A/N: In this chapter, italics are for side conversations on Rey's end and underscored lines are side conversations on Ben's side. The Resistance has made it to an undisclosed location to regroup and consider their next steps.
Day 1
The Force bond opened.
"I- I don't want to talk to you!" Rey said as soon as she saw him. She was scandalized that he'd even attempt it after what had happened on Crait.
"It wasn't my idea," Ben answered. "This is not the best time for me, either. I'm in the middle of a calibration run." He kept breaking eye contact with her to look at something she couldn't perceive.
Finn asked, "What?"
"No, not you!" she replied.
"What?" Ben asked. "Are there others there?"
"Not me, what?" Finn asked. She was looking in his direction.
"Cut it off. I'm not going to talk to you," Rey insisted.
Rose asked, "Are you okay, Rey?"
Poe said quietly, "Something's going on, guys."
"Commander?" Kylo's comm channel replied to his chatter.
"I'll try," Ben answered.
"Commander?" they asked again.
"Yes, I'm receiving," Kylo said into his comm, though they had clearly heard the rest of what he'd said.
"Yes, I'm fine," Rey answered, looking to Rose. Then looking back in Finn's direction, she snapped, "Why are you still there? What are you receiving?"
Finn asked, "Rey?"
"I'm trying," Ben said. "I didn't start this." It was difficult to focus, though.
"The other three units are at coordinates eight-five and-"
"Yes, I see them," Kylo cut off the comm officer, who was simply trying to respond to Kylo's question, 'are there others there?' from before.
"You do?" Rey said, alarmed.
Poe asked, "Rey, who are you talking to?"
Finn, "Me, right?"
"No." Poe shook his head. "She's talking to someone else."
Kaydel nodded. "He's right."
"No, I don't," Ben answered.
"Do you want us to repeat the coordinates, sir?"
"No, I don't," Kylo responded with an intimidating edge to his voice.
"I heard you the first time," Rey said. Her expression was confused, particularly because of the odd tonal shift in Ben's voice. "It's Ben," she said to the others, because she couldn't think of a quick way not to admit to the bond that didn't make her sound mentally unbalanced.
Finn was confused. "Who's Ben?"
"Ben Solo. Kylo Ren," she clarified.
"Yes?" Ben answered, looking to her.
"Not you!" she said. He flinched from the strength of her response, ducking his head and looking down as though to study the controls of his ship.
Finn boggled. "You're talking to Kylo Ren? How? Is he here?"
"Commander?"
Poe put in, "It's through the Force. It has to be." He looked fascinated.
"I'm …" Ben sighed in frustration. "I have a separate communication channel open. I'm going to shut this one off for now and go on stand-by. I'll check in when I'm able. Have the other units continue maneuvers."
"Yes, shut it off! That's what I've been asking the whole time!" Rey said.
"Yes sir."
Kaydel said, "He must be transmitting. Should we try to block it?"
"You can't-" Rey shook her head, overwhelmed. "You can't block it. I can't block it. I don't think he can block it." She turned and looked in Finn's direction. "Ben, why are you still there?"
"I don't know how to turn it off," Ben answered. Though he admitted to himself he'd quit trying after the first couple attempts were interrupted before he could make a serious attempt.
Finn said, "You're looking right at me. Is he here?"
"No, he's not here. He's in my head. It just," she waved her hand at in him exasperation, "feels like he's over there."
Poe asked, "Can he hear us?"
Rey raised her hands. "Wait … just wait … everyone." She took several deep breaths. All were silent. She cleared her throat. "Ben, can you hear anyone who is with me? Or see them?"
"No." His voice calmed rapidly to how it normally was with her. "I only see and hear you. But from your side of the conversation, I can guess at theirs. Are they your friends? Are you safe?" Ben asked.
"Yes, and yes," Rey answered.
There was a general explosion among those with Rey, all speaking over each other: "He can see us?" "He can hear us?" "Where is he?" "I'll kick his rear end!" "I'll show him!"
"Stop it! Stop, please," Rey begged. They quieted down. "I was answering him – Ben. No, he can't see you. No, he can't hear you."
Ben smiled sheepishly.
"What are you smiling at?" Rey asked him. She wasn't sure if she'd ever seen him smile. It was cute. It reminded her all over again of all the strange pulls of desire she'd felt toward him. No matter how angry she was, she still knew him in a way she'd never share with any other.
"I think I know what just happened." Ben shrugged. "It's funny."
"It's not funny!" Rey insisted, but she obviously didn't mean it. Ben shrugged again.
Kaydel asked, "Is he transmitting? Is there anything we should do?"
Finn nodded, "Yeah, like can he possess you?"
Poe added, "Read your mind?"
Rey said, "It's through the Force. You can't block it. He can't possess me. He can't read my mind. At least, I don't think he can." She frowned at Ben. "Can you?"
"The first time we were connected, I commanded you to bring Luke to me," Ben answered. "It was as though the Force did not exist. I haven't tried since."
Poe asked, "What did he say?"
