Rey looked at the metal cylinder Leia had handed her on behalf of Ben. "Oh … thank you." She looked at it carefully, mystified by it. It definitely wasn't a lightsaber. "What is it?"

Leia took pity on the confused girl and indicated one end. "It's an old-style scroll tube. We scanned it, but I wouldn't let anyone read it. And oh wow did they ever want to." She shook her head at how difficult it had been to talk them out of reading the supreme leader's private correspondence. She waited while Rey unscrewed the end. As the scans had showed, there was only a single scroll within.

"Oh!" Rey exclaimed. "It's a letter. Hand-written, like the Jedi texts!"

Leia nodded as Rey unrolled it. "I'll leave you to it."

As she started to leave, Rey called out, "No, wait! I … uh, I can't read this."

"What?"

"I … what language is this?"

Leia came closer, giving the short letter a general glance. "Oh. That's calligraphy." A tight smile appeared on her face. Ben had made it fancy. He'd spent time on it. He'd embellished it. It was like a small work of art and just a few lines.

"Could C3-PO read it? Can you?"

Leia froze, thinking it over. "C3-PO … has no discretion. As much as I don't want to read my son's letters, I can't think of anyone else around here who would know Jedi calligraphy, even if they were discreet. I can read it." She looked at the back of the curled sheet. "It's not very long. And I have to admit, I'm dying with curiosity just like everyone else."

Rey handed it to her. "I think I know what he's going to say anyway." She covered her mouth, then her whole face. But she listened.

Leia took up the note and cleared her throat. "'Rey, dearest to me.' Oh my." She sighed and went on, "'I commit in writing my devotion to you …" Leia stopped and grinned like a young woman. She looked at Rey, who had made not a peep, but her flushed skin was visible through the gaps between her fingers. Leia continued, "'So that you have a physical token of my respect, admiration, and affection, to prove I am entirely compromised when it comes to you. I have thought on what you said about privacy. Please take counsel with any you trust and let me know if I may pledge myself to you in any way. With all my love and adoration, Ben Solo.'"

Leia let the scroll roll up on the sappiest love letter she'd read with her own eyes. "The Skywalker men are so melodramatic, dear. Every single one of them."

Rey shook her head. "Oh my goodness. He said that through the bond, some of it, that he loved me." She rubbed at her face. "When I was on the Supremacy, after Snoke, he offered me … he wanted to marry me or something. Me by his side!"

Leia regarded the young woman. "Do you like him?"

"Yes!" Rey struggled with words, though. "I want to say that he's very dear to me, very special, and that I hope for the best for him like I would for anyone I liked … but it's more than that. Much more. He knows that. We both know it."

"Have you told him?"

"He knows!"

Leia smirked. "Sounds like he wants everyone else to know, too. If he hadn't put this scroll case directly in my hand, then I'd think he intended the note to get out anyway and call your bluff."

"I'm not bluffing! I'm so not bluffing! I mean it!"

"Rey, sometimes someone says 'I love you' because they want the other person to know. But other times, we say 'I love you' because we want to hear if the other person is willing to say it back, out loud, so we can hear it and be reassured. He's an insecure man under a lot of stress right now." She waved the letter at Rey. "This could destroy him politically, you know?" Rey blinked at her, having not considered that. Leia said, "And he knows it, too. Just like my life imploded after it came out I was Darth Vader's daughter."

"We'd tried to keep it a secret, but when it got out, the personal fallout was worse than the political! Ben found out Luke, Han, and myself had all been keeping it from him. All the pressure Luke had been putting on him about the pull of the dark side suddenly looked like Luke was taking it out on him because of who his grandfather was. Han and I being busy looked like we were ashamed of him. It all went bad, fast, and before any of us realized how bad, the academy was burned down, people were dead, and Luke left, taking all the blame on himself."

"But if it would ruin him, if the First Order would turn on him, then I can't tell anyone, right?"

"Tell him, and we can start planning. Part of his offer in our meeting was gutting the First Order and stepping down. If that happens, he'll be free to marry whoever will have him. If it doesn't, and he becomes the next emperor, then I wouldn't let anyone I cared about get close to him."

Very quietly Rey said, "I turned him down, to be his empress beside him. Now he's giving it all up for me."

"Don't beat yourself up over it. He's not giving up anything he needed to keep anyway."