Chapter Seven: Deeper
The next day dawned much like the first. Ration breakfast, and the shocking realization that they had nothing to drink. There was a tap in the kitchen, but it was used primarily for washing dishes, and the water that came out of it was too warm and too soapy for either of their tastes. So they set a new goal: find water that either or both of them could drink without immediately spitting it out all over the place. Rey had seen plenty of gut-wrenching sights in her lifetime, but one thing she never wanted to witness again was Ben practically throwing up the water that Rey had given him right after he'd downed the whole glass. It could have been worse, Rey supposed, shoving the image of Ben coughing up blood or some other substance after taking a sip of infected or poisoned water out of her head with a shudder.
"I'm sure we'll find fresh water somewhere," Rey said after the mess of splattered water and spittle droplets had been wiped off the table top. "This area must be covered in reservoirs. Rivers, ponds, maybe even lakes. We'll find something."
"And then we'll have to think up a system that doesn't involve hauling buckets of mountain water back and forth between said bodies of water and the bunker every single day."
Rey knew he was only being funny, but sometimes he could be a real prick about the littlest things. She stamped her foot in an almost childish manner that surprised both of them, which was probably a warning to Ben from the more petulant side of Rey's personality that if he came too close to seriously ticking her off, she would not be responsible for her actions.
"Anyways," Rey continued, seemingly unperturbed by Ben's peevish cheek, "We should get a move on so we can figure all this out on the way." She had already grabbed her satchel, quarterstaff, and jacket, and was headed out the door before Ben could gather up his wits and trudge after her.
They'd gotten up an hour earlier than the previous morning, so the sun didn't glare so brilliantly as they emerged from the comparative darkness of the bunker in to the crisp early morning air. The sun had already risen above the mountains, but had yet to climb over the treeline that now obscured their view of the western peaks as they stepped up once more to the edge of the forest.
"Which way do you think we should go?" asked Ben.
"Well, seeing as how I took the lead yesterday, I think it should be your turn to lead the party today," said Rey, amused by how awkward he seemed in this environment.
"Oh. But I don't know the way."
"And exactly how many times do you think I've had occasion to visit Laris prior to our coming here?" said Rey, hands on hips again. Ben grimaced: she had a point. Neither of them had ever been there before, and yet Rey had been able to find her way through the thick entanglements of undergrowth as though she'd lived there her whole life. If she, a scrappy former scavenger with minimal training in the ways of the Force could do it, why couldn't he?
Of course, Ben had always had a sizeable measure of self-doubt, the one thing that had always snagged him just as he was about to jump head first into something that would either make him stronger or break him. Most of the things he'd allowed himself to do since renouncing the Jedi way in favor of Snoke's regime of darkness had been individual nails he'd hammered into his own coffin, an extra layer of dirt thrown over the lid, leaving little space for any light to squeeze in. So one could say that he'd come to doubt his own judgement considerably over the past few years, as it only seemed to lead to the destruction of the things he held most dear, and greater weakness on the part of his soul.
This wasn't like those times. Why? Because she was there with him. Standing defiantly beside him, her fists resting on her hips, smiling up at him as though nothing in the world could possibly be wrong in this moment. Ben envied her ability to see the light side in most things. Even darkness itself could not sway her overall positive outlook on the true nature of the Force. It was one of the many reasons why, in the time they'd known each other, Ben had come to not only respect her as his equal in all things, but also to...care for her.
After staring into the trees for a full minute, he looked back at Rey. Her eyes were bright with anticipation, and she inclined her head to the side, indicating that he should probably just go for it, whatever it was in this situation.
"I...I don't know what to do," Ben said at last, feeling defeated. Rather than teasing him, however, Rey propped her staff up against a tree and walked over to him, resting both of her hands over his. Then she gently lifted his left arm until it extended straight out in front of him, fingers relaxed and reaching out. An instant of shame at having to be helped by a scavenger girl faded as quickly as it came when he remembered that Rey was helping him, and that this truly was the beginning of a whole new journey for him.
