{Author's Note}


So I know I said I probably wouldn't be doing any double chapter days, but guess what? I LIED. Or, I guess...I misjudged myself. I originally had 3 and 4 combined into one chapter, but it came in at almost 10k words and that seemed a bit excessive and out of character for my established pace, so I split it and you get both today! :D Hooray! It still probably wont happen that often, so we'll call this my penance for not uploading anything on May 4th.

Don't forget to leave a review. I love hearing from you guys!

xx

CHAPTER FOUR: Memories Old, Memories New


Rey


The work, they decided, could wait until morning. When Ben and Rey finally emerged from the cave, they were surprised to find the sun sinking low in the cloudless sky. Ben charged the Dead-Enders with guarding the base until he came back, perpetuating their eternal directive with all the confidence that they would follow through.

The two Force users picked their way through the wailing winds back down to the Falcon, still perched dangerously on its narrow ledge. They brought only a few of the valuables from the base with them, deciding to come back for more when they'd finished their business in Niima. As Ben breezed them away from the stark mountainside, Rey felt him reveling in the secret they now shared of the treasure buried in the rocks. And he was pleased about his plan, suddenly more interested in resuming control over the First Order now that he had an idea for what to do with it.

Soon. They'd get there soon.

But first, there was one more memory they had to dig up today. One more scab to pick open.

Rey dreaded it, but they both knew it was time. Night would fall soon, and though they could comfortably sleep on the Falcon, they didn't trust Plutt's thugs not to mess with the ship if they parked it at Niima until morning. Besides, it wouldn't be the close of day on Jakku if she didn't go home.

"You passed it," she remarked softly as they skimmed over a swath of unremarkable desert.

"I didn't see anything."

"Exactly."

In a wide arc, he turned them around and eased back on the throttle, slowing and descending enough that it was easier to scan the empty terrain. Empty to him, perhaps, but Rey recognized it. This had been her territory, and she had defended it as fiercely as her life. And there — half-buried beneath the sand, the fallen form of an AT-AT.

Feeling her flicker of recognition and needing no further instruction, Ben began his landing approach.

"You lived in that?" he asked, surprised and skeptical.

Rey nodded. She'd never seen it from the perspective of an off-worlder before, or anyone who had grown up in a real home. Just like Niima itself, it didn't hold up. Where it once struck her as a sanctuary, she now saw a sad trash heap. She swallowed.

Ben landed next to it, setting the Falcon down so gently Rey almost didn't feel it. The heady, rushed excitement of their discovery in the mountains was rapidly vanishing, replaced by apprehension and reluctance. Her home had been her most personal, most intimate, most lonely refuge. She had loved it, despite the sorrow she so often felt there. The last thing she wanted was to see it in a pillaged and ravaged state.

But she couldn't properly move on from this place without visiting it one last time.

The Force shifted around her, undulating with Ben's influence as he reacted to her nervous dread and wrapped his reassurance around her. She reminded herself what whatever they found out there, it wasn't her life anymore. This place had only been a waiting room, and the real truth of her existence began as soon as she left it. It wasn't important anymore.

The first thing she noticed when they walked down the ramp was something she'd never felt in all her time she'd lived here. The fabric of the Force. Attuned as she was to it now, she noticed for the first time how thin and wispy it was here. The great web of cosmic energy was sparse and stretched, only fortified now by the presence of the two powerful sources.

"The Force is faint because life is scarce here," Ben agreed. "It could be one of the reasons your abilities manifested so much later in life than usual. It would have been difficult for that seed to take root or grow out here. But what does exist is strong. Can you feel that?"

She could. The few errant strands of energy were sturdy and steadfast, imbued with the unbreakable determination to exist that emanated from all the living things on this dead world.

They moved towards the AT-AT and the entrance in its belly. In operation, it would have only been an auxiliary escape hatch, but for Rey it had been her main point of entry and exit. It looked undisturbed, but she didn't trust it.

"How old were you when you found this place?" Ben asked.

"Eleven, I think." Time was hard to keep track of. In Niima, they marked the year by the first of the boiling winds to come sweeping through. Rey had made a guess as to her age, based on the skeptical conjecture of one of her fellow scavengers, but she couldn't really be sure.

