Chapter 48: Tentative
"So what's the protocol for taking me in?" Rey leaned back from their embrace to look him in the eyes.
Ben's trepidation was still apparent, and Rey would be lying if she said she didn't feel the same way. In fact, is was only his arms firmly wrapped around her waist that was keeping her together at all while she so boldly faced the prospect of being brought before Snoke.
At the disheartened look he gave her, Rey threw him a cheeky, if not slightly shaky, smile past the unyielding rain.
"Are you going to carry me onto your ship again?"
Ben graced her with a laugh. It was a nervous, slightly bitter one, but it had a genuine ring to it that made Rey's heart lighten. He squeezed her before loosening his arms, and leading her back under the thick cover of the trees, where the rain was not so heavy. She clipped her discarded lightsaber to her belt, before taking the hand that he held out to her.
"Now," he cleared his throat of the bubble that weighed it down, "Now I'll take you to Korriban in my fighter. When we actually get to the ship, I'll let Phasma know that the Knights are dead. This will prompt them to retreat with immediate effect."
Rey followed him as he carved a path through the forest, her hand firmly clasped in his.
"You're certain?" she asked, nimbly keeping up with him.
"Positive. Your targeting of the Elite camps knocked quite an unusual dent in their easy-access garrison, and while Stormtroopers are effective, the Resistance boasts equal skill. And Luke. The First Order couldn't spare many for this fight, and the Knights were sent in place of whole squads. With them gone, there is little to no chance of a victory."
"So," Rey breathed as they jumped down a short drop-off to the next level of forest floor, "I take it General Hux won't be charmed that you've essentially fracked the First Order over again, in favour of me."
Ben snorted another laugh, "Don't be absurd. I'm blaming both the Knights' deaths on you."
Rey beamed at the way he seemed to be easing up, whether it was from the nerves or if he was working out of them, she didn't care. At least he wasn't rejecting her, or cutting himself off.
"That's the spirit!" she chuckled, nearly running into him when he stopped by a clearing.
The rain made it difficult, but Rey could make out the shape of his fighter from Hoth at the edge of the little glade.
"This is awfully close to the battle, Ben."
"It's not my fault you expanded those borders when you crashed so far away."
Rey rolled her eyes, letting his hand go so that he could open the fighter.
After a beat, he spoke again, his voice hesitant, "Rey, do you intend on just disappearing, or are you going to let one of your friend know?"
Rey had to blink at him for a few moments before she understood that he was being completely serious in his question. Then she laughed aloud and brushed past him to climb into the co-pilot's seat.
Leaning out, she grabbed the door, "Yes Ben," she smiled down at him, all nerves gone for the time being, "Because I get kidnapped often enough to tell whomever has me in their nefarious grasp 'hang on just a click, I need to let the General know I'm alright.'"
With that, she swung the hatch shut and sat back in the seat, wiping the water off her face, and pulling her hair out of its twine to shake it out. The fighter shook slightly when Ben closed his own hatch, and fired up the engines.
"You know what I mean, Rey," he said softly, and Rey was struck by the rawness in his tone, "Are you sure you want to do this?"
Rey turned to him, and took in his drenched appearance, biting her lip in consternation.
After a pause, she answered, "Of course I'm sure, Ben. I wouldn't have pushed you otherwise. And as far as the Resistance is concerned, the less they know the better. I'm sure a few of them saw our lightsabers clashing, if nothing else due to the visibility. They'll piece it together when I'm not around."
He swallowed hard, the little bump on his throat bobbing, "And their pain, their fear, it doesn't bother you?"
Guilt twisted in her gut, and she sighed.
"You just had to go and say that, didn't you?" she muttered, "Yes it bothers me. But right now, you're more important to me than that inconvenience. They'll be completely fine when they realise I'm okay. You, on the other hand, would not have been so spry if I had just let you go-"
Rey lightly smacked the dash in front of him.
