A/N: Content warning - we're gonna really push the limits of our 'T' rating here. But trust me, in the most tasteful way. I promised you at the beginning we wouldn't go anywhere explicit, and we won't! So ride with me into the conclusion (minus the epilogue) of our long and winding road.
CHAPTER NINETEEN: At Last
REY
However low their opinion of her had sunk during her time here with Luke, the caretakers had proven forgiving and generous in hosting a lively feast and dance for the newlyweds and their companions. Maybe they just liked a good excuse for a party.
The night was one of rapturous joy, and Rey felt almost dizzy with euphoria. She ate well and danced with her friends, she hugged everyone who wanted it, she even made a concerted effort to speak to the caretakers in the bits of their language she had tried to pick up.
And through all of it, Ben.
Ben beside her, Ben pulled away from her, Ben watching or touching or even sometimes kissing her when he got the chance. Ben smiling.
He was more reserved in this revelry than Rey, but she could feel his happiness like a brightly burning flame in him. And she burned too. Their twin fires were merged.
His mother found him and embraced him once more. He returned the affection, murmuring his gratitude for her. She embraced Rey next, and Rey didn't know how to express how much she loved and appreciated this woman who had become every bit the mother she ever wanted. Ben reacted to this with a surge of satisfaction and peace. The feeling in him radiated through Rey too - their world was now made right.
Finn took Leia's place, bouncing and overflowing with excitement for them. They laughed and let him embrace them both yet again. He pointed at Ben and issued some good-natured threats about not hurting Rey, and he told Rey that she could have done a lot better, but said it all with a wink and a rush of genuine joy.
After Poe came and dragged Finn away to come try some drink he'd just discovered, Ben took Rey over to a table overflowing with all kinds of food. They sat in a couple of vacant chairs. Ben dragged hers close to his and kissed her again, deep and unconcerned with anyone who might be watching. It made Rey shiver with pleasure.
The caretakers showered the couple with beaded necklaces and crowns made of shells and feathers, they heaped gifts of salted fish, handmade bowls, and utensils carved from bones on the table before Rey and Ben. Threepio translated where Rey's ability failed. They expressed their congratulations and wished luck, harmony, and a path through the Force for the new couple.
Court flopped into a chair beside Rey, exhausted from a particularly rigorous dance. She seized one of the drinks and downed it one long draught. Setting the cup down, she looked over at them, at Rey holding tight to Ben's hand.
"So?" She asked. "What happens now?"
Rey grinned. "We take the Falcon wherever we want, you take the others back to Naboo in the shuttle."
Court laughed. "No, I know what happens now," she said, flashing Rey a cheeky glance. "I meant what happens with your whole galaxy-saving plan?"
"Oh." Rey's face flushed hot and she laughed along with her friend. "Nothing happens. We keep going. Nothing has changed as far as anyone beyond this island is concerned. We just keep doing what we started until the First Order is completely dissolved."
"And then?"
"I don't know," she admitted.
Court shifted in her seat. "Well, that's good enough, anyway. I was just afraid you'd dismiss me as your pilot."
"Why would we do that?" Ben asked mildly, apparently tuned into the conversation.
"Well, I mean, I don't know." Court shrugged, motioning to the feast around them. "People tend to make new life choices after something like this. I assumed you would too."
"We have a job to do," Ben assured her. "I hired you for the duration of that job, and I expect you to stay until then."
"And after," Rey added. "I want you to always be in my life. Even when we don't need a pilot anymore, you're still my friend."
Court patted Rey's hand, giving her a wink. "Don't worry, Boss Queen, I'm not so easy to get rid of as that."
Rose came over to cajole them into another dance. Court went but Rey demurred. Ben had shown her once that he knew how to dance - at least formally - but he didn't seem inclined to show everyone else his secret. Besides, the party was loud, her friends energetic and a little drunk, and Rey felt a sudden craving to be alone with Ben. So rather than dance, she chose instead to take Ben's hand and pull him away from the crowd, toward the rocky outcropping the villagers used to launch their boats. It was quieter out here, and a little more private.