Rey answered, "He said … it doesn't work that way." It was more her answer than Ben's. He hadn't quite answered the question, but the Force bond was a form of mind-reading all its own. She wasn't sure what they were capable of within the bond, and if Ben was truthful (which she believed he was), he didn't know either.
Rose asked, "How do you know he's telling the truth?"
Rey shook her head. "He doesn't lie to me."
Finn and Kaydel chuckled at how naïve and improbable that was.
"No, I mean, it's not like that," Rey said. She turned and glared at Ben, "Are you just going to sit there and listen to my side of the conversation all night?"
Ben swallowed and sat up from having been doing exactly that, basking in the simple pleasure of hearing her voice and seeing her face when he'd despaired that he might never be so lucky again. "No … I can try to tune it out. I have a report I could get started on." He pulled up the appropriate screen and began to set up his electronic entry on the fighter's performance. Rey couldn't see what he was doing, but she could see that his attention was on something in front of him and downward, instead of on her.
"Good," Rey said. "Do that." To the others, she said, "He said he'd get started on writing a report." Back to Ben, she asked, "What are you doing, anyway? I thought you said something about a calibration run earlier?"
"Yes," Ben answered. "I'm out in a repaired TIE silencer doing maneuvers. But right now I'm in stationary drift … as I'm typing things in."
"Oh," Rey said.
"Where is he?" Poe asked. "What's he doing?"
"Yeah," Rose said, "Is there like a range? Is this a warning that he's close?"
"No, he's not close," Rey said. "Not necessarily. He said he was in a TIE silencer. Ben, where are you?"
"I'm," he paused, looking up at her with a careful expression, "at the Supremacy."
"He's not anywhere close to us," Rey said.
"Did he say where he was?" Poe asked.
"Yes," Rey said.
"Where?" Poe asked.
"I'm not going to tell you," Rey said.
"Thank you for that, Rey. I appreciate it more than you know." Ben paused for a moment to let that sink in – for both of them, too. Rey was protecting him, despite the unwanted bond, despite the refusal of his offer. She was still protecting him and he was deeply grateful for that unexpected blessing. "Can you tell me what are they asking?"
"They're asking where you are," Rey answered.
"You can tell them that if they want to know," Ben answered after a short pause.
"He's at the Supremacy," she relayed.
"Where's that?" Kaydel asked.
Rose answered, "Probably right where we left it. That thing was messed up. It was the big ship, right?' Finn nodded to her.
Rose said, "That thing shouldn't even be habitable. What's he doing out there?"
"Yeah, what's he up to?" Poe asked as well.
Rey looked exasperated. "He's not doing anything important, okay? I think right now he's writing a report about the TIE fighter calibration run he was doing. Or something like that."
"Yes," Ben said.
"Can he tell us anything else?" Poe asked. "Like fleet deployments or anything?"
"I'm not going to ask him that!" Rey said in outrage.
"Why not?" Poe countered. "That's the supreme leader of the First Order you have on the horn there! Maybe you can pick his brain, read his mind!"
Finn nodded. "Yeah, use the Force on him!"
"No! No! That's not how this works!" Rey told them.
"That's the same thing Han said," Finn grumbled.
"What are they asking?" Ben asked.
Rey shook her head. "I'm not asking you this. I'm not. But what they're asking is if there is any confidential, secretive, mission-critical inner intelligence you'd like to give to the Resistance for no reason at all." Her tone made it very clear she was not asking him to disclose anything.
"Oh." Ben nodded. He smiled ruefully. "I'm sorry that I put you at odds with your friends." Rey shrugged and sighed like she knew it wasn't his fault. He asked her in a gentle voice, "Is my mother well?"
Rey shut her eyes for a moment, then opened them. "That's hard to answer. She has a lot to grieve."
Ben didn't seem to know how to take that, but he nodded for the sake of politeness. "And you? Your friends sound like they care about you."
"Yes," Rey nodded. "They do." Her voice was sweet. She smiled, soft and warm. The set of her shoulders eased.
"That's good. I'm glad to hear that," Ben answered approvingly. "I'm glad you found the family you needed." There was no way he could keep the sense of defeat and loss out of his voice, despite his best attempt.
"How about you? How are things … going?" Rey asked, avoiding the subject of having refused his offer for them to be together. The rest of the crew had fallen quiet, watching the one side of the conversation they were witness to, where they got to see Rey relax, smile, and look genuinely happy … talking to the leader of the First Order, Kylo Ren, also known as the Jedi Killer.
"Poorly," Ben said. "I came out here to get away from everything, to clear my head a little." He reached up and rubbed at the lightsaber scar. "I keep having a feeling something very bad is going to happen, but it's vague. So much bad has already happened. Thank you for talking to me. I don't want to disrupt things for you. Please, continue. Unless you were discussing something you can't risk me hearing your comments on. I swear I can hear nothing of the others."
"It's not really a secret. We were talking about slavery and what we each knew of it," Rey said.
"I'll get back to work, then." Ben nodded, then looked down at his report. He glanced up to hold her eyes for a moment, but when she looked away, he went back to his screen.