"Just...let go of yourself for a moment," said Rey, her voice dropping to just above a whisper. "Remember that although we were sent here as prisoners, we came here as students. Students in search of answers, in search of meaning, rebirth, balance. Remember that no matter what happens, the Force brought us here for a reason, and we must trust it and decide for ourselves what is best to do with what the Force has put before us."
Ben Solo began to relax, letting all his self-deprecations slowly slip away into his peripheral consciousness. Rey's voice coaxed him from their grasp, wrenching him from the darkness of self-doubt, insecurity, and fear.
"It's alright to be afraid, Ben," she said. "Anger, sadness, confusion, even frustration, they're all natural. But those feelings do not dictate what you chose to do with them. It's the choices we make, right here, right now, that make us who we are, not those we made in the past, or those we might make in the future. We learn from our failures, take away what makes us wiser from each experience, good or bad. We find balance between the light and the dark of all things. All things contain both sides of the Force. You have that balance within you, too. You just have to realize it, find it, trust it, and then let it fill you up until there is no room for any doubt."
"Do you really go through all this in your head before making decisions?" Ben asked.
"Shut up and pay attention," Rey snipped. After that, Ben was careful not to say another word while she instructed him
At first his arm ached from holding it up for so long. But as the Force began to flow through him and out from him, seeking out and touching every substantial thing that surrounded them as far as the eye could see, the steady pulse of energy soothed his muscles, and he remembered his strength again.
"Now," Rey whispered into his ear, her fingers still lightly touching Ben's outstretched hand, "Breathe deeply. Reach out. And see."
Ben breathed.
He reached out.
And he saw everything.
Not just the lakes and rivers and reservoirs, but the roots that criss-crossed far beneath their feet, spilling out and consuming nutrients, the crystals and other sparkling minerals that lived deep within the mountains, the shape of the mountains themselves in stunning detail, the breath exchanged from tree to tree, which then circulated into the atmosphere, sustaining all life within the biosphere. Everything that moved, lived, died, and was reborn within the flow of the Force.
Ben's eyes snapped open. Rey jumped slightly, her eyes still fixed intently on him. "What did you see?"
"Water. Fresh water. A lot of it. Straight ahead."
"A lot of water"turned out to be an understatement. The gentlest waves of pure, silver liquid lapped at the toes of their shoes. Rey felt the icy freshness of the mountain water seeping in through the wool of her boots. Her feet longed to jump out of their fabric confines and splash around in the fringes of what was perhaps the biggest lake either of them had ever seen. It seemed to stretch on for miles in either direction, and Rey wondered if she were to run along the banks, would she ever reach the end?
They could just barely make out the other side of the lake, shrouded as it was by a thick morning mist, blurring the rustic brown of the tree bark into the vibrant greens of their outstretched branches. They just stood there, looking right back at them, a line of silent, frozen guardians, dusted with frost from the night but pumping with the same warm quintessence that had flowed through their veins for ages.
The forest still surrounded them, all-seeing, all-breathing, heedless of the ruptured peace that went on in the galaxy beyond. The trees seemed to lean in, anxious to see what the two Force-users would do next.
Both Rey and Ben breathed in unison, twin puffs of crystallized breath leaving their lips and wandering into the cold morning air.
"Well, you were right about the water," said Rey, adding her voice to the murmur of the waking forest all around them. It blended in so perfectly with the environment that Ben had hardly noticed she'd spoken at all. Her words spread out like the faintest ripples over the great lake, just another part of nature that had always been there but had never been detected.
"Yeah," he replied.
Rey stepped forward slightly, allowing her shoes to get just a little more wet. "We should stay here for a while. Get to know the place, you know?" Glancing back at Ben, she saw that he'd finally broken off his intent fixation with the water to look at her. He nodded in approval, and Rey smiled.
