Murphy's Pub."

"Is it open to anyone?" She's been to her fair share of sessions and no two are alike. Some are open to any musician, beginner to advanced. Some are exclusive. Some are even paid, either with food and drink or actual money. She's never been to one of the latter and has always wondered what that must be like. She plays the music because she loves it, but free food or a bit of money would sure be nice.

For a moment Finn's eyebrows draw low. "I don't know. No one new has come to it since I moved here."

"No? How long ago was that?"

"Few years now. I found out my Nana lived here and so…here I am! You should come. On Friday, that is."

Her hand reaches out to touch the top of her bodhran case. "I'd like that. Maybe I'll just come and watch?"

Finn shrugs. "Whatever works for you. The leader, well, whatever you want to call him. He's Ben, plays fiddle…"

"Because of course he does," Rey says with some amusement. The leaders are always fiddlers.

Finn laughs. "Yeah…I guess. It's just, he's kind of an asshole."

"Because of course he is."

"I don't think he means to be. He just has issues, you know. But it's just…good to know, right?'

"Right."

"Finn!" comes the voice from across the room and Rey looks over to see the tiny woman shouting at him.

"Oops, Maz is calling. I better get back to work! I'll see you Friday…maybe?"

"Yeah, maybe."

And so this is how Rey finds herself, Friday evening, sitting at the only bar in town. She finds a high table that's not too close to where the session musicians are setting up, but not too far either. She wants to see their dynamic before she even approaches about the possibility of playing. Her drum is tucked securely at her feet, out of the way of any who might pass her table, but also hidden from the session musicians' view.

She's long since learned to be hesitant.

If she played fiddle or flute, she'd be welcome at any session in the world. Bodhran though? Well, there's not many instruments that are worse in some people's eyes. Spoons, perhaps, and she thinks of the song that references murdering a spoons player in gruesome detail.

So she hides and watches.

There are a couple folks setting up. A red-haired flute player who's carefully setting his instrument on the table, adding a bit of cork grease to the joints before putting it together. She's delighted at the first notes that come out of the instrument, sweet and mellow. She thinks she'll enjoy listening to him.

There are a couple fiddle players milling about, tuning up their instruments and taking seats. She notices they all avoid the seat that sits at the head of the table, the one that looks out on the rest of the small pub.

Then Finn shows up and she waves at him. "You made it!" he shouts as he rushes over to her table. "Did you bring your…" He's looking around the table with a furrow between his brows.

"Yeah," she says quickly. "It's here. But you know…"

"Right. Ben should be here soon."

"I take it that's his seat?"

Finn lets out a little huff of laughter. "Yeah. And don't anyone dare take it or they'll experience his wrath."

She laughs along with him, but she notes a weird bit of tension in his laugh, as if he's half-joking, but also really means it. "Go play." She waves him off to the table. "I'm just going to watch for awhile."

Finn nods and finds his own seat at the session table.

The musicians all have a good camaraderie, it seems. They're people who are used to playing together. It's an important part of sessions, as important as the music, really. Craic, they call it. A proper session has good craic as much as it has good reels and jigs. She's glad to see that this session seems to have the former and, she hopes, a good bit of the latter. What she can hear from the smattering of tune bits as the musicians warm up has her looking forward to it.

"Ben!" she hears one of the fiddlers call out. "We were starting to think you wouldn't show."

"And why the fuck would you ever think that?" comes a voice from somewhere behind Rey. That voice. It sends a slight shiver up her spine. She shifts on her seat and looks back over her shoulder to finally see this mysterious session leader who is apparently enough of an asshole that Finn felt he had to warn her about him.

He emerges out of the darkness behind her and she almost has to gasp. He's tall. Huge, really. With long dark hair and eyes that are far too serious. His generous mouth is set in a line as he lets out a huff of annoyance. He moves past Rey, glancing at her for just a moment before continuing on. She feels a bit of the air around her sucked out at that gaze.

Fuck.

She watches as he tosses his case on the table to remove his fiddle. His hands are as massive as the rest of him and she wonders how he even manages to play the fiddle, but the first notes that come out of the instrument clearly show someone who has a command of it. He's the leader, after all, and that must mean something.

When he sits, the whole session snaps to. They're ready to play and Rey takes a sip of her beer, intending to enjoy the music and relax for a little while.

She's on only her second beer, feeling pretty mellow as she watches the session long into their second hour of playing, when Finn takes a break to come over to her.

"Hey, you wanna come play?" He sits at the high table with her.

"Am I allowed to?"

Finn glances over where their fearless leader is still playing, fingers flying over the fiddle. His style is aggressive, each note punctuated with a crunching of the bow that gives it all a drive and rhythm of its own. Irish traditional music is really one of those strangely fascinating types of music to most people. It's fairly common to see guitars at sessions, but they're not needed. The music, when properly played, is its own rhythm.

And even though she plays a rhythm instrument, she recognizes that. Her instrument is inherently not needed. But it adds something to the texture when played right. Ben might play a little too fast, a little too aggressively, but he has the rhythmic part of it down. But she can hear the sound of her drum underneath it and she knows it would complement him well.

