It had been years.
Only a couple of them, actually. But he remembered his mother had told him once that when you missed someone, every second was an eternity.
He had been very young when she told him that, and he realized now that she must have been talking about Han, and all the times he would leave the two of them behind.
Leia's duties after the fall of the empire were numerous. But they usually kept her in one place for a while.
Han, on the other hand, kept to his past career, and so whenever he and Leia fought, which was often, he could simply take off for wherever. Sometimes he took Ben with him.
Other times he didn't, and he stayed with his mother, who he could tell was angry, but would never say she wished Han would come back or even send a communication to ask him to return to them. The closest she ever came was when she told Ben that little bit, about missing someone being an eternity.
Right now, standing across from the enemy that he was sworn to kill, he did not know why the thought came to him. He certainly had seen enough of her these past few years.
Snoke may have claimed to have put the Force connection there, but it continued well after Ben had killed him. Bits here and there, through the last two years. He saw her being reunited with her friends, her struggle to help rebuild the Resistance; he even saw when she left the rest of them to go train with a new teacher. It was from watching her in her grief, too, that he had learned of his mother's death.
And she had seen him as well. His new duties as Supreme Leader were copious, and his pursuit of what remained of the Resistance was relentless and left him little time for anything else. But of course, like her, he trained.
They both trained.
The truth was, it didn't matter how many dreadnoughts the Resistance was able to take out, or how many of their kind the First Order could kill. What happened to everyone else was immaterial.
All this was just leading up to the two of them. When one of them died, it would all be over. He knew that, and he knew that she knew that, too. The winning side would be chosen when one of them emerged victorious.
And that was why they trained so furiously. And that was why they were standing across from each other now.
He had found her, on this planet that was more water than land.
They stood now on a ship that was tossing in the stormy waves, but that was nothing to the storm inside of him now. She had been running from him for a while. She would have run from him now, for she did not feel that she was ready yet to fight him, but she had no choice.
And for once, she spoke first.
"I didn't want it to be this way, Ben."
The rain drenched them both, and somewhere on the waves behind them there was a crack of lightning.
"I'm sure you didn't."
Her expression hardened at his words. She wasn't one to give way to her enemies, and her words had surprised him. But he wasn't in the mood for forgiveness. After all, she was the one who had slammed the door in his face.
"It's not too late. It's never too late." Her words were a whisper now, inaudible in the storm, but he heard them just the same.
"It is for you."
He ran forward, and they collided in an explosion of light, red and blue. Her training had served her well. She was no longer the hesitant girl he had met in the forest, struggling to wield a light saber for the first time. She was a full-fledged warrior. It excited him, as it annoyed him. It had been ages since he had had a real opponent.
She was better now, but he was still bigger and angrier. She blocked his strokes, gasping as she did so, but in no time at all he had her cornered against the rail. The metal must have been digging into her back, and she spared a worried glance towards the dark, unforgiving waves below. Her fate, she knew, if not the red light saber before her. It must have struck something inside of her, and with a yell she pushed off his light saber and landed a blow on his arm.
He hissed, and was unable to stop himself from clutching it for a moment before he came towards her once more.
But he was never able to reach her. At that moment, a lurch came that almost tipped the entire massive ship over. His first thought was that the storms were bigger on this planet than any he had seen, but he saw that it had nothing to do with the storm but another ship in the distance, guns loaded, neither Resistance nor First Order.
They were caught in enemy crossfire that had nothing to do with either side.
He looked back at her, cursing his luck, and trying to decide what to do, when another lurch blasted part of the ship away and him with it.
He blacked out, probably for a few seconds, for when he woke up he was hanging off the size of the massive ship.
The only thing saving him from the 30-story drop below was her hand, holding his.
She was in pain. He was heavy, he knew, and she was using both hands, her teeth gritting in pain. He wondered how she was holding them both up, and he saw her foot, stuck in some of the railing, twisted the wrong way.
She saw him looking, and he had no idea what expression was on his face, but it must have been something like pity, for despite everything she looked ashamed. But they didn't have much time for anything else. The metal cage that had broken her foot, but that was keeping them from falling to their deaths, had given way.
He thought he heard a cry as they both fell down, down. But he could not be sure. He was using all his strength with the force then, trying with all his might to bring a wave up to meet them and carry them away more gently than a fall might.
…
He woke up on some kind of beach. It was morning and gray outside. In the distance, on the horizon, ships were still firing at each other. He ran his hands over his bones and pressed down, checking to make sure nothing was broken. When nothing appeared to be, he rose, unsteady on his feet. His throat was on fire, and he could hear something ringing in his head that may have been his heartbeat. There was a tear in his long black cape, and his long hair was still stuck to his neck where it was wet. He looked around, wiping some sand off his face, but he didn't see any other signs of life.
But he knew she wasn't dead. He would have felt it if she were. She was alive and close by.
He found her less than a mile from the shoreline, underneath the shade of a lone tree, her foot twisted at an odd angle.
