Author's suggestion: Listen to "Mirrors" by PVRIS as you read this. Trust me, it's a good experience.
White lights are too bright
I just wanna see a trace or an outline
He's desperate and he knows it.
Ben has been scrambling for a glimpse ever since Crait. He works too late into the night now, hoping that her figure will block the harsh glare of the artificial lighting in his room, that fingers will shut his eyelids as he collapses once again in a dreamless stupor. But none of that ever happen, and he wakes up from fitful sleeps and nightmares with no Rey to comfort him.
Say your name into a mirror three times
Said it three times, said it three times
Little Ben tried this, and failed.
His mother used to say that saying someone's name three times in front of a mirror would bring them to you. He tried it all the time for his father - mostly, it never worked, but there were the odd few times when he would say his father's name three times in front of his mirror, and he would run up behind him, making the tiny boy squeal in delight as his father spun him around.
It's pathetic, he knows, but he catches himself saying her name in the mirror, in the vain hopes that for once, she too will catch him from behind, but if it didn't work for little, hopeful Ben, how does jaded, hopeless Ben expect it to work for him?
So when she does, Ben almost gets whiplash from turning to take her face in his hands.
But when you float above my body
I can see, I can see clearly straight through the ceiling, ceiling
There are times she's sure he's watching her.
Like a guardian angel (or Devil, given how someone would perceive him), his Force form often tails her, and she's caught him more often than not watching her as she sleeps. She will wake up to get a drink of water and there he will be, a phantom floating beside her, eyes trained on her form, gossamer fingers combing through her hair. Sometimes he stays till the wee hours of the morning, and Rey would be lying if she said that she didn't like that.
"If you're so fond of watching me sleep, you should have joined me," she grouses one night as she gets to her feet, gulping down her glass of water as he watches, mute. A thought strikes her out of nowhere and she narrows her eyes at him, empty glass aloft in her hand. "Do you do this every night?"
The bags under his eyes are confirmation enough.
Darling, don't be so shy
I'll see you at midnight and when I close my eyes
Just because he doesn't see her while he's awake doesn't mean he doesn't see her at all.
The tables flip when Ben wakes up one night and sees her by the foot of his bed, her face scrunched up in concern. "You had a nightmare," she points at the covers, twisted around his legs and trapping his feet. He eyes don't really meet his - the reason makes him smirk a little as he puts his tunic on while she fidgets with the deep grey sheets.
"Did you see what it was?" She shakes her head, and Ben debates whether he really should tell her and disturb her peace of mind, but she nods encouragingly, and he does anyways.
He wakes up the next morning feeling a lot better.
You make my world spin, placebo feelings
And in the morning I'll wait to see you again
"Why are you here? Why still?"
He's injured - a blaster shot to his side again from a fight on an old Republic stronghold - and the pain does wonders for his insomnia, each turn making it harder to keep his eyes shut. As if on cue, she appears, her expression tired but understanding as she rubs circles across his palm as he struggles to slow his mind.
He has to ask her now - doesn't she still hate him? For what he did in the throne room, for how he repaid her kindness and acceptance? How does she not doubt his feelings? Especially when I doubt their legitimacy myself.
Rey scoots into his bed and presses her tiny body against his wound, and his heart skips a beat as ethereal arms wrap around his midsection, her lips pressing a chaste kiss into his bare torso. "You'll never know if you'll never sleep," she murmurs, and he puts an arm around her, killing the question along with the cacophony of voices in his head.
Her bright wake-up smile is her answer to each of those questions.
Your dead eyes before mine
The way they're missing their whites, yeah, they're just right
I know you're dead inside but that's what I like
Yeah, I like
He's too damaged, he says. She calls bullshit on that.
So what if he's a man with demons in his head and a lifetime's worth of emotional baggage? So is everyone else, she says, and tells him to grow up. She hasn't spent all this time talking to the egotistical maniac that is Kylo Ren, or the shadowy Supreme Leader Ren.
She has invested her time and energy in a person named Ben Solo, and if Ben Solo has issues, that's okay. Because Ben Solo has the backbone and the moral fortitude to right his wrongs, and if he doesn't, then he's either underestimating himself or wasting her time.
Ben Solo has too much pride and fire in him to be labeled a failure, and his scandalised face and finger jabbing in her chest makes Rey smile.
But when you float above my body, standing up right above me
I don't feel so lonely, lonely
By now, are long past the "why are you here?" phase.
All loathing and anger at each other has been tossed aside for whatever this feeble form of companionship is, and Rey allows to lose herself in his phantom embrace as she sleeps, the warmth of his body lulling her to comfort and safety.
Ben has always had trouble sleeping.
As a child, there were voices in his head, nagging and goading him, feeding him insecurities about himself and lies about his family, poisoning his mind against the people who sought to protect him. But now, even though that voice and its owner are gone, that poison still lingers in the corners of his mind. But now, he has Rey, and her haloed fingers chase the demons away as they stroke his face, her lips filling him with the antidote, purging the poison out of his veins.