"Did you bring rations?" he asked, his attention once more drifting back to the shimmering lake.
"You know I did," said Rey, already digging into her satchel for something mildly appetizing. "We should build a fire. Just a little one, to keep warm until the temperature picks up a bit." Ben agreed and walked off into the woods they'd just come from in search of firewood, while Rey set about preparing their snack. It would be, more or less, the same thing they'd had for breakfast, but with less meat and more processed vegetable packets, too salty for their own good. Luckily, Rey had brought along two cups so that they could make use of their newly discovered source of refreshment if need be.
Ben soon returned with a small armload of twigs and branches, and with much difficulty on his part, and very little helpful advice from Rey, a tiny fire was started. It soon grew, and was enough to keep their exposed fingers from freezing off. Mornings on Laris would always be chilly, but Rey suspected that winter would be coming soon, and with it the promise of exponentially colder nights. The sooner they learned to create their own source of heat, the better.
The two of them sat facing each other across the fire, neither of them looking at the other. They munched on their rations slowly, and sipped the cups which Rey had filled up with lake water with glee. One round of rations comprised of at least ten rounds of fresh, mountain water. The minute it spilled past her lips, Rey thought she might die from the sheer pleasure it brought to her entire body. The water was, without a doubt, the purest either of them had ever drunk in their lives.
Ninety percent of the water on Jakku was fully saturated with dust and sand, and sometimes happabore saliva; even the bottles that Unkar gave to scavengers who'd earned it always had a faint metallic aftertaste that was sour on the tongue, although most of them only thought of the hydration it would bring. Water was water, whether it was clean or, more likely, not, always the most sought after commodity among those who lived there, regardless of where it had been before it was finally drunk by parched lips and swallowed by dry throats.
Ben, on the other hand, had spent most of his life on starships which had plenty of water ready for anyone who stepped up to a replicator and requested it. But even that water, filtered though it was, could not come close to the sweetness which danced on his tongue when he'd taken his first long swig from the Laris lake. Like heaven itself entering his mouth, consuming his whole body even as he consumed it, drink after drink after drink. They became afraid that they might drink the entire lake dry before noon, even though no matter how many times Rey went back to refill their cups, the lake remained full.
"You know, Ben," Rey said between gulps, "you really should learn to trust yourself more often."
Ben smiled to himself, and it made Rey feel suddenly much warmer inside. She smiled back. His face rippled in the heat waves of the flame, making it seem almost dream-like. And Rey found herself praying to the Force itself that this wasn't a dream. That they were truly here, together, feeling the gorgeous sting of ecstasy from the water trickling through their veins.
Once they were so full of water they thought they might burst, Rey set aside her empty cup and turned to observe the ebb and flow of the lake's surface again. Ben followed suit. Even the faintest ripples were mesmerizing, and the lake as a whole danced in the growing light of day, its gentleness transcending even the land that cupped it, murmuring to them as it licked at their toes, asking them softly to please enter, forsake the land for just a little while, take to dreams waiting beneath the glowing silver surface. Transfixing them, not with any trace of deception, but with the faintest inkling of a mother's lullaby as she rocks her child to sleep.
The sun finally climbed over the canopy, bathing the whole lake in golden light. A gradual warmth had eked into Rey's belly, a new thirst, a new desire to become one with the water, or at the very least, to be in the water. She stood up suddenly, startling Ben out of his own reverie. After discarding her satchel, she instantly began to undress, shrugging off her stiff jacket, unhooking her belt, pulling her hair out of its tight buns and shaking it out gleefully, and finally, removing her shirt from her body. Though the sun now shone down on them completely, goosebumps rose up on nearly every inch of her skin. She barely noticed it, and the chill passed almost as quickly as it had come over her.
"You know, I really think we should set some boundaries," said Ben, still sitting on the ground. This time, Rey acknowledged him, grinning to herself as she looked down at Ben's reddened face. She liked making him just a little uncomfortable, a small kind of payback she could deliver without using words or weapons.