"Just tell me when you want to leave them," she murmured, leaning into his chest, savoring the feeling of his arms encircling her.
"I was ready to leave hours ago."
Rey laughed. "Haven't you had a good time?"
"Yes," he admitted. "But I'm looking forward to the next part where we get to be alone."
Rey blushed and said nothing about this. Without leaving his embrace, she turned her head away from the rolling black water and back towards the feast, observing then lights and colors with a sense of peaceful distance now. "This was exactly right," she decided. "These last few months your mother has asked me over and over what I wanted, what I was hoping for. I didn't know. I had no idea what to hope for, all I wanted was to be somewhere with you and then leave that place -married... to you."
She still staggered around the word, still felt the alien strangeness of it. A word that couldn't possibly apply to her. Not as a lonely scavenger, not as a Jedi. It was what drove her from her bed in the restless hour before dawn, seeking some reconciliation with that word and her own identity.
But she shunted these thoughts away and continued. "But if I had known what to hope for, I would have wanted this."
Ben's breath was steady and calm against her, his emotions subdued. He dropped a kiss into her hair and held her tighter still. "I'm happy you are happy," he said contentedly.
"I can feel them all around us," she told him. "The others. The ones who have gone."
The ones they saw in that strange fever dream.
"So can I," he said. "And earlier, I could have sworn —" shaking his head, he decided, "But it couldn't have been. My father can't do the things Luke and the other Jedi can do. He doesn't have that ability."
"No," Rey agreed, but if Ben saw an image of his father she didn't necessarily think it was just an illusion. "The veil between our two worlds is thinner here. And with us here, and your mother, and the Jedi who came before, it may be that there is enough life force on this island to thin it further. I can feel him. I think what you saw was real."
There certainly were strange and powerful things happening in the Force, and the epicenter of all of it was right here.
"Come on," Ben said, stepping back so he could take her hand. "Let's sneak away."
Rey laughed. "Just leave everyone?"
"If what you said is true, there are a lot more people here than I want to deal with. Besides, they're having fun. We'll disrupt them if we say goodbye. And there's somewhere I want to take you. Another candidate in our quest to find the most beautiful place."
Rey's insides fluttered and anticipatory warmth spread through her. She nodded, the glow of the feast lights reflecting in Ben's eyes and giving him that soft look she loved so well.
She let him lead her by the hand into the night, across the sea-foam shore and salted rocks. The music and revelry of the party fell away behind them, a distant song echoing faintly over the rolling deep and conversant waves. Above them the galaxy was all arrayed in a presentation of stars, countless and shining, all of it connected by a living web of energy.
How often had Rey, unable to sleep for the unending gnaw of loneliness in the pit of her stomach, lay at the top of her AT-AT home and stared up at these very stars, imagining every place better than where she was? How many times had she dreamed of green worlds, of people who didn't scrounge for a living in the sand, of someone who could stop the pain with a kind word, a kind touch, an unconditional love?
But in all her nights spent imagining, she never thought of Ben. She didn't know that a love like this could exist at all.
But here he was, leading her through the dark to the ramp of her ship, speaking nothing while his heart thrummed along the same vibration of her own. Her miraculous other half.
They entered the Falcon and closed the ramp behind them. He took her to the cockpit and directed her into the captain's seat, taking his own place beside her. While she fired up the ship, he punched in coordinates she didn't recognize.
Then they lifted off and sailed out above an inky sea, veering back to see the island below, the party glowing like an ember at the edge of a dark mountain.
A moment later, they were among the stars, high above the planet.
"Where are we going?" Rey asked curiously.
Ben slid her a sly glance. "Somewhere nobody else knows about."
"Nobody," she scoffed.
