Disclaimer: I own nothing from the Star Wars franchise.

part 12

Leia ushered Ben inside of his childhood home, and then words were pouring out of him in a waterfall that he couldn't stop, his voice breaking. "Mom, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't respond to your emails, and that I never called—"

Leia cut in, her voice soothing, "It's okay, Ben."

"And I'm sorry I didn't come to visit you—"

"Shhh." She cut him off, pulling him in for another hug, and this time he was standing, so he had to hunch over her to return her embrace.

Had she always been this small? Or had the years made her shrink as they had made him grow? Despite the ever-present steel in her voice, she felt…frail. And her hair was grayer. There were more lines on her face.

She had grown so much older. There was so much that Ben had missed, so much time with his aging mother that had slipped away from him, that he would never get back.

The thought of it unleashed inside of him a sadness so potent that it made the tears fall even heavier, and his breath came in heaves as he stammered, "All those Christmases and birthdays and—I thought about you, I swear. All the time. Every single day. I was just scared that I was too late, that you'd be mad, and that you didn't want to see me, and—"

"Honey, honey." Leia rubbed his back soothingly with both hands. "Shush. Calm down. It's all right. It's all right now."

It was all right, now. Because he was with her. His mom knew how to make everything okay again. And maybe, just maybe, she'd know how he could unbury himself from the mess that his life had become.

The realization hit him at once. He pulled out of their hug, suddenly saying with urgency, "Mom, I have to warn you about—"

Leia held a hand up, stopping him. "No need. I already saw."

"The scandal?"

She nodded definitively. "I saw everything."

His mom saw the pictures. His mom. His mother saw pictures of him having sex.

Holy mother of GOD.

A mortified, sickly sort of despair washed over Ben, and he wanted to curl up on the welcome mat and die.

He doubled over, leaning against the closed front door for support. "No. No. Oh, no. Oh, God."

Despite his mortification, so deep and visceral that his whole life was flashing before his eyes, Leia wasn't even fazed. "Oh, sweetheart, stop it. You're an adult. I'm not naive. I know you do these things, and frankly, you should be. If you weren't, then I'd be concerned."

"Mom," Ben said.

Leia ignored him. "You think your mom didn't have her own fun back in the day? You know I was something of a free-loving hippie. Your uncle was, too. We even joined that commune once. It was full of nudists. Just stark-naked, day or night, rain or shine. Optional, of course. They weren't weird about it."

"Mom."

"Lots of open minds there. Lots of fun experiences. And there's a reason I ended up marrying a scoundrel, you know. I mean, we could really argue, but in bed, when we really got going—"

"Mom! I'm begging you. Stop. Please. God."

"All right, all right. There is one thing, though," she raised her eyebrows. "Out in public? With the paparazzi on your ass, as they always are? Not exactly wise. And you could've been arrested. I don't exactly have bail money these days. I know you do, but still."

Ben cringed. She was right. As always. "I know. It was stupid. I'm sorry."

"Sweetie, stop apologizing. You're here with me. And that means more to me than you could ever imagine." Leia lifted both hands high to cup his face protectively, her eyes boring into his, stern and soft all at once. "The past is the past. This is all I wanted. Having you in my life is all I've ever needed. No matter what, I love you. And don't you ever think otherwise. You hear me?"

It was amazing, the way that the presence of his mother instantly made him feel smaller, but in a good way instead of the opposite, terrible way that he was used to by now. Small and relieved of all the weight on his shoulders, protected from all of the bad in the world.

"Yes," he said.

"Good." She took his hand, leading him to the kitchen. "Come on, you need a snack. You're more sensitive when your stomach is empty."

After all these years, the kitchen looked the same, too. Interesting tchotchkes throughout, along with expensive antique pieces that Grandma Padme had passed down to her. The sight of the familiar objects made a brief but potent punch of nostalgia drive through him. He really missed his grandparents.

Leia sat him at the same old oak kitchen table that he remembered—but was it always this tiny? His knees slammed into the underside of it, and he straightened his legs. The toes of his shoes collided with the legs on the empty chair across the table from him.

With quick and steady hands, Leia began to whip up one of his favorite childhood after school snacks—monkey bread. Of course she'd already had all the ingredients on hand. Leia was always prepared.

"So, tell me," Leia asked, "who is this special lady friend of yours? From the pictures?"

Ben avoided answering the question directly, cringing slightly again at the mention of the pictures. "How do you know she's special?"