All the tension in Rey's body began to drain out of her the second the water surrounded her ankles. She'd braced herself for a shock of ice-cold, and was surprised to find that it wasn't as freezing as she thought it would be. The longer she stood in it, the warmer it got, absorbing the heat from the sun and from her body.
Rey thought that the lake must have been imbued with some mysterious healing power. It sparkled blindingly all around her, studded with thousands of shards of scattered starlight. Rey opened her palms, spreading her fingers wide at her sides. Her feet drank up whatever magick the sun was pouring into the water as she breathed deeply, in and out, feeling the vibrations of the air as it moved through the lake, and through her. The currents caressed her ankles, blown along by each little breeze sweeping down from the mountaintops to kiss the lake's quivering surface, skimming over and through her skin, coaxing open all of her pores to filter sunlight and fresh air into her blood.
All at once, her heart began to beat fiercely, exhilaration filling her up like a shaken bottle of fizz. A burst of excitable laughter exploded from her chest as she dove face-first into the water. As Rey paddled further away from the shore, diving deeper below, she let it consume her, fill her, flow through her and surround her. Now she was the one being drunk by the lake. Rey couldn't remember ever feeling so free.
Ben had stood up by now and was staring after the spot where she last appeared above water. Each time he saw her head bob back up, she'd instantly dive back down again. She'd given herself to the lake as freely as one might give an offering to a god. Ben stood stock still on the beach, his boots digging into the soft gravel.
When Rey came up again, she rubbed the water from her eyes and turned to see what Ben was still doing on land. She paddled closer back to shore.
"Ben, what are you doing? Get in the kriffing water!" she shouted back at him. She sensed the apprehension that was holding him back. She looked at him as she continued to tread in the chin-high waters. "Can't you swim?"
No, of course he couldn't. He'd never had the chance to learn. Rey wasn't exactly an expert herself, but she could at least keep her head above water. Searching through his feelings, she detected the microscopic twinge of fear, that fear that lives in everyone faced with trying something new that could potentially kill them. In Ben's case, it was drowning.
"Leia and Han never took you swimming when you were little?" she asked, paddling closer until she could feel the gravel beneath her toes.
"Never had the time," he said matter-of-factly.
Rey bit her lip, wishing she hadn't asked him such a silly question with such an obvious answer.
"Take off your boots at least, give your feet a chance to feel the water."
Ben removed his boots and stepped up to the edge of the lake, where the water warbled on as it lapped against the shore. Ben let it lick his toes, flinching for a moment, then relaxing as he shuffled further in, stopping when the water had wrapped itself around his ankles.
"See, it won't bite you," Rey chortled, pulling herself back to solid ground. In a moment she was standing before Ben, searching deep into his eyes for that spark of Solo bravery. For a moment she forgot how uncomfortable it was to stand so close to him, especially when she wore little more than her undergarments, as rivulettes of water streamed down her back, pooling at her feet. She knew she was probably a sight, but she didn't care. She put her hands on her hips again, the stance that meant to Ben Solo that he was about to be challenged. He tried avoiding her piercing gaze by glancing down at his bare feet, watching as the waves broke upon his ankles, sending shivers up and down his spine.
"You should probably take off your shirt next," said Rey, nonchalantly. Ben's head jerked back up and he caught her playful stare once more. He was glad that his hair covered his ears, because they both felt like they were on fire, and he was sure that if Rey could see them they would be the brightest shade of red.
Rey's disarming look killed the fuss that was about to jump out of his mouth, and her eyes stayed fixed to his face as he pulled his shirt over his head. The process of taking it off had tousled his hair, and Rey, once again, couldn't help but smile. She dared not move her gaze down even an inch. She could already feel Ben shivering from the sudden exposure to the breeze.