"Nobody. I found it in one of your Jedi texts. Unless someone else has borrowed your books and translated the old writing, we are the only ones alive who can find it."
A pleasant tingle ran down Rey's spine at the thought of having a secret spot they could escape too. A place no one could find them.
Ben hummed in wordless agreement to her unspoken thought.
With the coordinates set, Rey engaged the hyperdrive and the Falcon purred happily into whirling blue space. No difficult mechanics and failed motivators today. Maybe she was going easy on them in her own rudimentary act of celebration.
With nothing to do but wait until they were out of hyperspace, Ben grabbed Rey's hand again and drew her out of her chair, pulling her into his lap. One arm wound around her middle, the other slyly moving up the back of her neck to her hair, sliding out the pins she'd used to secure it so it fell free down her neck. He pressed his lips into her shoulder.
"You smell like fresh air," he murmured.
Heat crept up her body, pooling in her cheeks. She laughed softly, leaning into him. "I hope that's a good thing."
"It is." He held her close, pressing his forehead against her, swallowing hard. After a minute of silence, he confessed, "All day I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know how I should feel. But when I saw you—"
His voice caught, and Rey put her hand on the side of his face. He leaned into it. She stroked her thumb across his high cheekbone, a flood of tenderness rising up into her throat.
"I know," she said softly. "I felt it too."
For most of that day she had kept her end of their Force bond quiet, sitting at the top of the island, alone with her thoughts and unsettled feelings. She had the keen sense that she was standing at the edge of some metaphorical precipice again, a moment of irreversible change. A moment of choice which would alter the trajectory of her life forever. She was ready to make it — fear wasn't the dominant feeling here. Indeed daily life wouldn't change much at all. But the sensation that overwhelmed her after the Force vision in the Rylothian cave meadow had returned, and she needed to sit with it for a while, to try to understand it. She eventually left, not sure that she succeeded but ready to face the music anyway.
But when she saw Ben, waiting for her, arrayed in dark gray and looking at her like the sun had dawned for the very first time, everything inside her resolved into one powerful feeling of belonging. That vision didn't matter. Her unsettled emotions quieted. All that mattered now was Ben, her tortured prince, and the promise she would repeat to him once more. The promise she gave him first at the Resistance base, just before he kissed her for the first time.
The Force moved through them now in amplified waves, powerful and harmonious and satisfied. They felt it, even hurtling through space faster than light. There was so much they could explore, so much to learn about what their unusual bond meant for their abilities. They'd managed to find the trick of sharing power, but there had to be more. They weren't two halves of one whole for no reason at all.
"I will find the secrets that are waiting for us," Ben promised in a low murmur. "We will discover our full potential."
She slid her hand around the back of his neck, toying with his hair. "And as you search the ancient ways, I will pass on what we know. New generations will follow in our footsteps, in the middle path."
Rey could picture the place in her mind. Their home away from all of the galaxy's troubles. The place where they would establish their own Force temple. A foggy, craggy highland on an isolated planet. A place that most of the time was shrouded in gray mist, but on a clear day would provide a whole dazzling view. She didn't know where it was, but they'd both seen it before, and she had no doubt they would find it.
"We'll accelerate the First Order plan," he decided. "We'll finish it, so we can be free. None of that feels important anymore anyway. Only this."
He held her tighter still, and she rested her head in the crook of his neck. He smelled like fresh air too, she realized. Like the ocean breezes and grass of the island.
They stayed like that, relaxed together, for the remainder of their hyperspace flight. When the approach signal beeped, Rey went back to her own seat and dropped the ship out of hyperspace.
A little planet loomed before them, emerald green and turquoise, its atmosphere streaked with white fluffy weather systems. It looked peaceful. Rey gave Ben a curious glance.
"Are the locals pre-industrial? Is that why the galaxy doesn't know about this place? It looks too beautiful to be unknown."