He took her hand, interlocking their fingers. He liked doing that, she had come to learn — found excuses for it more and more frequently. Rey didn't mind, mostly because it was Ben and anything he did that brought them into contact was breathlessly pleasant. If it had been anyone else, she wouldn't have tolerated it.

She led him to the auxiliary hatch. The lever had been more or less sealed closed by the wind and sand and disuse. Rey wondered how long it had been since anyone had tried to open it. She grabbed the lever and tried to pull. It didn't budge an inch. Even a few strong yanks were not enough to free it. Ben, with his much larger and admittedly stronger body, eased her aside so he could try. Giving it a mighty heave, he was rewarded with the squeal of metal grinding against metal.

Shouldering the protesting hatch open, Ben bent and ducked into the dark belly of the fallen war machine. Rey drew a deep breath, braced herself, and followed.

At first, she saw very little. The only light filtering in came from the hatch they now blocked. But as soon as they moved aside and her eyes adjusted to drink in the darkness, she became overwhelmed with emotion.

Everything was exactly as she'd left it. Like it had been waiting all this time for her to return home.

A pain in her throat and a pooling sensation in her eyes prevented her from taking stock of every single item, but her heart knew it all. Had known it for most of her life. Here she came face to face with herself, and it was as overwhelming as it had been when it happened in the sea cave on Ahch-To.

Ben looked around. His attention first turned to the scratches on the wall, filling the space with a long march of days, before it turned to the various trappings and fixings scattered about. She was too caught up in this blast from the past to monitor his reaction, but as she searched for an anchor to ground her before she floated away on the tides of memory, she gradually became aware of his quiet consternation.

Rey drifted forward, moving to the nearest of her old belongings and letting her fingers greet everything with a light touch. She'd never been the sentimental sort — if an item had more trade value than practical use, away it went. Still, she couldn't help feeling incredibly fond of all these things now that she was back among them.

"This was all yours?" Ben asked, even though he knew the answer. He seemed to be searching for something to say.

She nodded. "Just as I left it. I can hardly understand why no one has touched it in all this time."

"Perhaps your reputation endured, despite your absence."

His voice was not so near now, and she glanced to see him wandering among her things on the other side of the compartment. "I worked very hard on that reputation. If you're right, I did a better job than I ever imagined."

"You sound surprised," he mused, brushing his fingertips over the brittle, dried flower of a long-dead Night Blossom. Even under that delicate touch, some of it dissolved into powdery dust.

Watching him move about her deeply private sanctum, the one place where she knew she was safe, where nothing was allowed except her and what she chose to bring in, she was struck by other emotions which had nothing to do with the relief and nostalgia from a moment ago.

He bent and picked up a doll made from a rebel flight suit. It looked so small in his large hands. Rey resisted the urge to snatch it away from him, pretending to be interested in her old Y-wing computer simulator instead.

Ben considered the doll, brushing his thumb over it. His own thoughts were difficult to discern. He kept them carefully out of her perception.

He was too big for the space, she decided. His large, broad body took up more room than she had ever allocated to anything. Not unlike the space he occupied in her heart, actually. The surreal sight of Ben Solo exploring her home hit her full force, and her stomach gave a fluttery little turn. She swallowed and turned away.

"I see you mostly confined your living space to this compartment. What did you do with the others?"

"I didn't need much room. Some of it I turned into my workshop, for repairing parts before I sold them to Unkar. Some of it was just empty." She peeked again. He had discovered her hammock, and was observing its attachment to the ceiling — or rather, the side. It was tied to hooks originally meant for securing cargo.

"Your bed?" he asked.

"It's best to sleep off the ground. Gnaw-jaw bugs come out at night and chew on anything that appears to be dead. I didn't often get them in here, but sometimes."

He glanced at her heating plate, giving a nod of indication. "And was that your kitchen?"

"Yes."

His dark eyes roved over everything, taking it all in, and Rey felt embarrassed to have him see it. Even though she loved it, her home was shabby and ridiculous compared to everything he had ever known.

"It's not," Ben said firmly.

"It's not what?"

"Ridiculous." He turned to face her. Their movements had pulled them nearer now. "You were worried I think your home ridiculous. I don't."