She moved closer to him so that they were now at arms length. "Take my hand," she said, keeping her voice calm so as not to alarm him. She reached out and grasped both of his hands tightly but gently. Then she began to walk back, leading him further and further into the lake. His chest had begun to rise and fall rapidly. "Ben, look at me," she said. He looked at her, and their eyes locked once more. "It's going to be okay. Alright?"
Ben nodded in response. He was still nervous, but not nearly as frightened as he had been a moment ago. Rey was fully with him, not just a peripheral presence, but a full-frontal figure of safety and calm. He wouldn't have torn his eyes away from her for the world. All at once their connection flowed as easily as the waters around them. Before he knew it, they'd reached the waist-deep point. The water licked at his torso, coaxing him further and further in. His eyes never strayed from Rey's face. Her freckles were illuminated by the sun, and her eyes seemed to shine ten times brighter.
Soon the water had inched up to his collarbones. The ripples were soothing, and Ben found that he enjoyed just standing in the water, completely surrounded on all sides by the lake. He could stay there all day, enveloped, protected. But Rey, as it turned out, had different plans.
"Hold on tight," she said.
"What?"
The next thing he knew, they were under water.
The lake enveloped them in liquid arms of silence and deep blues melting into the greener shade of the depths below. All that Ben could see was Rey's face, their fingers laced together, sinking lower and lower.
They began to spin around slowly, like two people dancing in space. They moved ever closer to one another, until their foreheads were touching. They blew bubbles into each other's faces until they were all out of breath and had to return to the surface.
The morning light returned with the cacophony of the many voices of the forest. They breathed once more, deeply, in and out, together. The brightness of the sunlight shocked them out of whatever beautiful trance the water had put them under, and they both began to swim back to shore together.
Rey looked back at Ben, who was just coming up behind her, as she trudged back up the beach. His eyes seemed darker now, not in a sinister way, but in a deeper way. As though being in the water had opened up another level of depth in his soul.
His hair had been slicked back behind his ears. Rey was genuinely surprised that this was the first time she'd ever noticed them. She understood how others might see them as larger than normal. But to her, they were absolutely normal.
Her eyes wandered down a bit, noticing the shimmering light that reflected off of his wet chest. He wasn't as...large as he'd been the first time she'd seen him like this, that night on Ahch-To when the Force connected them at the most uncomfortably inconvenient time. Back then, Rey had been terrified of their connection, of him. She'd hated him with an unrivaled passion that had consumed her ever since she saw him kill his own father, Han Solo. Their moments of connection during the time she spent on Luke's island had softened her stony anger, eroding it until it was smoother than a pebble in a stream. Somehow, the heavy hatred she'd harbored for him for so long had been carried away as swiftly as a leaf on the wind, leaving her with anger still, but mixed with something else. Something new that she'd never felt before for anyone. It was something that Luke had mentioned once during her training, something like passion, but much gentler. Compassion, she remembered. What she'd felt for Ben that night in the hut when they'd touched skin-to-skin for the first time, when they'd seen each other's future, as the connection had wound itself ever tighter around them. What she felt for Ben even now, only stronger. Much stronger.
Ben seemed to have lost quite a bit of weight since that day on Crait, when the Force had connected them once more, and though they couldn't see each other physically, they'd looked into each other's eyes, seeing anger, despair, heartbreak, sadness...and compassion. He was still undeniably strong, his muscles standing out just as boldly as the first time Rey had seen them unobscured. Perhaps it was because they were both feeling so much more vulnerable in that moment. So much more like who they were deep down, as though the water had washed away all their outer layers of defense, leaving behind little else that they could use to protect themselves from one another.
"I should've brought towels," she said, more as an afterthought than an actual statement.
Ben grinned. "The cold doesn't bother me."
"That's good to know. I've only spent the last fifteen-or-so years of my life on a desert planet, whereas you've spent most of your miserable existence in space. Congratulations on being so much tougher than me."
