There Rey is again, facing Kylo Ren, or, more accurately, Kylo Ren's broad back. He sits at a black, glossy table, no mask, his hair just as glossy and black. For the dozenth time, Rey wonders how he avoids helmet hair. She pictures him at a mirror, meticulously arranging, combing, turning his head this way and that. The image is so incongruous, a smile spreads across her face, and she nearly huffs a laugh.
Which is when Kylo senses her presence.
He jumps to his feet, swivelling to face her, nearly knocking over his chair. He looks panicked, as if she's drawn a lightsaber on him or gleaned a deep, dark secret from the depths of his mind. Rey takes an involuntary step back, heart thumping against her ribs.
"What are you doing here?" His voice is nearly as panicked as his face, which he attempts to school into a scowl. He's terrible at this; no wonder he needs a mask.
"I sensed something," she says innocently. It's true. Running diagnostics on the Falcon before bed, she'd felt a heavy, black emotion blanket her like wet snow. The last time she felt it had been when Leia was killed, only then she'd felt it twice over: her own grief and Ben's. Leia's death had been the catalyst for his taking the path to redemption, one he traveled slowly but inexorably these last months. To the First Order he remained Supreme Leader, to a small contingent of the Resistance, a saboteur.
Her death, their shared grief, had also been the thing to punch through the wall Rey had erected between them, disrupting but not destroying their Force bond.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he says now. He glances behind himself.
She takes a few steps forward, heart settling into its regular rhythm. "What's that?"
"What's what?"
She sighs and tilts her head. "Really, Ben?" After all this time, he thinks he can lie to her. The fact that he doesn't make a habit of it to begin with only exacerbates the falseness of his ignorance.
"I thought we agreed to be careful with these 'visits,'" he admonishes. A deflection.
A few more steps closer. Ben stands up straighter, chin high, knuckles resting on the table behind.
"You were…" she shakes her head, "melancholy." It's the best word she can come up with. "Your mother?" she asks softly.
He looks away. "What do you think?"
She's reached him. She lifts a hand to his shoulder, squeezes briefly. He exhales, his posture relaxing, eyes still averted.
The moment before she moves, he senses it, moves in turn to block her, but it's too late. She's seen what's on the table.
A metal bowl of something pink, soft mounds turning to creamy liquid.
"What's that?" She ignores the hands gripping her arms, his reddening, flustered face, and stares, waiting.
He lets go, furrows his brow. "You don't know?"
She bristles, insecure. "Well, I do love asking pointless questions."
"Of course. Not a lot of this on Jakku, I assume. It's ice cream. A dessert," he clarifies.
"It's pink."
"It's strawberry."
"Hm," she nods. "So why hide it? And don't say you weren't." She points a finger, challenges him with her gaze, which he's finally returning.
"Guilty pleasure." He rushes the words and swallows them back down. "Late at night when I'm…'melancholy.'" He crosses his black-clad arms over his chest.
She shrugs. "Okay. Does it help?"
"Not as much as destroying an instrument panel with my lightsaber, but I've been told that diminishes respect for me as a leader." Rey is the one who told him this.
"Can I try some?"
Ben stands aside, extending an arm. "Be my guest."
Rey reaches for the bowl. Her hand passes through it.
"Oh, yeah." She's not really there.
"Next time we meet in person. In reality. Actuality." He frowns, still puzzling over the language, chews his lower lip. For some reason, Rey finds it charming. She glances back at the bowl, then at his mouth.
"I have an idea." She gestures for him to eat more. Something happens to his face, something new, as he looks from her to the bowl and back. Surprise mixed with anxiety and a dash of shyness.
Rey successfully squashes a smile. "Go on. Make sure you get a strawberry."
Ben lifts the spoon to his mouth, opens it, closes. Rey watches with uncanny focus. Her stomach feels funny. Maybe seeing the ice cream has made her hungry.
He slides the spoon out, a hint of pink left, and drops it into the bowl. He makes minute movements with his mouth. Swallows. Rey sees his Adam's apple descend, ascend.
She takes a breath in, steps into his space. Their eyes meet, that same mix of emotions stirring in Ben's, stirring in hers, and then she's staring at his mouth again, and he's meeting her halfway, and they're kissing, and Rey's never done this before, with anyone, so she doesn't know if all lips are this soft, tentative, and then firm and not tentative at all. He parts his lips, invites her in, and she accepts, and his mouth is cold, everywhere, the roof, behind his teeth, his soft, wet tongue stroking hers, and there's the sweetness, sharp and fresh, and he's pulling back, so she must have done something wrong, and the flare of heat in her chest, her face, grows hotter as she settles back on her heels, no idea she'd raised herself on her toes.
"Your mouth feels so hot," he says in wonder, and Rey is relieved as he brings fore and middle fingers to her lips, gently. His face is flushed. He's forgotten himself.
She smiles, and his fingers trace it. "Yours is cold."
"Could you taste it?" His eyes on hers the opposite of that heavy feeling that brought her here.
"Yes. It's good," she confirms. "Can I...can we…"
He nods, settles his hands on her hips, and this time his mouth is warmer, less sweet, there's more of him, and she takes it.