"She must be. To have you acting so recklessly." She sent him a sly look. "That's never happened before. At least not when it came to girls."

There were many ways that Ben could respond to that, but he settled on, "It's…complicated."

"Is that complication the reason you're here today?"

"…In a way, yes."

Indeed, whatever he'd had—or didn't have—with Rey, that complicated web they had weaved, and the termination of it, had sent him into a downward spiral with seemingly no end. And it was said downward spiral that sent him escaping from his place of work and running to his mommy's house.

So, yes. Rey was the reason he'd come here. He was too sentimental, and it had made him into a fool.

"But not just that," Ben rushed to add before she could inquire any further in that direction. He wasn't ready to talk about her. Not yet. "I came here in the middle of my workday. I just…left work."

"Really? Why is that?"

"I…hate it." Ben was shocked to hear it leave his mouth—and then he was further shocked at the realization of how true it was.

He hated his job. Hated it. Perhaps part of him always had. And he just hadn't been listening to that part of him, shoving it down and silencing it. For years. Trudging ahead in the business game for the sake of following his grandfather's legacy.

Leia stopped working, then slowly turned around. It was hard to rattle his mother. But he just had. "Oh."

"I wanted to be like Grandfather. That's why I started this career in the first place. But I hate that job, Mom. I hate what it does to me, and I hate who it's made me." Ben knew it was a risk to even bring it up, but he had to. He said it. "I hate who Snoke made me."

"I hate that old bastard," Leia muttered, taking the new topic of conversation and running with it. "I hate what he did to you, Ben."

With these confessions, with opening up, Ben could palpably feel the relief in his muscles. Even the muscles he hadn't known were clenched loosened. "So do I," he said.

Emotion flooded onto Leia's face, and she came closer. "Sweetheart, I'm so sorry. For everything. Me and your dad, we—"

Ben interjected, a knot tightening in his chest at the mention of his father, "You guys were just trying to protect me. I know you were. You just wanted what was best for me, and I didn't listen to you. Not listening to the both of you was one of the worst mistakes I've ever made." He swallowed hard. "I should have listened to you. And to Uncle Luke. If I had…"

He trailed off, and all the potential ways that sentence could end were overwhelming. If I had, I wouldn't have ruined my life so deeply and irreparably. If I had, I wouldn't be so miserable and lonely now. I would probably be happier. I would have been a different—better—person.

I would have been able to be with her.

But then—perhaps that better, happier Ben who hadn't made these bad decisions would never have been able to meet Rey in the first place.

God. Could there have ever been a version of himself that was worthy enough to deserve her?

Leia sat heavily at the table next to him, taking both of his hands, snapping him out of his increasingly dark thoughts. "My sweet boy," she soothed. "If you hate what you're doing, then quit. Do something different."

"I can't do that, Mom." Ben wasn't a quitter. He'd never quit anything.

Except for one thing. Which he had quit for all of the wrong reasons.

"Of course you can," Leia told him with a wave of her hand. "Don't be silly. You can be whoever you want to be, Ben. And it doesn't have to be in the future, it can be now. Right now. Or whenever you want. All you have to do is make new choices."

Ben stared at her, blinking. It couldn't possibly be that easy to change your whole life. To undo over a decade's worth of damage to your own life.

Could it?

He turned her words over in his head, and with a smile of encouragement, Leia returned to the counter. She finished preparing the monkey bread, then put it into the oven and set the timer for 30 minutes.

"We have some time while that bakes," she said, gesturing for him to follow her as she made her way out of the kitchen. "There's something I want to show you."

Ben stood from the table and followed after her as she led him upstairs. The last two steps creaked under their weight, just the way he remembered.

He could recall many a time during the summer when he crept down the steps in the middle of the night just to quietly crack open the freezer and sneak out an ice pop or a few spoonfuls of ice cream. Though of course the next morning he'd always get caught red-handed washing the sticky, sugary evidence off his cheeks.

They arrived in his old bedroom. Everything was exactly as he'd left it when he went to college, kept clean and preserved.

Unlike the rest of the house, which was decorated more to Leia's eclectic style, this room was tailored perfectly to Ben's boyhood tastes.

Shades of blue everywhere. Bookshelves stuffed with short, stock fantasy novels, taller hardback classics, a full encyclopedia set, and comic books. His lacquered mahogany desk, which was a gift from his grandfather one birthday. The top was meticulously organized with his desk light, cups of ballpoint pens, stacks of notebooks and sketchbooks, and his old calligraphy set.

