CHAPTER 1
PLOT: Rey left Ben Solo/Kylo Ren four years ago, after she had found out she was pregnant. One day he comes back demanding to see their daughter.
Honestly, I suck at descriptions, but I've been Reylo trash since TFA came out, read so many good fanfictions and wanted to write a fanfiction about them all the time. I had the idea last night and started writing and this is the result. I'm german so I hope there aren't too many spelling or grammar mistakes, but if there are, I'm sorry. I'm happy about everyone who decides to read this and might leave a comment, because I'm not sure if I'll continue it.
"Mommy, wake up!", the voice of her daughter made Rey wake up. Still tired from another night plagued by dreams about dark brown eyes and the helplessness that she had felt after she had found out she was pregnant four years ago, she opened her eyes.
Ivy looked at her with a smile that spread from one side of her face to the other and instantly blew away any bad feelings that remained from her dreams.
Her brown locks looked like the wild mane of her lion, completely scattered around her head and her brown eyes looked at her with an expectant expression.
Ivy looked like her father in many ways. Her hair, her facial features and the way she moved in a controlled and graceful way, even though she was only three years old, made it impossible for Rey to deny the resemblance to her father, but it did not stop her from trying from time to time.
She had left Ivys father a week after she had found out she was pregnant. She did not tell him anything about the pregnancy, about Ivy being born. They had a tumultuous on-off-relationship before she left him and Rey knew deep inside he might have loved her, but his work in his grandfathers' law firm had always been and would always be more important to him than anything else. She did not want a father for her child who was barely at home and had no time to establish a relationship with his daughter, because there were new clients at the firm needing his attention.
Sure, she could have told him and left him anyway or make him pay for the child but they money would not have made up for the time he would not be spending with his child.
The thought of terminating the pregnancy came to her mind once, after her boss Unkar Plutt fired her after she told him about her condition and she was not able to pay the rent for her small studio apartment anymore, but was after all no option for her. She loved her baby from the first day it existed and continued to fight, not only for herself but for the wellbeing of Ivy.
When she was five months pregnant Rey was forced out of her apartment and found herself on the doorstep of a small Inn at the edge of the city. Luckily she had saved some money to pay for the small apartment Poe Dameron, the owner of the small Inn generously gave her. Over the time they established a friendship and Poe even offered her a job as a maid. She only worked as a maid a few months before she gave birth to Ivy, but as she started working again he offered her a promotion as the receptionist at the Inn.
Rey loved working at the "Resistance Inn" and she was thankful for Poe recognizing it. She loved helping visitors check in and out, describing to them which places around the Inn they had to see, but most of all she loved the atmosphere existing in the whole Inn and being so close to her child. She could leave Ivy in her crib on the second floor and only take the baby-phone with her to hear if Ivy was crying or not. When she first set foot in it, she never thought that one time it would feel like home in the way that it does now.
As a kid she herself never had a home. Her parents, probably unable to take care of a baby for whatever reason, abandoned her before she was even old enough to get to know them and she was pushed around in foster care system, from one family to another, unsuccessful in building stable relationships with them. When she was younger she had wondered many times, if her features would be more like her mothers or if she was as stubborn as her father and imagined them one day returning to her.
Getting pregnant at 19 changed her perspective and made her grow up. Made her realize that she did not need to wonder about what could have been, but about what would be in the future. Her future was Ivy, who was now directly looking into her eyes, impatiently waiting for her mother to finally stop daydreaming.
With her eyebrows in a frown, she looked even more like her father. How often had she seen him sitting at his desk, frowning at the inability of his least favorite Co-Worker with the strange name Hux.
Rey tried to control the knot in her stomach occurring when she thought of her ex-boyfriend and instead took her daughter in her arms. Ivys scent was sweet, innocent and her laugh as Rey started to tickle her made every bad feeling instantly go away.
Her body was small for her age and she was slim. Both characteristics she inherited from her mother. Poe had often told Rey that she should eat more, but she was just used to the necessary amount of food, simply because she had not been able to afford more before he promoted her. In Ivys case however was she still amazed how much food sometimes fit into her little belly and how she stayed so slim after all. She guessed that running around like a little whirlwind and playing tag with Poe and the other staff of the Inn must do that to her daughter.
"Stop it, Mommy!", screamed her daughter in a high-pitched voice as she was able to catch her breath. For a split second Rey stopped tickling her, just to attack her a few moments later again. Ivy started giggling, shaking her legs and tried to tickle her mother as well. With a bright smile Rey let go of her and checked her phone.
She had forgotten to set an alarm, but thankfully she could trust her daughter on days like this. Ivy had a habit of waking up early, like many other children her age and the urge of wanting to explore the world before the sun rose in the sky. She loved outdoors, learning the names of trees and animals living in the areas around the Inn. Most of all, she loved the place where she would learn all of it: Preschool.
Rey had been unsure if she should let Ivy go to preschool after she turned three but Poe convinced her of doing so. She had heard many horror stories of children hating their preschool and throwing tantrums if they had to go there, but with Ivy thankfully everything was easy. Rey drove her there before she started to work and picked her up, when her lunch break started, let her take a nap in their little apartment on the second floor and went back to work. When she was finished she went back to their apartment, woke Ivy up of she had not woken up by herself and cooked dinner.
"Mommy", Ivy stood up on the soft mattress. Her hands on her hips made her look incredibly sassy, "we have to get up".
"But first you have to give me a kiss", answered Rey, pulling her daughter closer to her. Ivy giggled and kissed her on the lips, before she jumped of the bed. She wore her favorite Peppa Pig Pajamas, even though they looked baggy on her because Rey bought them a size bigger as usual for Ivy to grow into.