Places like Endor's moon with tribal populations could go unnoticed for generations, simply because their indigenous residents didn't reach out to the rest of the modern galaxy and until they were discovered had no opportunity for trade. But something as idyllic-looking as this would surely be a tourist destination if the rest of the galaxy knew about it.
"There are no locals," Ben said. "This world has no evolved species. It is early in its life-cycle. Nothing has evolved enough to have discovered tools."
Rey blinked in surprise. They really would have the place all to themselves, then. The whole planet. "And you found this in the Jedi texts?"
"It's an old waypoint between temples. Long ago, Jedi would sometimes stop here on their pilgrimages, or to retreat for fasting and meditation."
The Falcon sank into the planet's atmosphere, Rey deft at the helm, taking them to a place she only knew how to find by Ben's unspoken guidance. She could see small seas and deep canyons filled with glittering turquoise water cutting between verdant green landscapes. As they got closer, she saw birds flying over lush forests and wide open meadows. Huge mountains jutted sharply out of the landscape, indigo-black rocks making for dramatic cliff faces and giving the lowlands imposing sentinels. Peace immediately filled her heart at the sight of it.
"It's beautiful," she whispered.
He smiled. "I thought you might like it."
"Have you already been here?" She banked into a narrow valley. A river snaked down the center of it, with grassy fields and patches of green willowy trees intermittently along its bank. On either side, rocky mountain slopes rose sharply above, waterfalls tumbling here and there, both big and small. She sucked in a sharp breath.
"Of course I have," he said with amusement. "I didn't want to bring you to a place I hadn't vetted first. What if the old Jedi waypoint was only a bare rock in the middle of a vast desert?"
Rey grimaced at the thought. "No thank you."
"I figured you've had enough of deserts to last you a lifetime," he agreed.
He motioned to a clear stretch of grass, and together they prepared the landing.
"But when did you have time?" she pressed, still bewildered. "When I'm with you almost always?"
"Not recently. My mother commandeered more of your time with those dresses than you realized."
Rey made a sound of disgust. She enjoyed every moment she got to spend with Leia, but that ordeal was a test of her love in ways she never could have imagined. Leia was excited, she knew that — she wanted Rey to look lovely and for everything to be just right. But stars, those dresses. She had paraded in all of Naboo's top designers and given them all a chance to win her business. Rey had tried on every imaginable combination of fabric, some of them as close against her skin as liquid, every tiny detail on display, and others so billowy and huge she couldn't even imagine how a person was supposed to move. One had a neckline that plunged all the way to her navel, and another had so many layers she required droid assistance just to get out of it. None of them felt like her.
But she didn't want to offend Leia, and she was grateful for the gesture — Leia was willing to spare no cost if it meant finding something Rey would love. But Naboo fashion and Rey didn't exactly get along, and Rey didn't know how to tell her that she would prefer to just wear her usual garb. Finally Leia brought in an elderly designer who once made apparel on Alderaan. The woman spent the day with Rey, talking little but observing much. She accompanied Rey on all her tasks, watched all her interactions, and at the end, told Leia respectfully that her vision for the girl was all wrong. Then she designed and crafted a dress that made Rey breathe a sigh of relief when she put it on. It was exactly right. And when Leia saw it, she teared up, hugging Rey tightly. Then she thanked the designer and paid her handsomely. The designer said she was honored to make something for her princess one last time.
Rey surfaced from the memory with wry amusement. Ben was right, that whole process had taken up a lot of time. Wasted time, in Rey's opinion, but she loved Leia too much to say it aloud.
When the Falcon was finally shut down, Rey ran for the loading ramp, eager to see this paradise Ben had found for them. She punched the button to lower it and ran down it before it had even touched down, leaping out into the grass. There she turned a slow circle, taking in the enormous slopes towering above her, the golden glow of two binary suns shining off the scattered waterfalls, the cry of birds and babble of the stream. She closed her eyes and breathed, letting the sounds and smells, the kiss of sunlight and the flow of the Force pass through her.