And in the morning I hope I see you by my side
In the sunlight
With my own eyes
It's not enough.
These midnight embraces aren't enough for her anymore - she's tired of seeing him by her side and knowing that he's a system or two away, knowing that as long as this war is to last, this is all they will have to make do with.
She wants him to be here - here under the warm, bright Arkanis sun. The sun rarely ever shone on this planet - the natural state of being was a constant cloud cover and drizzle, a downpour on every alternate day. But today was one of those precious days in the week when the Arkanian sun shone - and oh, what brightness it shone with.
And I go searching through reflections for your outline
But it's just mine, but it's just mine
He knew the mirror trick wouldn't last.
It has been a week since he's last seen her, and Ben has resorted to calling her name into his mirror, in the vain hope that this would restart what his previous attempt had begun. But Rey doesn't show, and his days pass in long work hours and hazy stupors again. Occasionally, he will look into a freshly shined mirror or a wall, and see her small form reflected in the heart of his looming one - his light, the stable kyber core to his ever ticking time bomb.
And then he'll blink, and just like that she'll disappear.
I know you're dead inside
She thought she made it clear.
It is not her job to fix him - she is not his panacea and he is not a failing droid that cannot diagnose and fix itself. But Ben's situation only seems to worsen - his voice is much more colder now, his eyes unsympathetic and more emotionless than she has ever seen, and it breaks something in her.
But if she relents now, there's no telling which way he will shift.
But you make me feel alive
He now understands why she's doing this.
Rey is her own person - she is a strong, compassionate woman who doesn't depend on him or anyone else to be her moral compass and tell her who she is to be. And if Ben Solo is to live, then he has to take a leaf out of the desert flower's book and follow her lead.
Let's see how long he survives in this desert of his own creation.
Darling, don't be so shy
I'll see you at midnight and when I close my eyes
I said it three times, I said it three times
It's always thrice.
"Why always thrice?" she asks him one night after the bond opens to him in front of a mirror again. Ben turns, face flushed and a little… sheepish?
"My mother said that if you say someone's name in front of a mirror thrice, they will come back to you." He retreats to his table, sliding the many papers on his desk into their respective folder, pulling a chair up for her. "Only if you mean it, though," he adds, looking down at his clasped hands before looking up at her, eyes hesitant.
It's a vulnerability Rey is alien to - in Jakku, this meant you were easy prey, and everyone in the Resistance is too busy fighting or fully living what they consider their last moments to look vulnerable - it's like they all wear masks of bravado. And they criticise him for hiding behind one.
So in moments when she's feeling particularly lonely, she looks into the mirror in her quarters and whispers his name thrice, taking care to mean it every time she does.
You make my world spin, placebo feelings
And in the morning I'll wait to see you again
"Starkiller is primed and ready to go."
Hux has that sickly smile on his face that doesn't even slightly mask the distaste the man has for him. Given the chance, the General would gladly shoot a dozen blaster bolts into Ben's chest and he knows for sure that the ginger has been trying to bug his room but honestly, none of that matters anymore.
"I suppose you would like to watch the view from above, Supreme Leader." Ben gives him a curt nod laced with insolence - the usual - and beckons for the general to follow him to his craft. "Not without the man who made it possible," he replies, the bay door silently locking behind them as Ben offers the man a seat and a cup of bitter Tarine tea, laced with a Corellian spice Han Solo long stopped smuggling but his son knows just where to find.
When Hux wakes up, his hands are politely cuffed in front of him, feet cuffed in their crossed position as a belt secures him to the passenger seat of the raptor. "You said you idolised the Grand Moff, Armitage," Ben quietly comments from the pilot's seat. "Wilhuff Tarkin, much like you, was the man responsible for scheduling an Alderaanian princess' execution," he flashes him a quick smile. "But that didn't happen, because a Skywalker and a Solo were quick to intervene, much like me."
Ben tunes out the barrage of insults that follow to focus on getting them out of the asteroid field that would soon envelop them, Starkiller Base 2.0 now just a collection of projectiles in space.
I'll wait to see you again
It doesn't always work.
She has tried often out of sheer, childish hope, hope that this time when she says it three times, it will bring her his real self, not an apparition. Because she's sick and tired of touching hands that turn to nothing whenever the Force deems it to. She's sick and tired of going to sleep in the safety of his arms and waking up to a cold, empty bed and another long, arduous day of war. That when she says it this time, it would have meant just enough to bring him back.
And on the one sunny day that Arkanis has that week, the sky is darkened by a First Order craft requesting permission to land, and Rey has to yell over Poe to stop the Resistance from firing at the airborne vehicle.
The bay doors open to reveal a pissed-looking Supreme Leader dragging a struggling Hux, who is cursing freely at the taller man. Once the general is dealt with and Leia has held her prodigal son's face by hers, Ben turns to Rey, and she launches herself into his arms, burying her face in his hair as he holds on as if for dear life.
"It works."
He follows her breathless words with three kisses, each punctuated with her name.
"Of course it does."
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