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She has to go tonight. She knows that. But she clings onto him every time he tries to leave her side. She treats each kiss as if it might be the last that they share, each gentle touch as a disappearing wonder. He's hurting too, she can feel it through the bond. He doesn't want her to go, but if he's going to be able to complete his task, he needs her somewhere he knows that she can be safe. He needs her to be with someone who can protect her. As much as he hated to admit it, he'd even told her that he'd feel much safer if she were with Skywalker. She hates that he feels that she can't protect herself, but being less than a month away from giving birth, she knows she wouldn't be at her best in a fight. Against an ordinary man, she could hold her own, the force giving her an edge, but if anyone with any force training came after her, she didn't know that she'd be able to manage.
"I really do have to make an appearance on the bridge, or they'll be suspicious." Ben says, having finally managed to get dressed after being kept in bed by her all morning. Not that he'd ever complained.
"I know." She sighs. She's thrown on a light grey dress, and she's leaning her shoulders against the wall, her fingers gently kneading into her lower back.
"Is your back still bothering you?" He asks, coming up to her and moving her hands aside and replacing them with his large ones.
"A bit. I'm fine. It's actually probably good that you have to go. I probably could do with a lie down...where I'm actually resting." She blushes, and he kisses her forehead. "Hurry back to me."
"Always." He kisses her on the lips, only briefly, and then he goes. She sighs, and goes back to the bed.
"Ooh!" She lets out a sharp breath, and feels the strange cramping tightening feeling again. She runs her hands over her stomach, and settles on the edge of the bed. "What are you up to little one?" She asks quietly. Slowly, she swings her feet up onto the bed, and leans back against the pillows. He's added more of them since she started sleeping there, learning that she liked them. She can't help but smile at how thoughtful he can be. More and more, he's becoming like himself, like the man that Leia had told her she had hoped her son would be, and she loves him for it.
But something weighs heavy on her mind. Something she'd hidden from the bond.
It's the way he speaks about the baby. In the first few days he'd been obsessed with the idea that it was his, theirs, "ours", but as time had progressed, he'd spoken of it as little as possible, and then mostly because she brought it up, and because he knew how important it was to her. He'd long since ceased to call it his, always calling it "hers". Suddenly, what she'd seen in his mind as they had come to the ship echos through her own mind, as clear as if he were thinking them again.
Nothing good can come from me...I am darkness….I'm evil, death, destruction, but it's all her light...It must be Perfect like her. It has to be! No trace of me. No one could love me...
Did he still think that? Was he...was he afraid to ruin the child? Was he afraid that even claiming the child as his own would somehow harm them? She frowns. Had the years of Snoke's poisoning his mind left him without the ability to see himself as worthy of something as natural as fatherhood?
Or was it due to the fact that he had killed his own father?
Or because he doesn't know how to be a father? He'd told her that Han Solo had been gone for months at a time.
Or did he just not want the child, but tolerated the idea of it because she wanted it so badly? That thought hurts most of all. If he didn't want the baby, what would she do? This baby was so important to her- more important than her own life, and it had only grown in importance as she had fallen hopelessly in love with Ben. It was not just hers, no, it was part of her, and a part of her beloved, combined together into a new life, a bright light. How could he not want it?
She rolls a bit to the side, trying to find a way to get comfortable, but the ache in her lower back only seems to get worse. She desperately wants to take advantage of this time to sleep; she has to fly tonight, and she wants to spend every second she can with Ben. He'll be on the bridge for at least an hour, he always is. But sleep won't come. Her inner turmoil mixes with the irritation that is her back pain, and she just tosses and turns. She feels him soothing at the edge of the bond, trying to lull her into a state of calm. She relaxes into it, and takes a steady breath as she feels her heartbeat slow to match the tempo of his.
"Go to sleep my love. Relax…" His voice is compelling, but sleep doesn't come. "Is something wrong?"
"Why?" She asks warily, pulling herself into a sitting position.
"I wasn't focusing on your thoughts earlier, I was trying to listen to Hux- but you're radiating concern. Is everything okay?"
"Ben, I have to leave you tonight. Nothing is alright." She shakes her head, and swings her legs off of the bed, deciding to use the fresher and shower if she isn't going to sleep. But she's planted in place waiting for his answer.
"Rey...you know that this is the way that it has to be."
"That doesn't make it easy, does it?"
"Absolutely not." He agrees. "Is that really all that's wrong? There's nothing with...with the child?"
"There- that- why do you do that?" She asks.
"Do what?"
"Don't you hear the way you're talking about our baby? Your own child? You sound so...detached. Why?" She clarifies. "Ben, is it- are you not happy that I- I'm having your baby? Does it upset you?"
"What? No, of course not!" He's so taken aback by her question that she knows he's genuine. "Rey...I...I can't have this conversation this way. We'll talk when I come back to you."
"Alright." She agrees with a long lingering sigh. "Then I suppose I'll take a shower." She feels his breath hitch as he imagines her in the shower, dripping wet, glistening skin. Oh, her skin turns pink when she sees that. She will never be used to seeing herself through his eyes. "Focus, Ben. You're with your men." She teases gently.
"If you want me to focus you're going to have to close the bond, because all I can think about is your skin under that water, covered in soap…"
"Oh please, I'm so fat it's not even funny. That can't be attractive." She rolls her eyes.
"Are you serious? Rey, my love, you're more irresistible than ever." His voice sends a shiver of pleasure down her spine. It's ridiculous how much she wants him- she's had him twice today already. But Maker, does she want him right now. He growls gently into the bond, and she smiles.
"If you hurry this meeting, maybe you can join me." She suggests, and his longing fills her.
"I'll try. You have no idea how hard I'll try." He promises, and she giggles as she pushes herself out of the bed. She manages two steps before she feels a trickle of warm liquid running down her leg.
"What the hell…" She gasps, feeling her skirt. There's a slight damp patch, and she wonders if she's wet herself? The tight pain returns, sharper now, and she lets out a small cry.
"What was that? What's going on?" He asks, back at the forefront of her mind again. She takes several steadying breaths, and loosens the grip she has on the headboard. She tries to remember the pain she'd felt on Hoth, the labour she'd experienced however briefly. That had been more painful, incredibly intense. But that last pain had been sharp...that last pain. Implying there had been more than one...All morning. The pain in her back, the cramping, the tightening, the aches, all morning. Oh maker, all morning! "Rey, talk to me!"
"B-ben?" She says cautiously, taking another deep breath.
"What is it my love?"
"I think- I think my water just broke." She says, her voice full of fear.
"What?" He asks, panic rising in his voice.
"The baby, Ben. Oh Maker, the baby, it's coming!" She bites her tongue, and runs her hand over her stomach. "I have three and a half weeks- It can't be coming now, it can't!" Another pain hits her, and her knees buckle a bit.
"I'm coming to you."
"No, no, I'm fine! I'm fine! Finish your business, I'm fine." She insists, but she already feels him coming towards her, and she's relieved. "But Ben, it can't be today- we have a plan, we have-"
"Had. Right now, you're all that matters. You and that- and our baby." He corrects himself quickly. "We'll figure something out. I'll protect you. I love you. I'm coming to you."
"I love you too."
