author's note:
Howdy everyone! So… the apocalypse. Here we are. It's been a crazy, insane, absolutely ridiculous month for the world hasn't it? Here in Prague where I am we've been under a full housebound quarantine for ten days. Ten long, long days. Cabin fever and madness is starting to set in, so this chapter's a short one without that much really happening, but I just had to write SOMETHING. I hope this chapter (and especially the next!) brighten up someone's day!
"How did Luke convince you to marry me?"
Rey sat perched at the edge of Kylo's bed. He had kept trying to get up and bring her over to him until Rey had relented and sat close enough that she hoped she wasn't crowding him.
Kylo smiled at her question, his hand idly gliding along the tops of her thighs and pulling the fabric of her skirt.
"I convinced myself to marry you, Rey. Luke gives himself far too much credit."
There was an unsubtle barb to how he spoke his uncle's name. Rey swallowed, trying not to think about the inevitable confrontation that would surely come between the two of them.
"So why, then?" she pressed.
His hand continued to wander, tickling her skin until Rey trapped it with a flat pressure of her palm across his knuckles.
"I saw you. You intrigued me. I was bored."
Rey frowned for a second before making an offended sniff.
"Bored. How lovely. Such a romantic admission of apathy at first sight."
Kylo only shrugged. He flipped his hand over to link their fingers together.
"I just assumed that you were someone my uncle had hired to depose of me in some way. Or maybe hired by one of my apparently limitless enemies to lure away from the throne and then kill. Turns out you nearly succeeded with both."
His tone was light and jesting, but Rey's face immediately crumpled. She knew he didn't mean to be cruel but-
"I'm sorry."
He brought their linked hands to his lips and kissed each one of her knuckles. Rey pressed her lips together, biting down hard on the inside of them to keep from letting out the tears that had been brewing for so many days now.
"I was never against you, Kylo," she finally managed to say. "People tried to kill you, the whole world tried, but..."
She thought for a long moment about how to end that. Kylo continued to play with her hand, now taking to lightly biting at her fingertips to keep her attention.
Rey inhaled an exhaled, closing her eyes and trying to calm herself before she continued.
It had been five days now, or at least she thought so. She was beginning to go stir-crazy and desperate, but at least she had also managed to get the reluctant Fel doctor's name. Oheneia. Rey was quite sure she had yet to pronounce it properly despite her best efforts.
"Kylo."
She opened her eyes and failed to pull her hand away as he began to kiss along the edge of her thumb.
"Kylo, I'm on your side now more than ever. Do you know that?"
His persistent pawing at her stilled. When he looked up at her there was a challenge in his eyes. Still he refused to let her hand go, instead now pulling at her arm until she had no choice but to flop sideways down on her elbow.
"Prove it."
His other hand traced her cheek, cradling her face. Rey closed her eyes for just a second to bask in this moment. He was alive. Warm to her touch. Feeling better enough to be annoying again.
"I thought all three of us would die out in the desert," she whispered. "You. Me. Dala. It was so horrible."
He pulled her into a chaste kiss. There was a slight stiffness to his movements and Rey knew with certainty that he was still in no small amount of pain but was trying to hide from her.
"I'm sorry," he repeated. "This was my fault."
Rey huffed humorlessly. The position Kylo had twisted her into was highly uncomfortable, but she could stand it for a good while longer.
"It was," she agreed. "It really, really was."
Kylo laughed and kissed her a second time. Today he was very affectionate. Very clingy. He had pouted whenever she had to leave even if it was only for the short time to go to her bedroom across the hall to retrieve a book to read to him.
However, the moment he tried to deepen their kiss beyond something purple innocent, Rey forced herself to pull away.
"Your beard's growing in," she mumbled, always at a loss for words around her husband but feeling a keen need to distract herself. "It's tickling me."
"Only for a moment."