Rey looked around at the silent, waiting faces watching her. "Well, that's really all. He can hear me. He can't hear you. He's going to write his report and go on. I'll let you know when I can't see him anymore. I just," she made a pained smile, thinking about how the Force obviously wanted her to use this time to talk with Ben, but she wouldn't, "maybe I won't have much to say."
Rose was the one who blurted out what the rest were probably thinking, "You look really happy when you talk to him."
"He's …" Rey considered what to say. "It's very peaceful in the Force bond. He's very quiet. He listens to me. He can't hurt me. I can't hurt him."
"I beg to differ," Ben said, barely looking up from what he was doing.
"What?" Rey asked, surprised.
"You shot me with a blaster the first time we did this. It hurt." Ben met her eyes. "We can touch. That means we can hurt each other." He glanced off to the side. "I'm sure we can do other things, too."
"What?" Rey's eyes got big. "What are you talking about?"
Ben swallowed and looked around the cockpit uneasily, although Rey couldn't see his line of vision. He didn't take back what he'd obviously implied, though. It gave her a sexual thrill, both that he would imply something so dirty and that it was so inappropriate to even breathe such a suggestion given the non-state of their relationship. Could they really do something like that through the Force bond?
"You're blushing!" she accused him.
Poe blinked. "Kylo Ren is blushing?"
Finn shook his head, "What is he talking about?"
"I just meant I could," Ben said uncomfortably, walking it back since she looked so outraged, "hold your hand. If you wanted."
Rey grinned widely, then clapped her hand over her mouth. Because she was taken aback by his boldness, and trying not to let her fantasies run away with her. It might not be safe. Not even to fantasize about.
Finn said, "Now you're blushing, Rey. Man, I wish I could hear the other side of this conversation."
Rey shook her head, even as she colored more intensely. So much of this was in her head and it wasn't the bond. She worried that he could sense her desire anyway. Maybe he could even hear her thoughts. She put her hand down. "He is saying nothing rude to me. Or crude."
Ben said quietly, "Tell them it was unintentionally easy to misconstrue."
That sounded good. Rey parroted, "It was unintentionally easy to misconstrue." Her voice came out stilted.
Poe tilted his head. "He just told you say that, didn't he? That sounds like something he'd say, not you."
Rey sighed. "He can hear my side of the conversation."
Poe nodded. "He did. Called it."
"It doesn't matter," Rey said. "He's doing his report and he's not going to do anything distracting while we talk."
Finn leaned back against the chair. "You expect us to go on talking like you don't have the leader of the First Order on hold?"
"He only hears me," Rey said. "I don't think I'm saying anything … secret." She determinedly changed the subject. "They didn't even have slavery as such on Jakku, but what they had was wage slavery. It's basically the same thing. It's not like anything was going to get better and it wasn't fair at all. Unkar would change your salary if you started getting ahead and that was so frustrating!"
Kaydel shrugged. "I guess we are just going to go on, then." She looked around at the others, then said, "I've seen some of the well-off worlds do the same thing. They'll have a designated underclass who aren't allowed to better themselves. They have systems and preferences set up to block them access to resources, like public services, health needs, education, entertainment, or travel."
After several minutes of silence as Rey listened to the others, Ben said in a low voice, "Rey, you don't have to answer me unless you have questions, but I'm going to open the comm channel to the Supremacy and get back to the calibration checklist. You'll hear my side of the chatter. If you object or it's too distracting, let me know and I'll go idle again."
"No, that's fine," she said quietly.
Poe asked, "What's up?"
"He's going back to the calibration run," Rey said.
"You mean he's piloting that TIE silencer?" Poe asked.
"Yes," Rey answered.
"Can you make him crash it?" Poe asked.
"No!" Rey said, offended at the suggestion. Being angry at Ben did not mean she wanted him dead. Far from it.
Ben looked up at her tone, trying to meet her eyes, but she wasn't looking his way. He pursed his lips and went back to putting the little ship through its paces. It required a lot of concentration, which was why he'd parked when he'd realized the bond had opened and he couldn't shut it.
"You like him," Poe said, tilting his head and then smiling ruefully, shaking it.
"No, I-!" Rey shook her head. "That's not a fair question. You heard me at the start telling him this was a bad time and I didn't want to talk with him."
"But if we hadn't been here," Poe countered, "it would have been an okay time."
"What are you implying? What?" Rey said testily, because who she talked to and didn't talk to was her business, not theirs. Even if that someone was Ben Solo. Maybe especially.
Rose said dryly, "I don't think he's implying anything, Rey, except that you like the guy. We all saw that."
"I don't-" Rey sighed.
Finn said levelly, "You're not doing a good job of denying it."
"I … I can't deny it," she floundered. "We have a bond. We share something. I don't understand it entirely yet. But yes, I like him. I feel like I know him and he knows me. There is light in him. There is good in him. I know that. I feel it. I don't claim to understand why … he's done the things he's done. But I'm willing to listen."
Rey took a deep breath and looked over in Ben's direction to see his reaction to what she'd said, but there was no one there. The bond had ended without her realizing it.