She found herself caught in his endless stare. Yes, he was definitely too big for this place. "It's sheer squalor compared to your life."

"It's inventive and resourceful. It's exactly what you needed to be, and it suits you." A flash of cunning glinted in the night of his eyes, a spark of amusement as he added, "Like you, it's a little alarming and peculiar at first, but more and more intriguing upon closer inspection."

Absurdly, Rey felt herself blush and turn away. Sometimes Ben could be frustrating and dogmatic, insistent and severe, but sometimes he could also be so incredibly compassionate and gentle. He had always demonstrated both of these behaviors, which is why she'd been confused about how to feel towards him for so long, but lately he'd become much more the latter person towards her.

"It'll be dark soon," she hedged. "We probably shouldn't stay long."

"Do you want to sleep here?"

"No." It was the truth. She didn't want that, especially because there was nowhere for Ben to sleep and she wasn't about to willingly relive the experience of nights alone in this place, surrounded by the scratch of each and every empty day.

He accepted this without further argument, looking around again. This time his gaze caught on the rebel pilot helmet. He picked it up, turning it over in his hands and brushing the sandy film off the visor.

Again she felt the impulse to grab the thing away from him and hide it. Somehow, having him see and handle all these things felt unbearably intimate, like allowing him access to part of herself she'd never revealed to anyone. And although there was no one she trusted more, and indeed she wanted him to see, it didn't take away the nervousness putting her very much on edge.

Sensing her tension, he handed the helmet to her. "How much is that worth?"

"Nothing." She hugged the object to her stomach, as if it could cover her, as if she could hide behind it. "The commlink is broken. I kept it because I liked it."

"You played games of pretend in it," he said, with altogether too much knowing.

She felt him browsing through her memories, and frowned. "I was a child."

Not entirely true...though she desperately hoped he wouldn't see that particular fact.

"Rey, you don't need to defend yourself. I understand." He changed his mind and gently took the helmet from her once more. Instead of examining it further, however, he placed it over her head.

She peered out at him through a cloudy visor, the whole thing wobbling a bit on top of her crown. All the cushioning inside had dried and flaked out years ago, leaving it an ill-fitting shell. As a child it had been much too big, but even as an adult it gave the same impression.

Ben smiled one of his rare, full smiles. "There she is. The pilot hero of the rebellion. Fierce enemy of the Empire."

Through the dusty orange haze, she spotted her doll still in his possession, tucked into his belt, and was grateful the visor concealed yet another flush of heat that warmed her face. Why did he have that?

He stepped in nearer, forcing her to look up if she wanted to meet his eye. The helmet made her feel suddenly very childish, and she moved to hastily take it off. Ben's hands caught hers, however, and he firmly lowered them again. He removed the helmet himself, lifting it slowly, discarding it on a pile beside them. His dark eyes were warm and deep, glittering with a hungry gleam she had come to recognize. His hands found her waist, pulling her into him. She didn't resist, reveling instead in the feel of his firm hands just above her hips.

"You missed," he murmured, voice soft and low.

She frowned. "Missed?"

"Earlier. At the research base. You missed your mark."

One of his hands came to her chin, a featherlight touch tilting her face up and holding it in place. She shivered.

"Maybe I meant to miss," she gasped, finding both her words and her breath hard to manage.

He hummed in wordless reply, glancing down at her lips before he bent and kissed her, pressing pleasure and an erratic heartbeat through her with that single act. The raw edge to her emotions sharpened all at once, and everything she'd felt throughout the day came rushing to a frantic apex. All this peeling back of her layers, bit by bit, to uncover and confront the person she'd been before BB-8 and Finn showed up had left her exposed and eager for comfort. She wanted to drown herself in him.

Her hands found his face, splayed across his jaw and neck, pulling him in closer as she returned his attention in kind.

Ben pushed her back towards a wall. He'd kissed her that way once before, on the Falcon, and it had electrified both of them. He enjoyed the feeling of her trapped beneath him, and she couldn't deny she liked it just as much. Maybe trapped was the wrong word. Pinned between his huge, strong body and the unyielding barrier of a wall, she felt shielded. Protected.

"Always," Ben promised, whispering his answer to her intoxicated, scattered thoughts.