Rey straightened, her back creaking in protest to being bent at odd angles. Kylo immediately caught her with placing his hand rather high on her lap. She frowned down at it. Did the man never stop? Truly?
"But I supposed you don't know what that means, do you?" he asked, his tone both playful and pained. "My dear, sweet, virginal wife."
Rey snatched his wrist, stopping his circular latest groping before it could proceed any further.
"Kylo, you nearly died."
He grunted, trying to push himself up to embrace her from behind. Rey immediately turned, pressing her palm to his shoulder to hold him back down. Then the deviousness of his plan revealed itself when his his hand found her backside and give her a highly rude pinch.
His confident smirk lasted a heartbeat before his face suddenly reddened and the offending hand fell away.
"Doctor," he greeted, settling back down.
Rey winced, scrunching her face up tight as she straightened again and looked back behind them.
Oheneia took a step forward into the room, her medical bag in hand. Blessedly her heavily concealed face hid whatever disapproval she no doubt held for the scene she had walked in on.
"Bandages," was all she said.
Oh yes, there it was. The slight tone of reprimand. Oheneia had been very clear before that Kylo was expected to move as little as possible so as to not set back his recovery, though this latest bought of flirtatious gymnastics was hardly Rey's fault.
Kylo lightly patted Rey's back and she fought the urge to swat at him.
"Time to get all clean and pretty for my wife."
Rey nodded, leaving to go fetch a pail of warm water for the doctor then give her husband privacy.
Rey had already begun to get a little more familiar with the Xa caves.
She had gone back to that beautiful waterfall room often. It was her own way of counting the days. Watching for the glow of dawn or sunset and the spaces of night and day between as they played out high above her head. It was oddly comforting, even though time seemed to flow so slowly down here below the surface.
Two more days passed in a similar way. Rey would spend most of her husband's waking moments by his side. Talking to him, reading to him, getting groped by him. He was certainly growing stronger and healing well, the Fel doctor knew her craft.
Amusingly, the doctor would also insist that Rey leave her husband's side for a few hours every night after she'd changed his bandages so he could get some proper rest. Clearly she'd figured out Kylo was getting restless and Rey was a distraction simply by being in his line of sight.
That gave her the perfect opportunity to explore. Master Luke had asked her not to, but the Fel didn't seem to mind. Or they watched her silently, not making a move to stop her. Perhaps that was a more accurate description, and Rey chose to interpret it as invitation enough.
Then her old master had become conspicuously absent. The doors leading up to the Hesitance's side of the cave were locked up tight, and Rey noticed that there seemed to be fewer and fewer Fel about as she took her daily walks. When she pressed Oheneia about it she simply was given the answer that 'they were being called away'.
She knew they must be close to the ocean. She could smell an edge of salt to the air sometimes, and the early mornings of her viewing would have a thick blanket of fog that would spill down through the opening in the rocks. It never quite reached as far as the waterfall room she'd asked Mater Luke about it and he'd confirmed they were "a short two days journey from the sea" though he refused to give her any further details about the exact location of the Resistance's secret base.
Something was happening. The Resistance was likely gathering their forces for whatever their plan was, and Rey wondered if Alderaan's General was also making his play to power. And all of this was going on without them, despite Rey's husband truly being at the center of it all.
Another day passed quietly, until Rey returned from another hour of gazing at the darkening sky and found him standing there, her old Master. Luke was waiting patiently outside Kylo's door, and his expression was unreadable as ever when Rey approached meekly.
"The doctor is with him now," was all he said.
Rey nodded. She waited, expecting to be chastised for straying from their designated little corridor. Luke remained silent, however, and Rey's patience quickly fluttered.
"Where have you been?" she asked, stepping closer. "We've been down here eight days now, and I haven't seen you for three. What's going on?"
Master Luke looked from her to Kylo's door then back to her again.
"A great deal," he finally said. "Events are underway, and I'm doing my every effort to prevent bloodshed that now feels almost inevitable. I need to speak to my nephew, and it's been six days, not eight."