He was impressed she had made it as far as she did. There was no way she could have walked on that foot, so she must have crawled. Or hopped. The thought almost made some dead part of him smile.
As it was, the movement had not been good for her. She was pale, and sweating. From where he stood looking down at her it was plain she had a fever, hair stuck to her forehead and she shook as if with cold.
She didn't even have the energy to glare at him, as she always did.
She was helpless. She was afraid. She was completely, and utterly, at his mercy.
And he had the chance to end it all now.
She gave him an angry look, but did not try to fight, as he made his way down to her, and crouched down beside her until they were at eye level.
She watched him with confusion, and slight disbelief, as he tore his cape from his shoulders, and draped it over her.
"Put your arms around me," he said, not kindly.
She did, and he lifted her up, cocooned in his cape, and carried her away like he had the very first time that they met.
In this way they made their way away from the shore area into who knew where. As they started, he went too quickly once over a stream, and she jostled, her foot hitting against him. She could not hold back a cry of pain before biting her lip and burying her head against his chest.
A completely unexpected shock of tenderness coursed through him. He could not repel it, he could not fight it, but eventually he was able to swallow it down like bitter medicine and keep going.
After this, she blacked out.
…
For most of the journey she was asleep, and because of her fever she fluctuated in and out of consciousness.
He wished for something to give her, but he had nothing. This was indeed a barren planet. There was plenty of water, which he made her drink, even though she often shook her head in her feverish state, denying it. He was careful as they made their way. Whatever planet this was appeared to be in the middle of some domestic war, as they had seen from the ships.
"Where are we?" were the first words she spoke coherently.
"We have not yet left Ta'aran." Hearing him say the exotic name of this watery planet was surprising to her, as if deep down she did not think his mouth would be able to make the sounds. In her mind he was a man of lines, squares and equations. But even this was just a second consideration to the more interesting word he had said: "yet." What were his plans for her now? For them? He had carried her to this small shelter of trees where they now rested for the night. He had shared some water with her that he had found, and she was sure he would have given her any food had he had any. This she could understand. If you were going to take someone prisoner, keeping them alive made perfect sense. But there didn't seem to be any logic in keeping her a prisoner. On the ship, they had been fighting to the death. And he had found her injured and completely vulnerable. In his wildest dreams he couldn't have imagined a more perfect scenario to end her. All she could figure now was that he wanted her to be in better shape for when he killed her, which might very well be in front of the entire First Order. Hell, probably the entire galaxy. She was in for an execution.
…
He noticed as they made their way through the countryside that she was in a bad mood today. He didn't need the force to tell him that, although he could sense it there, too. It was in her eyes, which were ever so expressive. It was in the way that today, as he held her, she was as rigid as a pole, and tried to make it so that they were touching in as little places as possible.
As unpleasant as that was, it became the least of his worries when it became clear that she was getting worse.
Nights were long on this planet, and he dreaded the slower hours they spent making their way in the dark. But when the sun finally set, even he had to pause to watch the sky for a few moments as the most beautiful red lit up the entire horizon, meeting the dark blue where a few stars were beginning to show.
He glanced down, to see what she thought of the view, when he saw that her eyes were glazed over, sweat making her hair stick to her forehead. How long had she been like this?
"Rey," He whispered, saying her name for the first time since the elevator. He flushed; he hated how weak and powerless he sounded when he said her name, but she didn't even stir. He gently pressed three fingers to her forehead. She was burning up, and didn't even flinch from his touch. That was how he knew something was wrong.
…
He stayed by her side that entire first night, periodically feeling her forehead, trying to give her water, which she would not take.
She was even worse in the morning, but he had nothing to give her, nothing to help her at all, and he knew next to nothing about illness, so he decided the best thing to do was for them to move on.
Their progress was slow, and they must have been traveling north, for the air seemed to grow colder as they went along. There came a moment later on when they had had no food for two days, and she had not opened her eyes for as long a time, and he had wondered if this godforsaken place was where the two of them, the most powerful people in the galaxy now, would die.
Then, through the trees, he saw a house. A cabin, more likely. He could have almost jumped for joy, something he had never done.
The door was locked, of course, but he had always been impatient and was doubly so now, so he broke the door open with his boot, still holding Rey, and strode in, his head almost hitting the top of the doorway.
It was cold inside. Almost as cold inside as it was out. The place would need to be heated. It was small, too. There was only bedroom and a bed that took up most of it, which he immediately deposited Rey into. He checked quickly to make sure she was still breathing before he took a look around the place. He wouldn't tell her, but if there had been anyone inside, he would have had to kill them.
Fortunately for them, the place looked long abandoned. Unfortunately for them, it looked like it had been abandoned for quite a while.