She growled, swallowing up anything further he might have said by covering his mouth with hers. But even that didn't quite vent the pressure building in her, so she used the wall as leverage and shimmied her legs up around his waist, pushing herself higher so that for once he was craning to kiss her.

His hips rolled beneath her and he broke off to pant against her skin.

"Rey," he rumbled in a low, animalistic sound. Was it a warning? Or a plea?

She threaded her fingers into his hair and pulled his head back. "You're thinking too much," she complained softly. "Just be with me."

He was thinking too much. Despite the sheer instinct that drove them now. She could feel his thoughts struggling to grab hold of something, desire and doubt at war within his increasingly fevered mind.

"I need to stay on the ground," he breathed. "I need to be in control, so I can stop when you need me to."

"You will." She searched his black eyes, dilated and burning. Once, she'd feared him. Not anymore. Now she only trusted him, wholly and completely, with no caveats or reservation.

He detected this, and her trust triggered a tide of overwhelming love to rise up in him. He shuddered, returning now to their kiss with worshipful fervor. It was no small thing for him to know that she had perfect confidence in him. To Ben, it was everything.

Rey lost herself in this moment until he shifted tactics and left her lips in favor of her neck. He'd never done that before, and she wasn't quite prepared for how intense it would feel. Chills cascaded down her entire body. She gasped and tightened her fingers in his hair. He worked his way down her throat and back to her jaw, producing flashes of heat trailing behind his every touch. These turned her soft breath into something trembling and uneven, and transformed her body into jelly beneath him.

His hands slid around her, hugging her to him as he pulled away from the wall. Holding her like that, while she clung to him with wrapped arms and wrapped legs well accustomed to climbing and holding on, Ben effortlessly carried her across the little room. She could feel his own heart thrumming through his chest in a powerful, nervous cadence. He was as out of his element as she was. He too felt drawn to this crackling, dangerous energy like a live current sparking between them, and he too was afraid of it.

He laid her down on the hammock, glancing briefly up at the points he had earlier inspected. Rey followed his gaze. Her knots were practiced and strong. Plutt himself could sit on this hammock and it wouldn't go anywhere.

"It'll hold," she assured him softly.

He allowed himself to sit next to her, hip to hip, leaning over with hands on either side of her to support him as he bent and kissed her again, much more gently now. Soft and sweet and slow. Reluctantly, he pulled back, searching her gaze.

Rey caressed the edges of his face, fondly brushing his hair out of his eyes. But stars, how she loved him. How strange and how right to have him here, in this world where she had so long waited for him. In this little home where she'd ached with isolation and incompletion, missing a part of herself she didn't know how to find. She'd been wrong to think he didn't fit here. He did. In fact, it was perfectly right that he should be in this home, looking at her this way, as if she'd never be alone again. As if she were the most important person in the whole galaxy.

"You are," he whispered, turning his head to press a kiss into her palm.

She tugged him back to her, impatient to lose herself in him again.

They kissed each other like that for a long time, at last willing to let themselves sink into this without fear of interruption or pressure to hide their activities. Nobody would bother them here. They could just explore all the sensations and emotions of this thing between them at their own pace. And when Ben returned to the sensitive areas of her neck and collar, Rey surrendered to the pleasure until her heart felt like it would explode. His powerful shoulders rolled beneath her hands as she dug into them, their shared mind spinning into a dizzying oblivion.

Being so covered in touch and sensation went against her instincts and challenged her on every level, and though she loved it and loved the surge of fire he induced in her, there arrived a point when it all got to be too much. Her body felt superheated, like a star on the verge of supernova, and she imagined herself teetering over an edge she wasn't ready to fall off yet. So she pushed him back, fighting for breath, transmitting her need to stop mentally since she couldn't find her voice.

Ben shuddered and drew back, fighting his own tide of desire. He sucked air like it was the balm to his fiery nerves.

Rey wriggled out from under his torso, sitting up. The shifting weight made the hammock sway, but Ben stopped that quickly with a foot firmly on the floor. She leaned forward and kissed him just one more time.

"I need some air," she whispered.

He nodded. "Me too."