Rey swallowed.
"Has it?"
"Yes."
Time didn't even seem real anymore. Not down here when only brief glances at the color of the sky and her body's own natural rhythms were all she had to go on.
The door opened and the doctor hesitated before stepping out to join them. Luke took a step closer and spoke quietly to her in a language Rey didn't understand. Irritation prickled along her skin at being left out of their brief conversation, but the doctor left after only a few sentences had been spoken.
"Master?"
"Ben will likely be recovered enough to be able to be moved soon," Luke answered. He put his hand on the door handle before pausing and looking back at her. "Rey, come in with me for this. I haven't spoken to my nephew in my many years."
She hugged her arms around herself, a knot of tension itching between her shoulders.
"You want me to be a buffer."
He nodded. "Please."
Rey hesitated, before tipping her head in assent. The last thing she wanted was her husband's short temper to rear up and he do something foolish like hurting his wound again, but this likely was going to be a powerfully unpleasant family reunion.
Still, she made a point of going inside first.
"So Hux has announced I'm dead, killed by General Kamen during our stay with the caravan, and now he's trying to start a war with the Northbound Lands to -ahem- avenge me." Kylo nodded thoughtfully as he mulled it over. "You have to hand it to Hux. Sure he's one smarmy, uptight karker, but that's a damned fine plan if you think about it."
He leaned against the edge of the table next to his bed, his posture a show of casual indifference, but Rey could see the subtle shake to his muscles from the effort of standing.
When she had first come inside he had been putting on his boots. Boots that he had gotten up by himself to fetch then walked back to his bed to put on.
Rey had snapped immediately, berating him that Oheneia had ordered him to move as little as possible. He'd had the nerve to tell her that he was going out to find her because he'd missed her.
Then he'd seen Master Luke behind her and the conversation had turned passive aggressively hostile faster than Rey could blink.
"I see you're feeling better now Ben," Luke answered. "I'm glad for it."
"Don't."
Kylo's grip was starting to turn white knuckled against the table's edge and Rey immediately stepped forward and drew back the top blanket on his bed for him. He ignored her completely, choosing instead to continue his pointless antagonism against his uncle.
"I'm surprised you've gone to so much trouble for me, Skywalker," he spat. "I'd been wondering if I'd died and gone to heaven to be with my wife, but then you walked in and threw that idea away just like you had with me long ago."
Rey fidgeted, again trying to subtly indicate for Kylo to sit the kark down before he collapsed. Turned out anger was a better incentive than self respect.
"I had wanted to wait for you to recover before I told you about the current events, Ben," Luke persisted. "Your mother's ship has been delayed by a late season storm, but it will arrive at port in a few day's time. We believe that Hux will use that as the trigger to claim the Alderaan throne for himself."
Kylo scoffed, his too-pretty face distorting itself into a pained sneer.
"But not if your Resistance makes their move first. I suppose you've got this all figured out already haven't you, Skywalker?"
Rey glanced quickly between the two men. Kylo looked infuriated and Master Luke… well he had that stoic, aloof expression that she had come to know meant he was culling his feelings.
"I never wanted the throne for myself," Luke said carefully. "Your mother knew that and I know you do too."
"Don't you dare try to tell me what I think."
Kylo growled it, forcing the words out through his tightly clenched teeth as he shoved away from the table to stalk forward. The pain of each step was clear and Rey tried to stop him but he immediately pushed he back. Master Luke straightened but didn't so much as blink despite how greatly Rey's furious husband towered over him.
"Get out," he spat. "Get out and don't come back. You should have let me die out there in the desert and save yourself the trouble of trying to ease your conscience."
Finally Master Luke frowned. He dropped his head, his greyed brows pulling together.
"Ben, please-" he began, but he was immediately cut off.
"Get out!" Kylo shouted, taking another shaking step closer. "Get out before I throw you out no, and don't doubt for a moment that I will no matter how much it costs me."