The floor of Reys bedroom was cold and she shuddered, before closing the big window over her bed. It had snowed overnight. Ivy will love that, she thought and smiled to herself, while she followed Ivy into her bedroom. The room was very small, but it had two big windows which flooded the room with light. Ivys little bed stood directly under them, next to a box with her Barbie dolls and other toys. On the dresser standing across at the right side of the room stood many different pictures of Ivy and Rey and a framed paper of marks of Ivys little footprints, taken just hours after she was born.
Rey quickly dressed her daughter in her favorite Rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer sweater and dark jeans and tamed her hair in a French braid, before she went back to her own room and made her bed.
The furniture in her room consisted only of her big bed, a dresser and a mirror on the wall, but it was enough for her. She did not need more.
The main room of the apartment was much more comfortable. Rey had been able to afford a nice table with six chairs, cupboards, a stove, a fridge and a dishwasher. In the left corner of the room stood a couch formerly from the reception area of the Inn and a small TV, that was rarely used by Rey. Reys favorite pictures of Ivy and her were scattered on every wall in the small apartment, next to some paintings Ivy had drawn and given to Rey.
With quick movements, she prepared a lunchbox for Ivy and packed it in her little pink backpack. She finished getting ready just in time, for her daughter demanding to drive her to school.
With her daughter on her left hand and her car keys and gloves in the right, she took the stairs leading to the reception area of the Inn. Poe was already standing behind the desk, wearing a beige sweater, matching the color of the walls and a dark blue pair of jeans. He smiled seeing Ivy, who had freed herself from her mothers' hand, running toward him and opened his arms to catch her at full speed.
"Mommy is driving me to preschool!", she said, smiling at Poe.
"That's great, Ivy", he answered politely and sat her down.
"Are you coming to?".
"She never asks me that, you know", Rey said, pulling the gloves over Ivys small hands, "you should definitely feel honored".
"Oh, I am, I am really honored", Poe looked at Rey before turning his attention back to the little girl looking up to him, "but sadly I can't. I have to work and then I'm going to meet someone".
"Maybe tomorrow", Ivy answered with a hopeful tone in her voice. Poe just nodded, still smiling.
"You're meeting the hot guy you told me so much about?", Rey padded him playfully on the shoulder, cutting of the conversation between Poe and Ivy. Poe blushed.
"What was his name?".
"Finn. His name was Finn".
"You have to tell me everything when I come back", said Rey thrilled, "every little thing".
"I promise", Poe nodded, still blushing, "and you have fun at Preschool, Ivy".
"I will", answered the little girl with much confidence in her voice, before grabbing her mothers hand again, "thank you".
By the time Rey and her daughter reached the parking lot behind the Inn, Rey was completely chilled through. She did not expect it was that cold outside. Her only hope for not freezing to death was that the heating vent in her car was working and not affected by the cold weather.
Relief flooded her body, after she had buckled Ivy up in her booster seat, as she tried for the third time to start her old car and it finally did.
Nearly the whole drive to the Preschool Ivy asked why Mommy called the guy Poe was meeting "hot" and what it meant, but Rey dodged answering her successfully. Instead they talked in the remaining time about how the snowman they are going to build should look like. They came to the conclusion that he will have to make do with a zucchini as a nose because Rey did not have carrots at home.
While parking the car and going back to the entrance of the Inn, Rey was as thrilled as her daughter for building a snowman and the cold did not seem to bother her anymore.
She nearly crossed the whole parking lot, before she recognized a black, polished BMW parked between snowbound cars. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach. She knew that car. The changed license plate gave her at least a little bit of hope, but her legs began to feel shaky as she was going back to the entrance of the Inn.
It could not be. It simply could not be. Why would he be here?
"Poe?", she asked stepping into the place that made her feel like home. The whole room was empty. From the stereo behind the dark brown, wooden reception played a piece from "Tchaikovsky". Reys steps echoed through the room, as she went up a few steps on the stairs. Her mind was racing with endless possibilities how he could have found out about Ivy and her.
"Poe?", she failed in trying to sound confident and controlling the knot in her stomach she already felt in the morning, "you promised you'd tell me everything about Finn. C'mon I want to know it all".
She sighed as she heard steps coming from the library next to the reception area.
"Oh God, Poe, I really thought he was here", Rey stated as she started walking toward the door to the library.
While he came to her sight, Reys heart skipped a beat seeing the smile usually being glued on his face replaced by a serious expression. He was here. Poe knew his face from the pictures she never showed Ivy. The ones she kept save in a little box beneath her bed. He had found out. He probably found out about Ivy. Or did he?
Rey knew one thing, if he did not know about his daughter, she would not tell him. She knew, Poe had not, for sure. She would protect her little girl from getting hurt.
Poes footsteps were closely followed by others and it did not take long, before Rey stood before the father of her child. She took a step back and tried to look confident, even though she felt as if she was going to pass out any second.
He had changed over the years. His shoulder had grown broader and he had shaved his beard. He let his hair grow now, it nearly reached his neck. Overall he seemed to have grown some centimeter, but Rey knew that was impossible. He was 32 when she last saw him, a grown man, they do not grow anymore. He just looked more intimidating in his black coat, suit, tie and shirt. Rey could not help herself but wonder if he possessed clothes in a different color than black. Four years ago he did.
His brown eyes wandered down on her and she had the urge to cover her body with her hands although she was wearing a beige button-down shirt and a black skirt. When his brown eyes met hers, she saw his cold expression and felt a shiver going down her spine. Silently she in- and exhaled deeply, before breaking the Silence.
"Ben".
Wow, if you made it this far, thanks for reading it!
Let me know what you think and if I should continue writing it!