The lights didn't work, although there was a backup generator in a corner of a shed outside that he might be able to use if he could get it working. No water from the pipes, either. Plenty of non-perishable food, though, and fireplaces they could use in the living room and the bedroom. He found a box of matchsticks lying around and used some books and video discs of some kind to burn for the night. He did the same for the fireplace in her room, and she was sleeping so deeply she didn't even wake in the process. Hopefully he could find some wood lying around somewhere still. He would hate to have to keep burning things in the house.
He didn't find another bedroom.
It seemed there would be a lot of work to do, which he decided would be better to just start on tomorrow. After checking on her one more time, he plopped down on the sofa in the living space and fell asleep in front of the crackling fire. He slept deeply, and didn't once dream.
…
He woke up early the next morning, and went to check on her. She was doing even worse. He gently put the back of his hand against her forehead. Oddly enough, she seemed cold now, but she was sweating like she had a fever.
Hurrying, he went to look and see if there was anything he could give her. He pulled things out of every cabinet in the house, giving every item a quick glance before throwing it over his shoulder once he saw it was not the item he needed. It was completely ridiculous that this house, which was in the middle of the mountains of nowhere, had no type of first aid or medicine at all. The only thing he found was some powdery soup mix, which he made over the fire. He tried to spoon-feed it to her, but whenever he tried she would turn groan and turn her head. Although she had not eaten in days, she was clearly completely uninterested in the food. At one point she absentmindedly tossed the spoon out of his hand, clearly not lucid.
He decided he would just try again tonight.
There were so many things he had planned to do today, but in the end he was afraid to leave her side. A little while after the soup-fiasco he brought a chair into her room so he could keep an eye on her and see how she did. For the first time in his life, he felt completely useless. Every so often he would heat a compress he found and hold it against her forehead, or drip some water into her mouth, but other than that he just watched her, and slept when he was too exhausted to do that.
In the evening he tried again to feed her but once again she refused to eat. Some point hours later, when things were starting to look pretty hopeless, he went and knelt beside the bed, taking her hand.
He fell asleep like that, one hand holding hers, and his face buried in his arm, leaning beside her on the bed.
She was quiet when he woke the next morning, and he was starting to panic before he heard her breathing softly.
He made a firm resolution that she was going to take some food if he had to force her to eat it, but as it turns out, there was no need. When he tried to spoon some small sips into her mouth, she took it painfully but enthusiastically. Of course, this was only a small victory, but he still found it difficult not to get hopeful when some color came back into her cheeks afterwards.
He couldn't help but take off the wrappings he had applied days earlier and see how her foot looked. What he saw was disheartening. The infection that had resulted from her injury on the boat didn't look much better, and it was clear she wouldn't be walking or putting any weight on it any time soon. After he cleaned the wound with some alcohol from their cabinets he felt safe enough to take a small nap while she slept softly.
…
When he woke up the sun was coming in through the windows, and he realized he must have slept through the rest of the day and night. For a brief moment his heart dropped, thinking about what could have happened all the time he was asleep, but he relaxed when he sensed she was alive.
And then tensed again when he realized that she was awake.
She was sitting up in bed, waiting for him, and amazingly looking less tense than usual. When he came into her room he casually crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.
"You're awake." He said, instantly regretting how unintentionally harsh he sounded. "How are you feeling?" He said, more softly this time.
"Better." She said, curtly. "How long have I been out?"
"A few days regular time, I'd say. Four or five, maybe."
She made a move to get out of bed, and he took a quick step forward. "I wouldn't try to move yet. I took a look at your foot yesterday. You don't need to be putting any weight on that any time soon."
She watched him with narrowed eyes as she slowly tried eased back under the covers. He knew she wasn't one to take orders so submissively, but he hoped that she would be smart and take care of herself for a while, at least.
"So…where are we?"
"I…don't know. Somewhere in the mountains. Looks like it might be someone's second home, but it's clearly been a while since they've been here. We don't have any electricity yet, and I didn't find any type of communication device. If you're feeling well enough in here, I was going to try to see if I could that generator in the shed to work. If I can, then we could get the lights and appliances to work, at least. The water still won't run, though."
"Well maybe I could take a look at the pipes while you're working on that. I'm not bad at fixing machinery, you know." But he was already shaking his head as she spoke. "You need to rest. Sleep, and stay in bed. If you want to look around, or you need to use the bathroom, call for me and I'll get you there. Otherwise, the best thing you can do now is rest. And I'll work on the generator."
So what's that they did for the next few days.
He spent long hours sprawled on the dirty floor of the cold shed where there was no fire, taking things apart and trying to put them together, with no luck. Occasionally he would get so angry he would start to yell and throw things, not as bad as he would have even months ago. Something about having her near calmed him, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that.
One night, he came in after a long unproductive day, to find her in the kitchen, sprawled out on the floor looking at the pipes underneath one of the sinks.
He said nothing; His facial expression says enough. Of course, she looked just as angry.
Indignant, she said, "I'm not putting any weight on it. I crawled here, for your information. I'm not going to spend any more time in that bed. I've spent quite enough time lying down not doing anything productive." And with that she went back to twisting the pipe she was working on.
