Rey guesses a dozen soldiers. But it's hard to be accurate in the dying emerald light. As the firework extinguishes and the shadows thicken, Rey slips her own blaster from her handbag. A click at her elbow tells her Bindu has one as well.

Then there's a soaring screech and three fans of lavender explode across the sky. Their attackers hesitate — this time Rey counts fifteen — surprised that the diners are also armed. For a moment, everybody pauses, uncertain what will happen next.

"Move over and I can get a clearer shot," Rey suggests to Ben's back.

But Ben doesn't move. He just stands between her and them, assessing. Trying to decide where to start.

"All of you, on the ground before I put you there!" A man demands. He swivels his blaster at Rey. "I'll start by putting a hole in her pretty-"

That makes Ben's decision easier. Said soldier hits the ground mid-sentence, a smoking hole where his mouth had been.

The balcony erupts. Crimson needles thread the air, shattering plates and crystal and chunks of stone. Overhead, the slow strobe of fireworks keep their eyes from adjusting, washing out the violence in floods of blue, green, gold and red. Rey deliberately bars herself from reaching for the Force. She knows better than to risk that now.

Behind her Bindu shoots, fumbles, and swears. Rey turns in the direction he'd been aiming to see the soldier he'd just missed readying to return fire. Rey drops the man before he can make the shot. Then she adjusts by twelve degrees to takes out a man half-hidden behind a pillar, aiming for Ben. A wine glass by her wrist explodes. Something chips into her cheek and stings against her wrist but she dismisses it, shooting back.

The next firework blooms crimson in the sky, washing out the needles of her ray gun. As the red light fades, a speck of it remains between Ben's shoulder blades, right in the notches of his spine.

Weird, Rey thinks. Then she realizes what she's seeing. The red dot sight of a sniper rifle. Bindu's sniper.

Rey's blaster clatters to the table. Her palms flatten on Ben's shoulder blades. She shoves. Ben staggers down to a knee, catching himself with one hand. He doesn't go all the way down, but it's enough.

Rey doesn't have time for relief. The shot meant for his spine glances her upper arm, searing flesh. Rey palms her blaster and shoots in the sniper's direction. A golden corkscrew detonates at the same time, effectively blinding her. No way to know if she's hit her mark.

Ben yanks her down to him, beneath the table. She lands flat on his chest. Half a second later, the sniper's return fire digs a half inch into the tabletop. Rey tsks, fingertips in Ben's ribs as she presses herself half-up onto her elbows. She'd missed then.

"Wait!" A frantic shout from above. Bindu. Rey twists as best she can beneath the table, just in time to see Bindu's expensive shoes climbing up onto the booth seat.

"No! Stop!" Rey's shout is lost in the clustered booms of several azure starbursts.

Ben swears, savage in her ear. "Get him down!" He hisses, before rolling onto his stomach to return fire at the soldiers, who've formed a cluster around the door and started kneeling to get better shots at them.

Rey crawls on her elbows around the column of the table, pausing to drop a soldier who melts the marble tile an inch from Rey's wrist.

Bindu is still standing on the booth, rolling up onto his toes. "Don't shoot! They've offered me protection! Don't shoot!"

"Bindu!" Rey finally gets close enough to grab an ankle. "Get down! Before you -"

Bindu's tendons jerk in her hand. She doesn't hear the sniper's shot, but she doesn't need to. Bindu goes slack and crashes backwards onto the table overhead. Rey feels the impact through the table's central column. She hears the smashing of china, feels the light rain of shattered crystal showering over the table's edge. Something dark splatters over her fingers. She hopes it's wine.

"Force damn it!" she swears, releasing the ankle and crawling back toward Ben. "He's out!" she shouts, angling down onto her side so she can better fit beside him. Propped on an elbow, she squeezes off four quick shots, taking the two soldiers closest to them. Their positions are quickly filled by those standing behind.

Ben swears. "Fucking circular booths! I told you- Agh!" He jerks. A ray singes the booth upholstery four inches from his brow.

"Yes alright you told me!" Rey snaps, finding the solider that had nearly hit Ben and putting a hole in his thigh. "Can you save it until we get out of here?! Any ideas on that welcome by the way!"