When she opened her eyes, she saw the little structure nestled in a grove of lush trees. It was a tiny cottage made of stones, bearing a roof covered over with moss and vines clinging to the side. That must have been where they stayed, the Jedi pilgrims who came before.
Ben had emerged from the Falcon and now came up beside her, a hand finding the small of her back. "So, you approve?"
"Thirty seconds here and I can't understand why anyone who came here ever left again," she said breathlessly.
His eyes danced with amusement and pleasure. "For the same reasons we'll have to leave too, I imagine."
"Responsibilities and people who care," Rey sighed. She turned into him, grabbing his collar and lifting herself up on her toes to give him a little kiss. "But thank you for finding this. It's way better than my idea."
He chuckled. "I'm glad you think so."
Leia had explained to Rey that it was a common practice for the couple to go somewhere alone after getting married, to enjoy a few days away from daily life to discover this new shift in their relationship. She asked them what they wanted to do about that. And like every single thing she'd been asked to decide about this whole wedding business, Rey had no idea. When she finally settled on Ahch-To for the wedding itself, she wondered to Ben why they couldn't just have everyone leave after the business was done and the two of them could remain there alone. That seemed simple and agreeable to her. But Ben wasn't satisfied. He told her to leave it to him, he'd find somewhere comfortable where they didn't have to think about the specter of his uncle hanging around and repeating his performance of interrupting their intimate moments.
Rey laughed remembering it.
She could find amusement now, about Luke bursting in on their hand-touching because everything had worked out so much better than he thought, but at the time it had angered her.
Ben tucked her hair behind one ear, letting his knuckles gently graze along the line of her jaw. His eyes were soft and warm again, the look in them familiar.
"I can't seem to convince my mind that any of this is real," he confessed. "That you are now my — my wife."
He stumbled over saying it as much as she squirmed to hear it. She leaned up again, hoping to silence any further use of that word by giving him something else to do.
He sunk into the distraction willingly, responding to her kiss with the heat he'd kept back earlier. She wrapped her arms around his neck, his own embrace helping to support her as she lost herself to this moment. To the taste of him and the happiness glowing in his mended heart. To the peace and purpose that engulfed her own.
And here there was no one to interrupt, nor any sudden flare of fear. So she stayed there with him for a long time, exploring the feel of him as if everything had changed since last they kissed like this. It did feel different. Deeper, somehow. Her fingers found his hair, so much hair, curls and waves that she loved to play with whenever they got close like this. He rumbled his pleasure, the thunder rolling through his chest against her. She liked inducing that sound in him. The birds around them called to one another, the waterfalls and the stream the only steady source of sound in this otherwise empty place. The knowledge that there was nobody else here emboldened her. It set her inhibitions free, cutting them one string at a time.
She took off his outermost layer and pushed her hands beneath his simpler under shirt, letting her fingers run over the strong muscles in his back. His arm around her waist pulled her in closer as he rumbled again. But just as soon as he drew her in like that, his grip slackened and he pushed her back a few inches, breathing fast, infinite black eyes searching her face with an unspoken question. She met his eyes, her own chest heaving with excited breaths, and gave him a tiny grin.
It was all he needed. He took her hand, leading her towards the little cottage. He kept glancing back at her with an expression that made her tingle from head to toe, and her heart raced an eager rhythm in her chest. Her hand was warm in his, and she kept glancing at the sharp edge of his jaw, the lushness of his hair, the ripple of his fine, strong body. Stars, he was such a specimen of genetic victory. She'd always known that, had been struck by his beauty the first time he'd taken off his helmet and been flushed with embarrassing intrigue when she caught him with his shirt off. But like the kiss, it felt different now.
Silly. Nothing was really that different.
They got to the cottage and Ben pulled her around, pressing her back up against the door and returning to her lips with such a hunger that it took her breath away.