He somewhat violently shrugged his shoulders, but then turned away, so she couldn't see the small-half smile that he was unable to suppress.
…
It was a little awkward as it became increasingly obvious that this place belonged to a husband and wife. There were clothes for a man and woman of about their size (although the woman was just a little bigger than Rey and the man a little smaller than Ben). There were pictures, books and notes. Love letters the two had written to each other.
Rey had even found some home videos, which she took to watching on the projector in the living area. When Ben was working on the generator, he would walk past her watching them on his way to the kitchen for a drink, or to use the bathroom.
The videos weren't great quality, mostly the completely mundane videos of a man and woman who were always smiling and almost certainly disgustingly in love.
But Rey clearly loved to watch the two of them. When she wasn't watching the videos, and he was in her presence, she was tense. Confused.
But when she was watching the owners of the house snorkeling at the beach or painting their new home, she was completely engrossed. It was like he wasn't alive at all. It almost annoyed him, when he would walk by the living area and she wouldn't seem to notice at all, but he realized she was searching for something. Some semblance of happiness, beauty and love that existed in a world without extremes. He found the couple repulsive, but he loved to watch her facial expressions once he was outside, through the window.
…
The next morning he decided to go have a look farther out around the area.
She was feeling better now; no longer in any danger, and possibly on her way to walking in the next few weeks. They should be thinking now about moving o, and trying to find a way off this planet.
As he trudged through the snow in some snow-sturdy shoes that belonged to the man who had clearly lived in this home with his wife, he thought about what his next move would be. In truth, this was half the reason why he found it necessary to take this walk. She still thought he planned on killing her, probably. A prisoner, at least. The truth? He didn't know what he planned on doing, and he needed to figure that out. He did know for sure that he had no intention of killing her. And he didn't know why she would think he could. Maybe because of their fight, but really, he saved her life from Snoke, at the moment when he had the most to lose, so how could she think he would take her life now?
A life as a prisoner, that was more realistic.
At least, that had been the original plan. But he couldn't think about that back at the house. Not while she was there. Not while she was in the next room, sleeping peacefully. Not while he walked by her every day and saw her eyes brighten and rejoice with two strangers who had found happiness together. Not while he could hear her working, walking around tidying things, and sometimes singing. She was in his core, in his mind, in his soul. There was something in his eyes, in his throat; he was choking on something and he knew it had to be her. Every moment he spent in that house he was drowning, and not in a way that made him unhappy.
He needed this walk. To clear his mind. To formulate a plan, what must be done. And that he would carry with him, remember it, even when he was around her and his brain became foggy once more.
But she was with him even now. Somehow, she was here. Her scent on his clothes, although she had never touched them. Her smile in his head, although she had never given him one.
The stars were out when he made his way back home, just when it started snowing again. His stupid heart lifted when he saw that she had lit the candles and put one in every window of the house so he would find the place if the weather was bad.
It was dark when he went inside. And late. She was already asleep. When he opened the icebox he saw that she had fixed him a plate of something to eat, and he also noticed from a sink that she had left on to slowly drip, that she had somehow got the water to work.
…
He still tried to get the generator to work. And still, he had no luck.
Lying on the cold floor under the generator, his sleeves rolled up, he remembered a time when he was still boy and his father had taken him with him on the Falcon on one of his trips to a planet even more cold and deserted than this place. His mother disapproved, of course. She never let him go with Han when he was very young. He would wait for days, sometimes months, jumping out of bed bright and early nearly every morning, hoping that his father and Chewie had returned in the middle of the night. When he grew older and his mother found it more difficult to argue with both of them, Han would let him tag along when the mood for extra company would strike him. And they had once traveled to a planet much like this one. The Falcon had been having problems, of course, and they had had to repair a spare generator on the ship to stay warm.
He had helped his father repair it successfully then, and everything was exactly where it should be; all the parts complete.
He stood and angrily wiped some oil onto his jeans. After standing there for a minute, he kicked a tool lying on the ground next to him. In the dark corner of the shed he could hear something shatter. He couldn't fix anything anymore. Not his life, and certainly not this stupid piece of machinery. And remembering his father brought up old bitterness. Han had never really wanted him to come along on those long trips on the Falcon, he had just agreed because Ben had begged him. He really preferred for it to be just him and Chewie. It probably reminded him of the good old days, when he wasn't married to a princess and could break the laws whenever he wanted. The happy times before he had a son who frightened him with his power.
He sighed, and went back to work. It was all he could do, and it didn't do to dwell on the past. You had to let that die. He knew he did, and yet even after all these years he was still struggling to try.
He was unscrewing a bolt when he heard the door open. He glanced at the door and saw her there. No, he thought. These are the times I need to clear my head of you.
She was holding a glass of something in her hand, and she had a blanket around her shoulders, her chestnut hair disheveled. She was leaning against the doorframe, her weight on her other leg, but her foot was tightly bandaged.