Ben just growls and takes out another soldier. "Here's an idea. We kill them all."

Rey grimaces. By now the doorway is clogged with soldiers, both dead and alive. Short of her and Ben somehow dropping every single one, there's no way they are leaving the same way they came in. And… hang on, are there more soldiers now than there were to begin with? Rey kicks the table column, poking her head out to do a quick recount. She nearly loses an ear for it. Ben's arm lassos her waist and yanks her back from the line of sight.

"The fuck, Rey!?"

Rey crawls back to the far end of the booth, pulling Ben with her as a frenzy of shots obliterate the floor where her head at been a moment ago. From here, they won't be hit unless a soldier lays down completely flat to aim at them, but they can't make any shots at anything other than their enemies' toes.

"We're not getting out that way. They're are twenty of them now, not including the dead ones."

"So?" Ben snaps, his forehead slick against hers as he tries to sit, folding his great height under the table.

"So you're brilliant plan of brute-forcing our way out won't work. They could have an army inside the restaurant. Even if we get to the door, we're screwed."

Ben swears, falling onto an elbow to squeeze out an irate volley at the soldier's boots. Once he's got that out of his system, he slides back to her. "Alright. You have a different plan then?"

As soon as he asks, she does. Rey hesitates, then nods slowly.

"Fuck me," Ben says.

"What? I haven't even told you yet."

"You don't have to. I can tell by your face you're having a Fuck Me kind of plan."

Rey spares him a dirty look, then yanks him by the collar to outline said plan directly into his ear.

#

"Stop shooting! We surrender!" Rey yells, sliding her blaster out to the middle of the floor.

Almost immediately, the soldier's fire stops. The only sound is the climbing keen and following boom of the firework display.

Then there's a harsh bark from one of the soldiers. "He throws his blaster too!"

Rey elbows Ben, who growls and chucks his blaster out beside hers. Their weapons sit in the middle of the balcony, well beyond their reach. Although this is part of Rey's plan, she feels stupidly vulnerable. She takes a breath, then shouts as clearly and calmly as she can manage. "Seeing as you brought soldiers instead of setting off another bomb, I assume your employer wants us brought to them alive."

A firework screeches and then bursts. Hard, emerald light illuminates a mound of bodies, a floor glossed in blood, and doorway filled with combat boots.

"Alive is what we promised," the solider yells back. "But based on the last five minutes, I'm growing less confident in that outcome."

"Well, lucky for you alive is also my preference," Rey shouts. "So why don't you tell us how we get out of here without you shooting us as soon as we stand up?"

There is a long, loaded pause. The fireworks slow, then stop altogether, as if they too are waiting for the response. Rey stares at the line of boots, heart in her throat and the booth seat pressed against her shoulders. Ben waits beside her, his body a column of heat pressed to her side.

Finally, the solider answers. "Hands above the table. Nice and slow so we can see they're empty."

Rey and Ben slowly raise their open hands above the table.

"Alright. You can stand up. Slow now. Too quick and we shoot."

Moving slow and keeping their hands up, Rey and Ben rise to their feet, until tabletop is at waist weight. Rey does her best to stare at the line of soldiers and not at the body sprawled over their dinner, Bindu laying lifeless at her waist. The dead man is so close, she could reach out and take his hand in hers.

"Alright," the solider says. In the dark, it's impossible to tell which one is speaking. "Now both of you walk around the table and come toward us, nice and slow. If either of you try to-"

The solider is cut off by a volley of shrieks, the grand finale starting. The sky lights up in a barrage of color and smoke.

"Now!" Rey lunges, snatching the blaster out of Bindu's cold hand. She squeezes a volley of shots off at the soldiers, twisting to step up onto the booth seat, and then onto the balcony rail.

With one hand she keeps firing, not even looking where she aims. The other finds Ben's as he steps up onto the railing beside her.

"You're so insane," he breathes, his bewildered glance caught in the smoke and color exploding all across the sky.

Rey squeezes his hand and together they leap.

#

They land in the ocean. Thankfully. Mercifully.

Except Rey grew up in a desert, where swimming isn't really a thing. And short of getting off the balcony, she doesn't have much of a plan.