On Jakku she'd accused him of thinking too much, being unable to commit to the moment for fear of losing control. Even on their little moon, when she tried to make something out of her restless, jumpy feelings, they'd both been too much in their own heads to let go. Now, it was all too easy to let go. Ben's mind was as devoid of cognitive thought as she'd ever detected, full instead of instinct and desire. He wasn't trying to maintain control now. She almost struggled to keep up with his fervor, until she used the door for leverage and shimmied up his body, wrapping her legs around his waist as she'd done in her AT-AT on Jakku, and forced him to crane his head up to kiss her. Only then did she gain the advantage - for a full second - until he moved his attentions to her to her neck and collar. She sucked in a sharp breath, immediately melting into his grasp while chills spread from the places where his lips fell.
In the room at the casino, Rey had managed to seize control and get him on his back, subject to her own inner predator, but she could tell that wasn't going to happen now. Ben was uncaged.
He held her tightly against him and she hung on as he fumbled behind her to open the door. A swath of cold air hit her back when he did get it open and they moved into dim, muted light, but that was the last thing real thought she had because then he was kissing her again.
She didn't notice anything about the interior of the cottage at all. She was too busy. Too lost in Ben and his ardor, his demolished inhibitions. She was a bundle of superheated nerves, all gasps and lips and hands and hair, barely aware that she'd been set down on some kind of plushy, soft surface.
Nothing between them had ever been easy. Their relationship was fraught from the beginning, a complicated web of animosity and magnetism, antagonists and would-be allies, opposites standing on either end of a cosmic scale, desperate to deny the attraction they both felt. Enemies attempting to ignore the powerful movement of the Force between them, binding them to one another. They'd had to break down so much of their own identities, stripping themselves down to their very cores, to be able to finally admit the love that had crept up between them. And even when it got easier to confess feelings, being physically intimate was still all tangled up in complicated issues. This…this marriage thing…it was Ben's idea for how to get past those issues. Actually, she knew it went much deeper than that for him and he'd proposed for so many more reasons than just this, right now. But whatever his reasoning —
It worked.
This was easy. Finally.
As easy as breathing. And even though Ben was all hunger and fire and dominance, he took his time. Like an artist skillfully and thoughtfully bringing colors out of a painting, or a sculpture out of stone, he applied exactly the right touch or word or breath at exactly the right time, drawing from her reactions she couldn't control. And his ministrations were tender, worshipping, even in his consuming desire. He was inside her head, aggressive and awed in equal measure, attune to her every feeling. When she thought she was ready, he knew otherwise. He made her wait, adding more fuel to the fire, not willing to rush any part of this.
She was in his head too, and she saw his overwhelming, overflowing adoration. It was as if every moment they'd ever endured together, from the very first blaster fire on Takodana to their kiss on the crest of the island had been leading to right now, and he was all about making it count. The fear he'd harbored was gone, replaced by confidence and desire and belonging. He was safe with her, and he would keep her safe in return. Through his mind flickered a hundred thoughts of adoration, and Rey was as overwhelmed by what she found there as what he was doing to her body. He hunted her pleasure, craving the sparks of love that exploded in her heart when he introduced her to a new feeling. He was loving every second of this, which elicited her own aching surge of affection in response.
Their trust in each other, which they already believed to be strong before they began, soared to new heights. Rey had never felt anything like this - not physically, of course - but not emotionally either. She'd not known it was possible to be even more united than they already were, but this was a furnace and they were ore.
When he finally did fulfill her mewling pleas and pushed them through that last threshold, she clung to him, shuddering and burying her face in the hollow between his neck and his shoulder. And even though he too trembled, he drew her out of hiding and soothed her with tender kisses, comforting her through it. Desire consumed her body and soul, with no pain or fear to take the edge off. The more she fed that desire, the more it gave her powerful love in return. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe, could only feel and react and drown in Ben.