So she was walking now. Or hobbling, more like it.
He turned from her and went back to his work. "Go back to bed."
He didn't turn back to see what her faced looked like, if she was hurt, or just tired. If she had had something that she wanted to say. But when he took a break a few minutes later, he noticed that the cup she had been holding was on the ground a few feet from him. She had brought it for him.
Affected, against his will, he took the glass. It still felt warm to him, from her hand, but when he raised it to his lips, the liquid was already cold.
…
Because they had no power, besides the water she had been able to get working, they still had to burn things to stay warm. Once she had awoken, she had forbidden him from burning any more things in the house. It was the home videos. She watched them everyday, and she was getting attached to this couple that she had never met.
There was an axe he had found leaning against the wall of the shed. Early every morning, just as the sun was rising, he would go out and start chopping some wood they could burn. He tried to chop for at least an hour or so. More than they would need for days, but he thought it was wise to stockpile in case there was a storm and they were stuck inside.
He didn't need to dress warmly; the heavy work of swinging the axe ensured that he would not get too cold, so instead he wore his black pants and a tight blue long-sleeved shirt that belonged to the man of the house.
He took a quick break from chopping to lean up and stretch. It alarmed him how sore his arms were; he needed to train. He was getting out of practice.
The sky was turning purple with the rising sun. He looked up at the colors above the outline of trees when he felt and odd prickly feeling on his neck.
He looked back towards the house and saw her, looking out the window. Watching him.
He had not realized that her window looked out on this spot.
They stood like that for a moment, staring towards each other, until she pulled back the curtain and went away.
He stood there for a while longer, staring after her.
Then he went back to work.
…
He was once again lying under the generator, working, when she came in to see him.
"Are you still trying to get that generator to work?"
"Yes." His voice was muffled from the equipment over his head.
"And still not having any luck?"
People who knew him really well would have known not to ask that kind of question, that it would just make him angry. An odd reminder to himself of how little they really knew each other. Or, maybe, it was simply that she was the only person who he tried to restrain his anger from, because it was impossible to be angry with her.
Especially now, while she was standing there in a thick woolen dress and stockings, wide brown eyes and hair slightly still wet from a recent bath.
He almost asked her what she was doing when she sat down on the floor next to him. Was it so unlikely to him that she might be starved enough for company that she would want to sit next to him?
Yes, yes it was.
After everything they had been through together, or rather, because of each other, it seemed impossible that she would just sit beside him and watch him work simply for his company. But that's exactly what she did.
And not just that day, but for days after that.
Once, when she was sitting there watching him work, she finally said, "Have you made sure that the backup battery was still working?"
He paused what he was doing for a moment. "Yes. The battery inside was dead so I found a new one in the house and replaced it. I don't think that's what's wrong."
"What about the triple magnets behind the batteries? Are they in place?"
"Yes, I checked those too."
"Hmmm. Have you tried oiling all the parts up a little?"
He rolled out from the generator and looked up at her at that. "No, I haven't tried that yet."
"I wonder if there's any oil around here?"
There wasn't any in the shed, but they found some cooking oil in the kitchen that they tried instead. It took a few minutes, but sure enough the generator started working perfectly.
He stood there, staring at it in amazement, and at her.
She grinned sheepishly. "A little trick I learned when I was trying to salvage some old equipment back on Jakku. Sometimes everything works, the parts just haven't been used in so long that they need some extra grease to help them get moving."
"Well then…it looks like we have power now."
They walked back to the house together, rushing inside to get out of the snow, and then ran around the house like children, turning on every light, every appliance that would work.
She was laughing, and when she looked back at him, she had the oddest expression on her face.
He realized that that look was because of him. Because he was smiling. He couldn't remember the last time he did that.
And she had never seen his smile before.
…
They ate many of their meals together now. Sometimes they would even exchange a few words. Any time she spoke to him, willingly, he would hold onto her words, memorize them, commit them to heart and play them over and over in his head the whole day.
Today's words more so than ever, shocking as they were.
"I have an apprentice, you know."
He almost choked on the flat cakes she had made for them.
"He's young, just a little boy. No parents." Like me, she was thinking, he knew, but didn't say.
He took another bite quickly, chewing while trying to think of what to say. "How did you find him?" was what he ended up deciding on, not trusting himself to say anything else.
She gave just a hint of a smile, her eyes looking out the window, taking her back to another place. "He found me, actually. He had power, and he was looking from a teacher. He also comes from…nowhere important." She stuttered over her last words. He knew what she had almost said: nothing.
She loved him. He realized that while she was talking. She loved this little boy who she now called her apprentice.
He picked up his plate and hurried to the sink so she couldn't look at his face and see whatever was written there. That was supposed to be him. They were the ones who had that in common, no parents, having no one, nothing but each other. But she had found someone else to share her pain with. He had expected that she might move on, but he had expected it to be maybe with the traitor, FN-2187. Or that insufferable Resistance pilot, perhaps.
