She'd retired to her quarters to fall apart in peace, barely holding it together long enough to make it to her door and slip inside.

She leaned against the cool metal, feeling the click as it closed, and slid down, puling her knees to her chest, her eyes unblinking as fat tears streaked silently down her face.

"Rey?!"

She heard Ben's voice and looked up to find him standing feet from her, worry etched in his russet brown eyes.

"What's happened?" He demanded.

She'd kept her shield up all morning, snapped in place as she felt him drag against it, and only let it drop when she heard the door click closed.

And he'd came. Dropping everything, possibly in mid-sentence with some First Order higher-up, as soon as he flet her distress.

As he always had.

When she just stared at him in silence, she felt him searching her memories.

The medical Bay, the tests, the Doctor, sitting on the other side of her metal desk, folding her hands together before she gave Rey the results.

"I'm pregnant." She told him before her memories could.

He retracted from her mind instantly, his heart stuttering to a stop.

His gaze fell as he tried to do the math in his head. They had been physically intimate a handful of times when they were both able to slip away unnoticed. Their coupling was more frequent through the Force.

Someone else. His insecurtities screamed at him. She's found someone here. Someone better. The pilot, Dameron. Or FN-2187.

"No." Rey whispered, fresh tears sliding down her face as he realized she'd heard every word.

She sent memories down the Bond, filling his head with flashes of their time together. His lips on her neck, her collarbone, her breasts. His ungloved hands caressing her thighs with a featherlight touch as they cradled him between them. The tears that rimmed his eyes the last time she'd had to leave him. The nights they'd connected with The Force since then, and the deep, bone ache that his absence brought her. The vertigo if she stood up too quickly. Dameron bringing her a stack of pancakes dripping with syrup in the mess hall, the smell making her stomach churn. A waste basket she wretched bile into, the only thing her empty stomach had to give.

'Stomach bug.' She'd told him. He'd sensed it, through the Bond, and showed up just in time to pull her hair back from her face as she vomited again and again. He'd tucked her into her bed, making her promise to go to medical bay if it wasn't gone in a fortnight.

And, this morning, the doctor giving her the news as if it wasn't a cataclysmic, life altering event. "Pregnant." She'd said, happily. "I'd say five weeks based on your last bleeding."

"There's no one else." Rey said, bringing him back to the present.

If there's no one else, that means...His already pasty face turned grey as the blood drained from it.

"It's yours." She finished for him, out loud.

He stumbled back, panting as everything he was feeling tumbled into her through the Bond.

Worry. Excitement. Joy. Terror.

Sheer, debilitating terror. But, not for himself. For her. For the child they now knew she carried.

Wonder. Love. Self-doubt.

Father.

The last moments he'd shared with his own father flashed in his mind and he covered his mouth with the back of his gloved hand, the memory making him double over with guilt so monumental it burned, seared his very soul.

Rey flinched as the pain hit her through the Bond.

She wanted to go to him, but she was rooted to the floor, her limbs not moving as she willed them.

Monster. Murderer. You'll destroy them, too, and you'll be alone again. The darkness swirled around him as his insecurities filled his mind.

Rey closed her eyes and projected her light toward him.

They both saw flashes of a future. Their future.

Ben leaning down to press a tender kiss on her swollen belly. Rey, frowning at her reflection, as he came behind her, wrapping his strong arms around her middle and whispering "You're so beautiful" in her ear. Rey, skin yellowed and hair plastered to her sweaty forehead, gripping Ben's ungloved hand as she labored. His face, his eyes wild with worry, did not match the soothing words of encouragement he muttered to her. The tears that freely fell down his face, sobs erupting from his chest as the doctor handed him a bloody newborn, shrieking in healthy protest at the world it had just been brought into.

They gasped in unison, their eyes meeting as a single tear rolled down to Ben's chin and fell.

He crossed the room in two strides and hoisted Rey up, into his arms, burying his face into her hair, clutching her to him desperately.

"I want it." He choked. "I want it all."

And Force help her, she wanted it too.

She laid her head in his broad shoulder, her bottom lip quivering, her tears soaking the black fabric of his tunic. "What are we gonna do?" She asked.

He pulled away to look at her. "Come live with me." He suggested.

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"I'll tell them," He searched for the right words. "I'll tell them anything." He said with a sigh. She stared at him wearily as he rambled on, "The Ship has a better medical staff, and better food, and I have enough credits to get you anything you'll ever need and the ship has-"

"Ten thousand Storm Troopers." She pointed out, cutting him off.

His face fell.

He reached up, and bit the tip of the leather glove that covered his middle finger, and dragged his hand out, freeing it to touch her face. He reached up with his other hand to grab the glove.

"Rey, please." He begged, stroking her face with his thumb. "Let me be here for this." His throat bobbed at he swallowed. "Really be there."

Her conviction melted.

She gritted her teeth together. "Fine!" She said through them.

He signed in relief and smiled, moving to kiss her.

"But!" She snapped, holding a finger up to stop him. "You have to tell your mother." And slipped out of his embrace.

He watched her blankly as she opened her chamber door and stepped outside, closing it soundly behind her, leaving him in her room, holding his glove, his shoulders hunched, and his arms in the same position she left them.

"Wait-what?!" He called in panic.