She leapt lithely to the ground, feeling more than a little light-headed as she took his hand and looked around her old familiar home that felt somehow altered. An irrational urge to laugh fizzed to life inside her, and she stifled it. In all the years she'd lived in this AT-AT, she'd never imagined that one day she'd unexpectedly find herself making out with her mortal-enemy-turned-lover here. How absurd.

The place felt all at once too intimate, and she fled it, bringing Ben with her.

Evening had well and truly fallen now, turning the sky a lavender-gray and tinging the red sands purple. Finally the unbearable heat of the day was beginning to abate. Nights could sometimes be very chilly in the desert, and Rey felt the promise of it in the cooling breezes sweeping in from the east now.

She left Ben's side, hopping lightly onto the leg of the fallen mechanized beast and following it up to the shoulder. The sights and smells of the desert soothed the blaze of her body and mind, sweeping away a heavy fog of desire.

Some time ago, Rose had ventured with Rey into a conversation about the nature of physical intimacy. Rey hadn't wanted to talk about it, hadn't really wanted to think about it, and felt the day for such things was still far off for her. She still thought that, though it didn't seem quite so far as before. If she continued this way with Ben, especially if she let him do things like that, she knew the day would come. It was inevitable. And exciting. And terrifying.

So she comforted herself by deciding it wasn't happening soon. One day, but not yet. She needed to learn how to calm down and be okay with that kind of closeness. Just being with Ben was stimulating enough. This new thing where they kissed sometimes and held each other, it was perfect, but also right at the threshold of her tolerance. Much more than that caused her to short-circuit. She had to get over that if the day for more would ever come.

Her mind tingled with a familiar presence as Ben joined her, sitting down next to her on the edge of the AT-AT's upturned side.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, glancing at him.

"For what?"

"I know it's not easy to stop."

He gave her an odd look, his brow furrowing a little. "But it's not as hard as you think, either. Don't apologize for your feelings, Rey."

"I don't want you to think that I don't…" she found herself suddenly searching for words, the topic difficult to speak of out loud. "I don't want you to be disappointed."

"I'm not." He drew in a deep, cleansing breath. "Believe it or not, I didn't want to go on either. Not yet."

"You didn't?" That surprised her. He certainly seemed like he wanted to go on. Then again…maybe not. He didn't try to do anything more than minister to her lips and throat. He didn't even let his hands wander. "I thought that men always want more."

"A misconception," he said, looking out over the desert as a slight smile quirked his full, now red lips. "Though I doubt many will admit it. You forget that this is all new for me too, and not something I ever intended for myself. I have my own psychological barriers to break down. And I want you to be comfortable at all times, so it suits me just fine to take it slow."

She didn't know what to say. This was…not what she'd expected, but given what she'd detected in him down there in the compartment, not that surprising either. He'd been as nervous as she was. It made sense now.

He continued distantly, as if considering. "Besides, what I feel for you is not tied to the physical. You know that, right? My soul is tied to yours, and everything else is secondary."

Rey leaned her shoulder into his, basking in the happy glow of affection and relief. Knowing he wasn't waiting around, frustrated at her shyness, did make her feel more confident about this new physical side of their relationship. Time would no doubt make it easier for both of them, and perhaps their bond would persuade them it was alright to cross that bridge eventually. But until then, they both understood each other and were content with what they had.

Was this really the same man who had threatened to take whatever he wanted on Starkiller Base?

"I didn't mean that," he said, voice suddenly steely. "I meant I could take whatever information I wanted."

"I know," she said, laughing a little. "I mean, at the time it sounded much more threatening than that, but you made yourself clear soon enough."

He sighed. "I didn't want to hurt you."

"I know that too." The knowledge was clearer with hindsight, but even at the time she'd felt and been bewildered by his obvious reluctance. She rested her head against his shoulder, glad that they'd come so far since then.

Ben found one of her hands and played with her fingers. His gaze wandered out to the horizon where a ridge of shadows concealed a mountain full of treasure, and an army of half-dead men waiting on his command. Rey reveled in this knowledge, and in this closeness, which was much more valuable than any Imperial fortune.

They lapsed into comfortable silence, watching the sunset cast jeweled colors across the desert. A thought drifted through Ben's mind and into Rey's. For the first time since they arrived he, and then she, thought there really was a kind of wild, savage beauty amid the endless flow of sand.