Who could have known that his greatest competition was a boy who probably couldn't even write yet.
…
He spent most of his time now looking for some type of communication device, some way to figure out a way out of this planet.
She spent all of her time watching the videos.
There were so many of them. Had these people recorded every damn minute of their stupid, mundane lives?
She didn't think they were stupid, though. While she watched the man and woman who owned this house, go out to dinner, stroll through cities and eat breakfast together, she fell in love in love with them. He could sense it, she wanted what they had: a family. Even if a family was just two people. Knowing that made me feel even more conflicted than he already did. He could see it too, in her facial expressions. While she watched the two people rejoice in their happiness, she rejoiced with them. When they were in pain, she cried for them.
The last video they had, she watched at night. It was snowing hard outside, and the wind was crashing against the house. He had spent the last few hours of daylight frantically chopping up and bringing in firewood, as well as anything else they might need. It looked like they were in for a blizzard, and there was no telling how long they might be stuck inside. He made himself a promise, though. As soon as this storm was over, they were going to leave.
The last video didn't have the wife at all. Just the man, and he was, very unnervingly, talking to the camera.
He talked about how sorry he was that things had gone so wrong between the two of them. That after the death of their baby he had not shown enough support because he was so upset. He said he hoped that if she came back to this house and watched this video that she would also eventually find her way back to him.
Then it went black.
Of course Rey was crying. It was a little sad.
He opened his mouth, as if to say something, anything that might comfort her, but he couldn't find the words.
And she didn't give him anymore time. Jumping off the couch, she ran into her room and closed the door.
He could hear her crying softly in the other room as he drifted off to sleep.
…
Her crying had put him to sleep, and later that night, it woke him up again. But this time the crying wasn't soft, it was desperate and frightening. She was sobbing.
He ran into the room and saw that she was still asleep. Without hesitating he grabbed her shoulders, shaking her until she was awake.
"Rey. Rey, wake up. You're asleep. You're dreaming."
For once in her life, she seemed to listen to him. The moon outside the window was shining on the snow, casting a grey glow inside the room, which made the tears on her cheeks glisten like diamonds.
She looked up at him, sad and confused. "Oh. I was."
He was already on the bed, and he didn't have to move much farther to take her in his arms and kiss her.
She let him, turning her head up to him while he turned his down to hers.
It started out slow, and hesitant.
He had kissed someone before once, a long time ago, but not like this.
And he had certainly never done what came next.
He knew he shouldn't do this, he knew he was making a huge mistake, that with everything heavy and wrong between them this could never end well, but he couldn't stop himself.
She was so warm, and her hair smelled like cinnamon and sand.
When they had fought, she had seemed bigger to him. Larger than life, in his eyes.
When he actually wrapped his arms around her and she pulled him down to the bed, with her, he realized how much smaller she was. He had to actually crawl down a little so they were at eye level.
Although he knew it was natural, he was embarrassed a little at what his body was doing, at what she could certainly feel lying under him as she was.
But she kept kissing his neck and running her hands through his hair, not phased by the evidence of the effect of what she was doing had on him. As if it were the most natural thing in the world. Which he supposed, in the situation, it must be.
Besides her sweet smell, besides the musical sound of her sighs, she was also soft, warm, and gentle.
He had never held a woman before, and he was shook to his core at the sensation. He had never been this close to anyone.
Their kissing became more passionate. He had went to bed without a shirt, and now she was running her hands up and down his bare arms, and then his toned stomach. He responded in kind by reaching under her own nightshirt and rubbing his own hands over what he found there.
After that, they separated only for a few seconds to take their clothes off at the same time.
When their bodies reunited again, arms holding onto to each other as if for dear life, the sensation was so different without clothes that he couldn't wait any longer now.
He had never done this before, and he thought perhaps neither had she, but she opened her legs and he went in like they had done it together a hundred times.
For so many, many years, his entire life had been the cold, hard edges of First Order ships and rooms. Methodical, mathematical. Even before that he had never indulged in many comforts, not caring for succulent foods or minding the cold ground he slept on when he trained with Luke.
But he gasped from sheer pleasure for maybe the first time in his entire life, a sound that came out as something in-between a moan and a choke.
At the same time, she made a sound, but he could barely hear anything at the moment. He closed his eyes inadvertently when he started moving again.
It felt so good; better than anything he had felt in his entire life.
Better than the high he got after pushing himself to his limit when he trained. Better than falling asleep after a long day of work. Better even then a hot shower on his sore muscles.
He had prided himself before on his restraint; his ability to go without this, which drove so many men mad.
He was a fool.
After a few seconds when he had composed himself a little more he looked down at her, to find she was looking back up at him.
He read desire in her eyes, but also pain.
He slowed down quite a bit, and lay on top of her, kissing her, whispering things he didn't even know what.
Some minutes later, when she seemed ready, he picked up his pace again, gasping loudly for air every time he moved.