"-Now take us up and key us in for Korriban. I won't change my mind, no matter how long you stall."
Ben groaned slightly, wiping most of the water from his eyes before taking off.
They were both soaked through, and Rey was starting to shake violently with the cold. Ben was also shivering, but not as heavily as she was.
"Oh frack it all," she hissed, fitfully untying her belt and tossing it into the storage behind their seats.
In her peripherals, she saw Ben do a small double-take, but he said nothing as she pulled her tunic off, and then all the rest till she was left in only her bindings.
She ignored his wide-eyed stare, furiously searching in all the compartments she could find while he put them into hyperspace, all the time trembling like a leaf caught in a storm.
"What the ever-living Force are you doing?" he asked after a while, his voice strained.
Now her head was under the locked controls on her side, searching there, and unable to keep her teeth from chattering.
"Looking for a fracking blanket. I am freezing my assets off here, and even you stuffy First Order-types must stock at least one karking flight blank-"
She gasped slightly as heavy wool fell over her back.
Heavy, warm wool.
She darted upright and greedily pulled the thick blanket around her, tucking her knees under her chin, and peaking up at him from over the dark grey fabric.
He was smiling at her through jittering lips, and started configuring the auto-pilot parameters.
"Thank you," Rey murmured, "But I hope there's more than one in this ship. You look like you're gonna need it."
He shrugged, "T-there probably is, but I-I'll be alright."
As she took him in, dripping hair and quivering body, trying to keep his eyes on the controls and flicking to her huddled, blanket-clad figure every now and then, Rey was struck by the sheer normalcy of the atmosphere in the cockpit. If anything, the air that hung between them was the same easy camaraderie that they had shared on Cato Neimoidia, and Yavin Four when he had guided her through building a lightsaber. It was a contentment that, though it had an undercurrent of grievous urgency, made her heart swell, and was not unlike the comfortable hum that had run through them both the morning after...
It was an ambience wherein it could be very easy to forget that there was a war raging on around them, and that they were supposed to be on opposite sides of it.
Slowly, her body began to ache more and more as the numbing effect of the frigid water was chased from her body by the thick blanket. She didn't know whether to be happy or irritated. Rey would rather not remember the battle that had just taken place. She would rather not remember Jayal's words- her implication- or Banor's brutality. She never wanted to see Ben on the ground like that ever again. Though, some tiny part of her told her she just might.
It was the same little part that reminded her she had experienced one more scene from her Force terrors…And there was still the white sands one to-
No. No she would not think about that.
Rey fixed her eyes on Ben's face, relieved that his lips were still upturned in a little smile, despite his now aggressively shivering body. Rey shook her head slightly, and tucked the blanket under her arms, shifting to face him and sit on her knees, like she had after Hoth.
He didn't even notice her move, or else he was studiously trying not to look at her, for what reason Rey didn't know. Nor was she going to dig around in his head again for a hint. She had done quite enough of that, and she knew he needed time to deal with whatever Snoke had done.
So, Rey contented herself with edging a little closer, and gently grabbing hold of the overlapped catch of his hooded cloak. He jumped at the contact, and his eyebrows shot into his wet hair as he turned to her, his hands freezing over the controls.
"W-what-"
"Your clothes are more water than they are textile, Ben. Off."
He didn't move, still regarding her with a bewildered expression.
Rey just sighed, and finally tugged the cloak free, pulling it out from behind him and tossing it to join her clothes in the back. Maybe the heat of being so close to the hyperdrive would dry them faster, Force only knew. Either way, she was not going to watch him shiver anymore.
"Rey, I-"
"Hush and help me."
Rey leaned over and started working on the ties of his tunic, and almost giggled to herself when he hit the control-lock for his side of the ship with a shaking hand.
"We are on auto-pilot right?"
He rolled his eyes, pulling off his gloves to reveal blue-tinged hands.
"Yes, Rey."
She grabbed his hands them, and made a startled noise at how frigid they were.