"I am not tougher than you," said Ben, catching onto Rey's jesting tone, "and you know it."
"Yet somehow I've succumbed to your dark-side wiles and Solo charm already. You could smother me in my sleep and I'd be powerless against you."
"I thought we'd agreed that we wouldn't joke about my more murderous side," said Ben, stepping closer to her. "If you were anyone else but you, smothering would be a real probability at this point."
"And just what is that supposed to mean, hot-shot?" Rey's hips jutted defiantly, and she planted her hands firmly on them. She stared, once again, into his breathlessly dark eyes.
Ben had a new smile on his face. It wasn't happy, but it wasn't anything else either. It seemed almost twisted in a way, reminding Rey of the way he'd looked at her when he'd held her prisoner on Starkiller Base, after he'd removed his helmet, revealing his face to her for the first time, when he'd told her that he could take whatever he wanted from her. Rey gulped the memory down.
"Funny," he said, "I remember my mother calling my father a hot-shot at least a hundred times. I didn't know what it meant back then. Now, I think I have a vague understanding."
Rey forced an awkward smile onto her face, turning away from him to gather up her things around the still-smouldering campfire. "It was Leia's nickname for Poe. I'd heard her call him that dozens of times. I thought it had a nice ring."
"Huh," said Ben, looking comically confused, "And all this time I'd assumed it was merely a term of endearment reserved for dysfunctional married couples."
"I don't like where this conversation is going," said Rey, throwing on a jacket, not even bothering to put on her shirt first, "And your parents were not dysfunctional. I thought you, of all people would know that."
"First of all, I never said that my parents were dysfunctional, I said that their marriage was. And secondly, what do you mean, you don't like where the conversation is going?"
"Look, sometimes I say things that even I don't fully understand. I'm not perfect, you know," said Rey, genuinely flabbergasted now.
"I know," replied Ben. His smile was gentle again, and he still hadn't taken his eyes off of her. It was starting to give Rey a weird feeling.
"Good, so let's drop it then, shall we?"
"Yeah, let's do that."
"Good."
"Good." Slinging her satchel over her head and stuffing her shirt inside, along with their cups, Rey picked up her staff, turned around and started back into the forest, leaving Ben truly confused now. He hurriedly pulled his shirt back on, grateful for the warmth it had absorbed from the sun, and rushed after her.
Rey was angry at him. Really angry. But she had no idea why. And it infuriated her even more. Why was she angry? Why was he so annoying? Why was he being such an insufferable prick? Why was she being so sensitive about everything? Why, why, why?!
She'd been so deep in thought she barely noticed when she stumbled into a field of the most beautiful wild flowers she'd ever seen. The smell was what first hit her, potent, but not sickeningly so. It was a dreamy kind of scent, the kind of smell that reminds people of when they were younger, happier, when things were simpler and the smell of wild flowers was the whole world and they were a small part of it. It stopped Rey dead in her tracks, knocking the resolve right out of her, pulling tears from her eyes that she thought had been safely locked inside her heart. But now her throat ached, her heart pounded in her head, and any control she had a moment ago slipped through her grasp.
She didn't feel Ben coming up behind her. But he had felt the sudden rush of pain that flooded her heart. It was a pain he knew all too well.
He found her standing at the edge of a field of purple and blue wild flowers, the most overpowering fragrance of beauty and long-forgotten innocence sucking him in the moment he arrived. Why was this place causing Rey so much pain? And why was it ripping memories of his childhood, of his mother's warm voice in the middle of the night, of his father's eyes, from the back of his mind and pulling them to the forefront, as clear as anything he'd ever seen before?