When he was done, he actually felt his mind go blank for a minute, like lightning was going off in his brain. He gritted his teeth, and made a noise not unlike what he made when he was in pain.
Afterwards, he pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly against him, still murmuring sweet nothings into her ear.
Surprisingly, she fell asleep almost immediately. He followed her into sleep not long after, his hand on her head, which she lay against his chest. He couldn't believe what he had been missing all these year. But a part of him knew it wasn't just the act of making love that had been so good.
It was her.
….
A noise woke him later in the night, when it must have been early morning.
It was her, stirring the fire back into life.
He sat up, and when she heard the noise she looked up him with surprise.
He had been worried about how she would act now. If she would want to forget this had ever happened, if she would be angry at herself, at him.
Instead, she smiled.
"Come back here." He said, his voice husky from sleep.
Her bare feet made no sound, and he had pulled her into his arms before she had even fully made it onto the bed.
He sat tracing her face with his fingers while she straddled his lap.
"I'm sorry." She whispered. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"I'm glad you did." He whispered back.
She was wearing a shirt, it looked like his old one, and it was much too big; it fit her more like a dress.
When he ran his hands up underneath it all over her, she whispered his name, and at that he pulled her closer.
They had each other again, this time with her straddling his waist with him still sitting up. He was holding her to him so tightly that the only thing that was moving was their hips. She came this time, too, and he followed soon after.
…
In the morning he nudged her awake, not with his hand. She laughed at his enthusiasm, and afterwards they lay looking at each other in the room that was now bright from the morning sun outside.
Looking at her looking at him, he suddenly frowned, and opened his mouth to say something that he had been dreading but that he knew he had to say at some point.
Before he could, though, she put a finger on his lips. "Shh. Don't. Just…not yet." And she threw her arms around his neck and buried her head against him.
He could deny her nothing now, so he was quiet while they lay together in perfect bliss.
…
The next few days were the happiest of his life, and he smiled more than he had then he had all his days before combined. He even laughed a few times.
It had indeed been a bad blizzard. Snow was piled more than halfway up the door and windows. Whether they had wished it or not, they were stuck inside for a while.
The first day they didn't make it out of the bedroom, and the next few they made it out only a few times.
On the third day, she pulled away from him, laughing, when he tried to pull her back to the bed. She said it had been ages since they eaten, and that she was going to fix them both some breakfast. "Aren't you hungry?" She said.
"Starving." He whispered looking her at her lips. That delayed her for another hour or so, but eventually they did make it to the kitchen to make breakfast.
It turned out badly, what with her being a bad cook and with him distracting her the entire time.
They only made one plate, which they shared while she sat on his lap at the table wrapping her arms around his neck.
She laughed at the beard that he had grown, but said she liked the look on him. He wondered if he would ever be able to shave now. Later she laughed when they took a bath together and she saw how big his ears looked when his hair was wet against his head.
"I like them, too." She said when she saw his look.
"And I like you."
….
When the snow did recede some, they went outside and played like children.
He found a sled, which he watched her slide down, carrying it up the hill for hours until she was finally tired of that.
She was completely fascinated by snow. He showed her how to make an outline with her body and how to build snow people.
She loved having snowball fights, which she was much better at than him. And she laughed whenever she beat him and he would bundle her up in his arms and throw her into a pile of snow as punishment.
They kept their conversation light, avoiding the topic that was both on their minds, the conversation they knew they would have to have but refused to have right now.
Although one night, as they snuggled together on the couch in front of the fire, she turned to him and said something serious.
"I've never been so happy."
He kissed her long and slow instead of answering her, "me too", because he felt surely, that must be obvious?
…
They had been walking in the snow, holding hands when the ship had come.
Her friends.
He wondered if they had seen her holding hands with him. Probably not, since in their shock they had let go of each other when the ship landed, spraying snow and frost up into the air.
Someone jumped down and shot him. Not with a blaster, but something that stunned, a tranquilizer type maybe, because he woke up later, shocked, but unhurt.
Unhurt, that is, until he realized she was gone. That hurt a lot.
…
He made it back to a First Order ship later. He could see the shock on the men's face when they saw him, beard and hair even longer than before, wearing some civilian winter clothes.
A shower and a shave later he looked the part, but didn't feel the same as he should.
He guessed maybe he never would again.
…
For a few months, the war continued.
He vowed to wipe out the resistance still.
But he was confused. So confused.
On the one hand, her betrayal hurt worse than anything he had ever felt. He searched her out in anger, with the rest of them, imaging the things he would do to make her pay. What she had done hurt even worse than Luke's betrayal.
On the other hand, he had never loved Luke like he had loved Rey. Like he still loved Rey.
In his rage he destroyed the things around him. In his sorrow he cried for the first time since he was a child.
And all through this, he had no idea what he would do when the time came, when he finally found her again.
In the end, it was she that made up his mind for him.