And so she plunges, planless, into a black sea. The cold of it slams the air from her lungs. The current tumbles, distorting all sense of up and down. She is blind. Gasping, and then drowning. Panic floods her. She remembers the Force unraveling in her, a crushing thing of nature, and this feels just the same.

But then someone is pulling her, towing her upward. Ben.

Rey breaks the surface with a hacking gasp. The sound echoes strangely, but Rey is still scrambling, still blind and searching for something solid, still half drowning and trying to expunge the sea from her lungs. Ben pulls her to his chest.

"I got you." He guides her arms around his neck, then secures his arm around her waist. "Relax, it's okay. I've got you."

Rey clings to him, high on his shoulders, hacking ocean water down his back. She doesn't know how he feels so solid when they should be adrift, fighting the ocean's current. Waves rise and fall, enveloping her ribs and breasts, sometimes rising up to her shoulders, but Ben keeps her anchored high enough to safely breathe. Rey rests over his shoulder, her eyes and lungs burning with salt. Overhead, the grand finale continues its incessant percussion. Rey's glad for it though. The explosions smother the sound of her raking coughs.

When she finally drives all the salt water from her body, Rey lifts her head and blinks at their surroundings. Ben has pulled them beneath a dock, a hiding place she'd never have thought of herself. She slides a little down his chest to get a better look, keeping her arms loosely looped around his neck. His mask survived the fall, somehow, his eyes hidden behind it. One of his arms is wrapped around a dock post, keeping them in place, the other around her. Overhead, a ceiling of thick wood planks provides cover against anyone searching for them from above.

And someone is searching. Spotlights sweep all around them like sharks circling prey. One glides straight for them, and Rey's grip tightens involuntarily around Ben's neck. But the spotlight simply hits the dock and skates the planks overhead, fragments slipping through the cracks and painting little lines of light on Ben's mask.

Still, when Ben's fingers press gently into the nape of her neck, Rey tucks her face into the bend of his shoulder, trying to make herself small.

"Will they find us?" she whispers.

"No. Not unless they get in the water."

And what makes you think they won't? Rey wants to ask, but another searchlight sweeps inches from their post and the sound of footfalls overhead traps the question in her throat.

"Nothing?" Someone asks. Rey thinks she recognizes the raspy voice of the solider she'd negotiated with earlier.

"No, Sir. We have all the searchlights going but there's no sign of them. Maybe a riptide dragged them out."

"Keep looking. If she makes it to the Frost Ball, we don't get paid. I want every inch of this harbor dragged. Have the boats bring out the fishing nets if you must."

"Maybe they didn't make the leap," a woman suggests. "Maybe they're spattered across the cobblestones under the balcony."

"Then look there too," the commander replies. "Going back with parts is better than going back empty handed. Understood?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Alright, then get to it."

The boards clack and creak overhead as the soldiers spring into action. Rey is grateful for the sound of lapping water, but still holds her breath until the footsteps make their way off the dock.

"What now? Do we swim for the ship?" she whispers once she's sure the soldiers have left.

Ben shakes his head. "If we go now, they'll see us. We have to wait until they move on."

Rey nods, fighting back a shiver. Now that she's no longer drowning, her body provides an inventory of other complaints. A screaming burn on her shoulder from where the sniper grazed her. A stabbing pain her wrist — she finds a gash that the ocean has already washed clean and filled with brine. And a throbbing in her ankle that she suspects happened during their fall.

The ocean's frigid current pulls the fabric of her dress up around her navel. Eventually, its cold starts seeping into her skin. Her wounds go numb, until cold is all she can feel. The searchlights continue their predatory circles, and Rey's jaw beings to ache from clenching against the chill. Ben seems to read her, hand shifting to cover the bare skin of her back. Stupid dress, Rey thinks bitterly, even as she sends a silent thanks to the Force for the pocket of shared heat between them.

#

By the time it's safe to swim for it, Rey is blue-lipped and shivering. Her muscles are numb and sluggish, and to her complete mortification Ben has to help her walk as they stagger up onto the rocky shore. She tries protesting when he swings her arm up over his shoulders, but he's coping much better than she is. Besides, her teeth are chattering too violently to make a convincing argument.