He breathed her name like a prayer, and she clutched him to her, almost sick with the strength of the emotions flowing through their shared mind.
She never should have been afraid of this. Not with him. It was perfect.
And he was her, and she was him, and together they fell into the fire.
The Force around them blazed bright, a seismic shift rippling out over everything it touched. Two becoming one, a dyad made whole. Everything revolved and resolved, settling at last, the light and dark mixing into glorious shades of shadow and shine.
Later, Rey would notice the cottage and decide it was perfect. She would ask Ben about the bed, which he'd admit to bringing in ahead of time because the sleeping accommodations previously were stone slabs, like the huts on Ahch-To. They would spend so many days on the planet, exploring the wilderness and exploring each other, that when they finally returned to the larger galaxy, they'd discover that everyone went mad trying to figure out where they'd gone. But the issues that arose in their extended absence would be easily dealt with, especially together.
They would go on a thrilling quest to deliver justice to Cedris, the director for Kuat-Entralla Enterprises when they learned he was trying to cheat them, once again joining blades in vengeance against him, and nobody who would hear about it after would dare try to cross the duo again.
Ben would fulfill his mother's mandate and dismantle the organization that had tried to subjugate the entire galaxy. What worked and was deemed appropriate, Poe and the new government would incorporate. That which was dark would be destroyed. Planets would be restored, slaves set free, crime syndicates would be enraged and the galaxy would go on in a new version of everything it had always been before.
Rey would teach Finn to feel the Force, and discover that he had a knack for it after all. He might never be the stuff of Jedi, but he was a Force Sensitive nonetheless. After him, she would go on to teach others, taking breaks from helping Ben with the First Order to commune with the Force and show others how. Sometimes Leia would join her in this, and every time they did this, the two women would see visions of those who had gone before.
Skywalker and Solo would go on to become names uttered everywhere in the galaxy, in fear and awe, in hope and hate. They'd become figures of myth for many, sources of trouble for some. Those who tried to hold Ben accountable for his father's debts would be dealt with swiftly and harshly, and they learned that this Solo was much more dangerous than the last.
And together they would scour the galaxy and the Unknown Regions for Force knowledge, growing always in their ability and in their bond.
But all of that would come. For now, it could wait.
Rey glowed, peaceful and still now, Ben blissed out and lethargic, his head on her chest, impossibly soft fur blanket pulled up and over their quickly cooling bodies. His breathing was steady and deep against her, his mind drifting slow and tranquil somewhere between sleep and profound relaxation. Her fingers carded absently through his hair. She marveled at the change in her, because even though she tried to convince herself that nothing really would be different after today, she saw now how wrong that was. Everything had altered. Even her body felt unrecognizable. Things would be different now, going forward. But unlike this morning atop island summit, she didn't wonder what it meant. She didn't care. So long as she was with him, she could face just about anything.
After several sweet minutes, Ben lifted his head. His eyes searched her, warm and seemingly lit with some deep glow within those fathomless depths. He shifted against her, inching up so he could kiss her one more time, soft and reverent. "Rey."
Her heart sang at the sound of her name on his lips again. She stroked his hair back from his face. "Ben."
"You are my missing piece." His voice was soft, but broken. Like it was long ago when he told her she wasn't alone. "I'm sorry it took me so long to find you."
"It took me just as long to find you," she said gently. "But we're here now."
"I love you, Rey."
"Ben," she breathed, closing her eyes to the sublime peace washing through her heart. "I love you too."
And that was the miracle.
Yes, the future and everything they would accomplish together could wait, forever if need be. Right now they were just Ben and Rey, healed and whole. Two fractured pieces that fit together at last. Lonely children who had looked into the stars and cried into the void and waited desperately for anyone to answer. At last they had discovered each other and learned how to save one another with selfless love. Binary stars, forever joined in the cosmic dance, their fates intertwined, as destined from before the beginning.
And the Force was with them.