It was at night, he couldn't sleep, and her voice came to him, like the old times.
But it was full of pain and confusion. She was scared.
"Ben. Come to me. Please."
So of course he did.
…
She was in the white medical bay.
They had ran a truce, promised it was safe for him to come down to her.
As he strode through the halls, decked out in his usual black and cape flowing behind him, Resistance fighters ran to the walls. They made room for him like he had the plague.
When he arrived at where she was staying, the people there gave him angry looks, but did not leave the room.
He recognized FN-2187, and a small black-haired girl who held onto him.
Chewbacca was there, and that pilot he hated so much.
And there was a couple there that he did not recognize.
She was lying in bed, at the end of the room, and she was holding the hand of a little boy, who was crying, his nose running.
"I'm so sorry." She was murmuring. "I failed you. In the worst way. I'm so sorry, Oz."
"No!" The boy said, squeezing her hand with both of his. "Never, master."
She smiled back at the boy, who had started crying again, but then she saw him standing in the doorway.
He was stuck there in the doorway. Shocked. But what shocked him more, he didn't know.
Her belly, that was clearly far along in pregnancy, or her eyes, that stared at him, not with the hate he had imagined in his nightmares, but with the love he had hoped for in his dreams.
"Ben." She whispered.
Like a ghost, he seemed to float over to her. Like a slave, he took her hand when she held it out to him.
"I'm here." He said.
"I'm sorry. I hated to leave you."
That was all he had to hear. He had known, all along, that even after what had happened between them, that she would never come and join him. But that was fine. That was all right. It was her love that he had wanted. And she didn't know it, but if she had asked him, he would have followed her anywhere.
There was an awkward silence for a moment before she said, "Look." She pointed at the couple in the corner.
"It turns out I have family after all. My cousin, Elissa. And her husband."
He didn't even spare them a glance. He only had eyes, and ever did, and ever would, for her.
She looked back at him, biting her lips, which were trembling.
"I'm not going to survive this."
He shook his head, no, but she stopped him. "Yes. I know it. I can feel it deep in my bones." She gave a groan of pain. "It started this morning. Won't be long now."
"I love you," She went on. "I'm sorry that I never told you. I regret that. But I'm telling you now."
He cried then, but didn't answer other than to bury his head in her lap. She ran her hands through his hair, shushing him, and he didn't answer, because he knew he didn't need to say anything. She knew how he felt.
When it started for real, he got up on the bed behind her, and held her the entire time. It only lasted for less than an hour, the hard part. She screamed, and held his hand so hard he thought she might break it, but eventually a screaming new baby came into the galaxy, along with a pile of blood that belonged to her mother.
"Let me see." Rey said, weakly, but giving no room for the nurse to argue.
She handed the baby girl to Rey, who looked down at with more love in one look than he had ever seen.
She cried, not from the pain, he knew. Not from the fact that she was now dying, but from happiness. From love.
"She has your eyes." She said to him, but while looking at their daughter.
Those were her last words.
…
He had thought the world would stop, at that moment, but something shocked him back into life when he felt that they were taking the baby girl away.
"What are you doing?"
It was her cousin, Elissa. She held his daughter like she would never let go. "Rey said that I could have the baby."
He got up then, letting go of the dead body that was the love of his life.
"What did you just say?" He said taking a step towards her.
Her husband stepped protectively in front of her, but Ben could sense his fear, and he pushed him aside like he was nothing.
"We've been trying so hard to have one of our own, but…" Her eyes started tearing up then, but it didn't move him at all.
"That's mine." He said, brooking no room for argument.
And the thing was, he knew Rey would have never agreed to let this couple have their baby if she knew he was willing to take it. He knew he would have been her first choice.
Elissa started crying when he took the baby from her, but her tears didn't move him at all. There was only one person in this room whose tears could move him, just there was only one girl in his life again now, where for the briefest moment, a few minutes ago, there had been two.
The baby was so tiny in his arms. Her head was smaller than the size of his hand. He went back, not to his ship, that he had taken down to this planet, but to the Falcon, which he saw waiting outside.
He laid the baby in the same alcove where he knew his parents had laid him when he was young. She was sleeping now, not tired at all.
He left that planet, but didn't return to the First Order. He just didn't have the heart for that now. They would be wide open for an attack. Maybe the Resistance would take advantage and conquer the First Order, maybe they wouldn't. Hux would have his hands full, and whatever happened would happen.
Chewie came with him, and he was actually glad for that. It made him feel less worried to have some help. He knew he would have his hands full.
He took the pilot's chair of the Falcon, for the first time in who knew how many years.
He didn't know where they were going. He would decide that later. As it was, if they lived out of this ship forever, he thought he wouldn't be unhappy. He had the whole galaxy, and his life, for he was still young, spread out ahead of him. But he found that the most important thing, in the entirety of time and space, was sleeping in the ship, bundled up in a baby blanket dreaming, he hoped, of something nice.
…
The End