"You got us out of there alive," Ben says. "Let me get us to the ship."

She relents and lets him half carry, half drag her over craggy tide pools, glowing blue with bio-luminescent algae.

"Aren-n-n't you c-c-cold?" she chatters as they reach the dunes where they'd tucked away their ship.

"I'm bigger," he says, legs pumping as he hauls her over the last hill of sand. "More mass means more time to get hypothermia."

"I k-k-know t-t-the science, bast-t-tard."

"I know you do. You told me all about it when you were doped up. Remember?"

Rey falls to her knees at the top of the dune, wishing desperately for a piece of scrap metal to sled the rest of the way down. Instead Ben just carries her in his arms.

When he parts the tall grass, the matte black ship is one of the most beautiful sights Rey has ever seen. Ben folds her into the passenger seat, taking the pilot's controls up for himself. He turns on the heat on before he starts the engine, and activates the ship's cloaking device while the thrusters warm up.

Rey doesn't even complain that Ben's taken the wheel. Instead she focuses on staving off the sudden urge to close her eyes and sleep. Drowsiness is a symptom of hypothermia.

Once the engine is warm, Ben shoots them up into the sky, through the planet's gaseous atmosphere, and into the stars and velvet blackness of space. They streak past a warship parked behind one of the planet's moons, no doubt what the soldiers had used to get here, and Ben lightspeed skips twice before it can detect them. Rey has to admit she's impressed by the maneuver, even as she holds her hands up to the heating vents and winces at the pain that returns before feeling.

When they're too far for anyone to track, Ben tucks the ship in an asteroid field and turns to her. "Are you alright?"

"Been better," Rey rasps. "But I'll live."

Even through the mask she can feel his concern. His carbon fiber features reflect the dashboard lights as he looks her over for injury. He finds one, reaching out to pluck a shard of wine glass still embedded in her cheek. Rey flinches at the sting.

"Sorry," Ben says, dropping his hand from her face.

"It's alright," she assures. "Feeling pain again is a good sign."

She tries to smile reassuringly, but finds that she can't. And not only because of numbness in her cheeks. The weight of their near death experience comes slamming down, leaving her feeling bottled up and shaken. Rosshel's auction had been different. She hadn't been awake for the immediate aftermath. And by the time she'd awoken to process it all, she'd been safely tucked and drugged up in a hospital bed. This time, however, there is no mental escape. She shudders, hoping Ben will think it's from the cold.

"What about you? Are you hurt?"

"No," he says. "I'm fine."

Rey tries to see through to where his eyes should be. The mask is scorched on its left side, a charred streak where a blaster had grazed him. Suddenly Rey is overwhelmed by how very much she hates it. Hates the idea that Ben might be lying to her from beneath it, telling her he's fine and holding a different answer in his hidden eyes. She wants to see his face. His real face.

She reaches out and pulls off his mask, letting it clatter it to the floor.

Ben glances at it, then questioningly to her.

"I hate it," Rey says simply. "I hate the mask."

Then she's reaching, through the physical space between them, past the mental fortress of questioning and doubt. Her fingers brush his cheek, grateful to feel that he is warm and solid. Alive. She leans in toward him. "When I do this," she explains, "I want to see your face."

Ben freezes beneath her touch. At his stillness, Rey halts, a breath from his lips. Then ever so gently, he puts his hands on her shoulders pushes her back.

Rey blinks, shame knifing into her. "Sorry," she falters. "I thought… if you don't want to…"

Ben shakes his head and Rey's heart sinks. Then he reaches up and tugs off her wig. She'd forgotten she was wearing it. Ben pulls the blonde mess free, and then the hair net beneath. Rey's plain, brown tresses fall around her shoulders and neck.

Ben takes a moment just to look at her, drinking every detail of her features, his dark eyes going straight through her. Blunt fingers skim her jaw and he takes her face in his hands.

"When I do this," he tells her, voice low and graveled, summoning a shiver up her spine. " I want you to look like you."

And then he kisses her.

A/N: See you next week! :3 Check out my Twitter for chapter previews nanirain1