"Good Force you're frozen. Holy frack, Ben."
Hurriedly, Rey rubbed his hands between hers until at least the blue tinge was gone, before letting her fingers fly back to his tunic, and work faster on the catches.
She could have sworn she heard him chuckle as he he tossed his own belt and saber aside. Then his hands joined hers again, and with the belt gone, the tunic came off with relative ease.
He was definitely chortling at her.
"What is it?" she asked, exasperated, sitting back to re-adjust the blanket around her while he tugged his boots off, not meeting her gaze.
Ben shook his head with that smirk still playing on his lips. At least he wasn't shivering as badly now, but the clothes that remained were just as sodden, despite his robes being but thicker than hers. Deftly, she worked on the ties of his undershirt, and then he outright laughed.
"What?"
He looked at her with twinkling eyes, and a smile that made her heart flutter, "Well, if you were so impatient to get me undressed, you could have just said so earlier."
Rey rolled her eyes, despite the blush that she could feel creeping over her cheeks, "Shush you, I'm just trying to make sure you don't die of hypothermia because your ego was on a masculine trip."
He lifted his arms at her prompting so that she could pull the shirt over his head, still chuckling softly.
Then she froze.
Rey had never really, truly looked at his body before. Only felt it or ghosted over it. Never really looked. He was covered in scars. Most of them were red or purple from typical medical means. There were only a precious few that were light and smooth from Force-Healing. She rocked back onto her feet, hands tucked to her mouth with his shirt still clutched in them. He raised a brow at her, and then his smile quickly faded when he realised what the cause was for her pause.
With an expression of shame, he reached overhead and pulled another blanket from the compartment, draping it over his shoulders before pulling his trousers off as well, and tossing it to join the pile. It was when he wrapped the blanket around himself completely with a grimace that Rey snapped out of her reverie.
"No, no," she quickly breathed, throwing his shirt to the side and worming her hands under his blanket to bare his chest again, "Don't, please, I…"
Her words trailed off as she ran her hands over his chest. Sure, she had seen it all before, after Hoth. But she had been so focused on healing his wound that she had registered 'scars', and nothing else. With this new information on Jayal and Banor, however…
Ben shuddered under her hands as one trailed up over his chest to lightly trace the end of the scar she had caused. Rey had no idea it ran this far down. She hadn't thought to look, she hadn't thought…
"Ben…"
He caught her hands in his then and she looked up to meet his eyes.
"What did they do to you?"
She could see he knew exactly who she meant.
"Jayal, not as much as she wanted to. I didn't ever let her get very far. Banor? As much as he could manage during the few training sessions I had with him. The rest are a mix of Snoke and the Elite." He raised on hand to caress her cheek with his thumb, his gaze softening, very aware of her after-effects of the fight, "Don't worry, Rey. Those two are dead now. They can't do anything to you, or me, ever again."
The shame didn't leave his eyes though, and Rey tugged her hands free from his to continue tracing every mark on his skin, pressing gently every now and then.
Soon, Ben let his head fall against the seat, his eyes closed, and his throat bared to her.
Slowly, Rey leaned forward and pressed her lips to the hollow of his neck, her hands braced on his shoulders. Ben's own hands were on her within the second, and all but hauled her into his lap as she trailed her lips up his throat to his jaw, and back down. He pulled her blanket over her back, and tucked it around them both before encircling her with his arms and bundling her against his chest.
She hummed appreciatively against his throat, eliciting a quiet moan from the man beneath her.
"You're warm," she mumbled against his jaw, with a measure of pride at her achievement.
"Well thank goodness for that," he breathed, turning his head to kiss her cheek, "because if not I'd be forced to seriously question my mammalian status."
Rey smiled into his skin, running her hands down his back to better hold him to her. She could feel his heart thud against her chest, and let her head fall onto his shoulder.
"It's a while to Korriban yet, right? So we can stay like this for a little while."
Rey sounded almost pleading, even though she hadn't intended it that way.