Before Master Luke could answer Kylo wavered slightly, his legs starting to buckle underneath him. Rey dashed to his good side immediately, tucking herself under his arm to hold him up. The fact that Kylo didn't protest her assistance told her volumes about who much this was taxing him.
"Please go," she pleaded to her Master. "We can talk about this another time."
Luke held her gaze for a long moment before nodding and taking a step back.
"Later," he agreed.
She felt the low growl rumble through Kylo's chest and she held on tighter as more of his weight settled against her.
Luke paused when he was halfway out the doorway. He took a moment to clear his throat before speaking whatever was weighing on his mind.
"Ben," he said, "Rey had spoken to me about her wish for an annulment. I think- I would like you to consider honoring her request. She was always an innocent party to all of this, and it's only right that you give her her life back."
Then the door shut behind him and the silence was so deafening Rey could hear her own heartbeat pounding against her chest.
A beat passed, then Kylo lifted his arm from around her and stepped back. She started to turn to help him but he shoved her, his palm noticeably clammy against the back of her shoulders.
"Ben, I didn't mean it like that. Uncle Luke completely misunderstood-"
"Don't call me that ever. Don't call him that either, but certainly not me."
Kylo limped over to the bed, and his body collapsed against it with such force the whole frame shook. Rey immediately tried to rush over to him to check if that stupid move hadn't torn open his side, but he insolently turned his back to her.
"Kylo."
Her voice caught. He yanked the blanket out of her hand as she tried to draw it over him.
"I'm rather tired, darling wife," he snapped, his voice ragged around the edges. "I think I should like a full night's sleep alone."
Rey reached out to rub his shoulder and apologize but hesitated at the last moment. Her husband's pettiness was unlike any others. It hurt terribly that he simply took Luke's words at face value, but Rey also knew that there would be no point in trying to reason with him when he was petulant to the point of self destruction like this.
But he hadn't even given her a chance. He'd just assumed.
Rey pulled back then, walking quietly to the door. She would need to find the doctor and have her check him. He shouldn't have been moving at all let alone… any of the rest of that.
"Goodnight," she offered before she left.
No answer. Petulant. Obnoxious. Husband-child.
Rey sighed before closing the door. She didn't even know what the mattress in her own room felt like, but apparently she was going to find out.
Just…
Gods karking damnit Luke…
Author's note:
Next chapter is probably just going to be our cantankerous duo getting frisky, lol. Gotta have that makeup fun, right? ;)
comment replies
cdknelson – Thank you! The Arabian Nights was a huge inspiration for this story of course! I'm so glad you like it! :D
benfan1 - Oooh, glad you liked this chapter! Thank you for commenting!
kaelmona – Lots going on behind the scenes now, more than Rey knows but she's soon to find out! Thanks for commenting!
Paul Lenzen - Heh, well… this last update took me a month but with pretty good reason! Thanks for sticking with it and commenting!
ldsrsc - Lol, wellllllll… this last chapter. So… yeah!
RedPandaMiko – I'm gonna finish, I promise! It just may take me a good long while! Thanks for commenting!
Anon - Glad to hear you enjoyed this story! Thanks for commenting!
Hobbitpony1 - Yes, Kylo/Ben is just one big ol romantic softie. With a hardie ;) Thanks for commenting!
1Hurricane – Well welcome aboard to this story! Super glad to have you here and thanks very much for commenting!
FranQuel - Thank you for commenting! I don't get very many readers in other languages. i'm happy you've been enjoying this story so far, and I think you will like the ending I have in mind too!
ToughSpirit - He's better alright! Better enough to go back to being a pain in the ass, lol! Thanks for commenting!
FourShot411 - Ahh yes, the harem! I caught some heat for that for sure, but I think it fit with the world I wanted to build. Both our main characters have grown a lot since those first chapters too! Thanks very much for commenting!