Ben finishes with a flourish and she watches as he goes to pick up his pint glass, which has been empty for quite some time. He grimaces and then stands, stretching and fuck if the buttons on his shirt don't look like they're going to pop right off. He clearly has other hobbies besides just playing fiddle, if the muscles on his chest are anything to go by.

"Come on, let's go talk to Ben."

She finds herself dragged off her stool to follow Finn. He grabs at her hand to tug her over and she pulls back. "Don't," she starts to say and Finn just offers her an apologetic look as he steps up to the bar. He's enthusiastic and his playing is as well. He smiles the entire time, eyes open and wide as he watches the other musicians for cues.

"Hey, Ben," Finn starts to say and the man in question's eyes focus first on Finn and then on Rey, who's still standing slightly behind him.

"This is Rey," Finn says, pulling her forward.

She shrugs away from him again. It's natural, this need to not be touched.

"Your girlfriend doesn't seem to like you much," Ben says, voice full of dark amusement.

"I'm not his girlfriend."

Ben just offers a little grunt and returns to staring at the bartender, as if that will make his pint materialize faster.

"She plays bodhran," Finn says.

"No." Ben doesn't even look up as he speaks.

Rey's eyebrows shoot up. "Pardon me?"

"We have no need of any bodhran player." He puts air quotes around the word bodhran. Air quotes.

"I do actually play."

"I'm sure you do."

"No, I mean, I know how to play. I'm not some…"

"Look," Ben says and now he's looking at her, sizing her up. She feels raked over the coals, as if he's burning through her flesh and getting right to the heart of her. "We've had plenty of your kind here."

"My kind?" Her voice turns loud and strident and out of the corner of her eyes, she can see some of the patrons at the bar turn to look at them. A beer and a show, as it were.

"Yes. You see, 'bodhran' players are a dime a dozen. Everyone who's ever been to a 'Celtic festival' sees some cheap piece of crap drum for sale and thinks they're the next great Irish musician. And then they come here and they bang on their drum and we're expected to sit and take it. Well, no. No thank you. We don't need it."

Rey just stares. What else is she supposed to do?

"Wow, Solo, that was harsh." Finn is looking between them.

"Accurate," he shoots back with.

"You don't even know if she can play."

He gives her this look. If she were someone who had less backbone or someone who even cared what he thought of her, she'd probably wither beneath that gaze.

"I know." And then he's gone, grabbing his pint and stalking back to his seat with this heavy gait that Rey finds strangely attractive despite herself.

"Well, fuck," she mutters.

"I'm so sorry." Finn looks near tears as he reaches out a hand to touch her shoulder. She barely notices, her eyes still narrowed on where Ben Solo has picked up his fiddle and started a tune. No one is playing with him, but that scarcely seems to matter. His eyes are shut and he's involved in the intricacies of a tune she recognizes as Julia Delaney's. It's too damned fast but she knows what he's doing, showing off at such a speed that most bodhran players would struggle to keep up. "You can come over to my place sometime and we can play some tunes," Finn is saying and she finally tears her gaze away from Ben to look back at him.

"Did you think I was giving up?"

Finn blinks once, twice. "What?"

"You think I'm caving to that?" She points one finger at where he's still showing off. "Think again." And she takes another sip of her beer, leaning forward on the table and smirking.

When Ben finishes his solo tune set, he turns to glance at her. There's a smirk on his face for just one moment, but it vanishes quickly enough when she holds up her pint in a sarcastic salute, and takes a big sip.

Oh no, Rey Jakson is not cowed. Not by the likes of him.

Author's notes:

Normally I wouldn't write any author notes, much less this many, but well, there's lots to say here!

A bodhran (usually pronounced here in the States as "bow-ron") is an Irish frame drum.

Falmore, NY does not exist. The name of the town was so picked because I once spent time in a little town near Dungloe, Ireland that was right on the coast. It's pretty much my favorite place in Ireland besides the Poulawack Cairn in Co. Clare. I set it in NY for no good reason except that I'm from New York state.

The tunes referenced in this story are all real Irish traditional tunes (including the one that the title comes from!). I've added them, along with some other favorites I could see Ben and Rey enjoying, to a playlist here: playlist/5TyTIFu6sexfbZ9rKZHYsP

The first tracks contain the tunes that I mention in the fic. The latter are just some tracks off some of the albums I really love and also include tunes for flute (Hux) and accordion (Finn). I'm happy to offer up a list of my favorite albums, so always feel free to ask! My e-mail address is listed in my profile. And you can also find me on Tumblr as spottytonguedog.

And yes, I do play the music. Like Rey, I play bodhran (I also play whistle). My husband is the fiddle (and banjo and guitar and mandolin) player (but he's really NOT the dick that our friend Ben is…though we've both experienced our fair share of really awful bodhran "players" stopping into our local Irish session, including one amazing guy we termed "70s hair bodhran guy" who showed up with not one, but TWO bodhrans and played the second one with a foot pedal from a drum set…it was HORRIFIC…I mean, this was like 13-14 years ago and I still shudder when I think of him). The session in a couple of the moodboard images are from pictures at our local session.

I'd be remiss without offering up the Spoons Murder song mentioned in chapter 1 (and again later!). Because it's really freaking hilarious and imaginative and fun: watch?v=_11JDYcZX44