She felt him nod against her head, but his body had gone tense under hers. Lifting her head, she frowned to see he wore an anxious expression once more.
"Ben?"
"Are you sure, Rey?" he whispered, his hands clenching on her back, "Are you sure you want to do this? Because I can drop you at any planet on this route, say I had to make a fuel stop, damage the hyperdrive to make it look like you escaped, any-"
He was babbling in a panic, and Rey swiftly cut him off with a hand over his mouth, shifting in his lap to straddle him more comfortably and face him head-on.
"Enough, Ben. Enough."
His brows were still knitted together, and there was desperate argumentation in his eyes. Rey brought her other hand to his face, and gently rubbed tiny circles into his temples before letting her fingertips drift to trace his brow, his nose, his lips, and then twine in to his hair before she let her forehead rest on his.
He sighed heavily, but it was a shuddering sound, and his own hands moved to cup her shoulder-blades.
"I've made my decision, and yes, I'm scared too. But I won't ever regret the right decision-"
He gulped, nodding against her.
"-And no one ever said it would be easy, Ben. I'm under no illusions."
Not necessarily the right or easy thing, Maz had said, but the thing that reminded people what it meant to care.
Force damn her but she cared so terribly much.
"You know," she said softly, leaning back to look at him, and waited till he opened his eyes before she continued, "I told myself day in and day out that I would do it all for Leia. That I would bring you home just for Leia…"
Ben tilted his head when she trailed off, but waited on her.
Rey took a deep breath, smiling incredulously at herself, her hand resting on Ben's neck and cradling his head. How far they had come…
"-But after Cato Neimoidia-After Dromund- Maybe further back. Maybe from the first time I ever healed you I don't know…But it wasn't just for Leia anymore, Ben-"
She licked her suddenly dry lips as one of Ben's hands trailed up the back of her neck and gently knotted in her hair, sending shivers down her spine. Absentmindedly, Ben was running his fingers through her loose hair, with a look of absolute marvel on his face.
"-It wasn't just for Leia," she murmured, "It was for me to, because I care about you, Ben. I care, and I'm not going to let you go so easily."
His expression could only be described as painful joy, the smile that tugged on the corners of his mouth a jittery one that didn't quite know if it needed to be a grin or a grimace.
Ben settled for pulling her flush against him and capturing her lips in his with a gentle, enquiring kiss. Rey obliged with no hesitation, angling her mouth over his and running her hands down his neck and back again to hold herself closer. He was searing underneath her now, all cold from the icy rains of Dxun gone from their bodies as they sat huddled in the pilot's chair, skin on skin. Ben moved his arms to cross around and cradle her body again, with the large blankets thoroughly engulfing them both.
The kissed they shared weren't needy or geared towards more. They were swallowing and whole, offering comfort and hope. Where tongues had danced before inciting scorching passion, now they collided with only the need of contact and closeness. Moans and whimpers devoured by each other were without the prior need for release, and grasping hands sought only for affirmation of the other's presence and life.
As the kiss slowed, and Ben uttered her name in his gasps for air, it was plain that they just needed, for now, to be, and it would be enough. Her head fell back to his shoulder, and he gathered her snugger to his body, resting his own head on hers. Gradually, their wild heartbeats and breathing slowed, and they simply revelled in the other's presence.
"Sleep," he whispered against her hair, "We will have enough time to right ourselves before landing on Korriban."
There was an inkling of teasing merriment in his voice that thrilled Rey, and she found herself very ready to nod off in his arms, as familiar and inviting as his embrace was.
"We'll be alright, Ben. We'll be alright," Rey muffled against his skin, nuzzling closer and positively relishing the warmth that was Ben Solo.
She felt him press a lingering kiss to her head before resting his own there again, and she finally got to fall asleep in his arms again like she had wanted to for so long.
Not even the looming arrival on Korriban could make moments like this any less than what they were to Rey, and what they were was remarkably precious.