Then he understood. The reason why this place of beauty was killing Rey was because she'd never had that kind of childhood. Even with all the pain and neglect that Ben had suffered, it had still been filled with love. Rey had never known love like that. Their childhoods were both far cries from what a normal child should have had to go through, but at least Ben had known his parents. Rey couldn't even remember what they looked like, how it felt to be held in her mother's arms, to be comforted when she was afraid, to be cared for, to be loved. Somehow, this place laid bare all memories of the past for both of them, putting fresh clarity into distant recollections that had been forgotten long ago.
All the peace that had been instilled in Rey's body at the lake was zapped completely from her system. Now, all the felt was pain. Tears streamed down her face, and the more she tried to hold them back, the more they came to sting her hot, trembling cheeks.
Ben moved to put his hand on her shoulder, to give her some sense of comfort in the depths of her despair. But no sooner had he touched her, than she flinched as though he'd shocked her with electricity, violently shoving his hand away. The sudden change in her emotions startled him, and he had no idea what to make of it. She still felt pain, sadness, but now there was searing anger, and it burned him like a red-hot iron. Her eyes blazed into his soul, overflowing with tears, yet still managing to incinerate everything in their path, including him.
"Don't touch me!" she shouted. She was breathing fast, her arms rigid at her sides, her stance a powerful mix of defensive and offensive. Ben wasn't sure if she was going to attack him or sprint into the forest, never to be seen again. Or both.
"Rey...I…"
"What? You what, Ben?!" Her jaw was strung tight, her lips shaking uncontrollably. Her whole body was shivering, and it wasn't because she was still wet.
"I...I understand," he said. He meant it with every fiber in his body. And he knew she wouldn't believe him before she opened her mouth to spit back at him.
"No you don't! You don't know what this is like," she gestured to the flowers, and Ben had a feeling she meant what was going on in her head right now. "You can never know what this is like, don't you see? You can't!"
"Yes, I can, Rey," said Ben. "We are bound by more than just the Force, you know that. We have known the same pain, the same loss, the same anger. We've both felt the urge to destroy everything that ever caused us that pain, and we both fought back against it. You more than me, but we both fought. We may have been put into vastly different circumstances, but the scars we bear are identical. Nothing can change that, nothing will ever change that."
"Is it because you hate yourself so much?" Rey cried, her passion dying down but still powerful. "Because you despise your very existence? Is that why you resent your parents? For loving one another enough to bring you into the world?"
"I did not resent them, Rey."
"I never even knew my parents!" she screamed, stepping so close to him that their eyes were only inches apart. "They were gone before I even knew what it meant not to have them, to need them so much that I wanted to die. They left me before I knew how much I needed them, how precious the thought of seeing them again was to me. Do you have any idea what that's like?"
"Yes, Rey. I do." His tone of voice wiped out any remaining fire power in her response, and she continued to resist even as she realized that he was telling her the truth, that she knew he was right. She knew he understood how she felt more than anyone ever had or ever could. So why was she still angry with him? Was it even still anger that she felt? Or was it something else?
"I hate you," she said, barely above a whisper. Their noses were touching now. Their eyes flitted back and forth, unsure of which to settle on. "I hate you." Her voice was all but gone from the statement. It was a lie she told herself now. She could barely hear herself say it. Her left hand had fallen upon his chest, her right now found its way to his neck, sliding up ever so slowly, inching closer to his chin, his jaw, his cheek. Their bond murmured with anticipation, quivering between them, through them, around them. Ben's fingers played with Rey's wet, wavy strands of hair, pasted to the sides of her face by the water, darkened by the dampness, except for the places touched by the sun, which shone almost golden. Her eyes were no longer fierce, no longer furious, but filled with longing. So were his.
"Let's go home," said Ben, stepping away from Rey's unconscious touch, letting the bond's energy fade as he made his way through the field of wildflowers. Rey's hands fell limply back to her sides. She felt she could hardly breath, and yet the breath came and went as it always had. Her heart was silent once more, and Rey wondered if it had abandoned her body along with the strength she once had.
Pulling herself together, she tightened her grip on her quarterstaff and followed Ben through the field and back into the forest.