"Sit," Leia instructed, pointing at his old full-size bed. "I'll be right back."

He sat as she briefly left the room, running his hands over the bedspread. It was navy, soft, and pilled with years of use and repeated washings. He looked down at the size of the mattress, wondering how he could have ever fit in a bed this size.

Leia returned to his bedroom with a thick book in her hands. No—a photo album. She held it up. "How long has it been since you've seen these pictures?"

Ben smiled. "Probably too long."

She sat next to him, cracking it open. And on the first page, there was baby Ben. Tiny and pink, with his fists clenched and his eyes closed, and an already impressive tuft of hair on his head.

There were more pictures of him as a newborn, ones with his mom holding him in a hospital gown, ones with his dad holding him with a huge, goofy grin on his face—they were young, so young, even younger than Ben was now. How could they have been parents at that age? How did they know they were ready for a child?

"You look like kids," Ben said aloud, looking at young Leia's long, dark hair, spilling loose around the baby in her arms.

Leia snorted. "We were kids. Practically babies. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. A child, marriage?" Her eyes softened on the pictures. "But then you came into the world, and we decided we'd figure it out along the way. Some of life's best lessons are learned that way."

Ben turned the page, and there he was again. Still a baby, chubbier, wearing a tiny tux in his parent's wedding ceremony. His Uncle Luke was holding him like a sack of potatoes, and standing next to Han as his best man. Leia wore her hair in intricate braids that were pinned up, looping around one another. Han was so tan. How did he even get so tan? Luke was slim, almost gawky, and he looked so boyish. Utterly happy and bright-eyed and unspoiled by bitterness and cynicism. It was hard to even recognize him that way.

"I'm glad we took this picture when we did," Leia said. "At the beginning of the reception, you spit up all over Luke's tuxedo."

"Do you ever miss him?" Their fight, over something having to do with Ben's grandfather, had led to their estrangement. It had happened decades ago now.

Her eyes became distant, her smile fading. Something sadder replaced it. "Yeah. I do."

They kept turning pages, and soon it was Ben's first Christmas, and he was in the arms of his grandmother and grandfather. It was at their upstate mansion, with their giant, professionally decorated tree that stretched fifteen feet high.

Even they looked young. So young they didn't even look like grandparents. His grandfather Anakin had a bright grin on his face, holding Ben up over his head with pride. This picture was so unlike how Ben remembered his grandfather. In his later years, he'd been much more serious. Severe, even. Cold.

Ben touched the picture with his finger. "He looks so happy."

"That was your effect on him," Leia said. There was some distant sadness in her eyes. "He was so overjoyed when you were born. His only grandchild. He loved you so much."

Ben loved his grandfather, too. He hesitated, but he couldn't help but ask. "Do you…think he would be proud of me? Of where I am now?" He knew she'd know what he meant. If Anakin would be proud of his career choices and following in his footsteps.

Leia hesitated, too. She frowned, and then she let out a long sigh. "It's hard to know for sure because we weren't close in his later years," she admitted. "When Mom…when your grandmother Padme passed, he became a much different person. He was nothing like he used to be. Losing her…it destroyed him, Ben. He felt like he had nothing to live for after she was gone. So he threw himself into his work."

A lump grew in Ben's throat.

"And to be perfectly honest, seeing you do the same thing all these years later…I don't know, Ben. I don't know if he would've been happy about it." She pressed her lips together. "Watching you lose yourself in work. Seeing the business world hardening you into something that you're not. He wasn't the same man. And I'm not sure he wanted the same for you."

"But it's not the same," Ben insisted. "Grandma Padme…she was ill."

"She was. You were too young to remember it, but…your grandfather struggled with her diagnosis. He was in deep denial about it. When she started staying at the hospital, that was when he began to bury himself in work. He visited her less. He was so deeply afraid of losing her that he pushed her away. I think he thought that it would dull the sting of her death. But when it happened…he wasn't by her side when she left this world. He blamed himself, and it killed him, knowing she was alone those last moments of her life. He lived with that guilt and self-loathing for the rest of his days."

There was more of Anakin in Ben than he'd ever imagined.

It was devastating. Ben had always wanted to follow in his grandfather's legacy…or at least, Snoke had manipulated him into wanting it more than anything else. But he'd chosen all the wrong parts of his legacy to follow. His acute fear of loss and talent for self-sabotage most of all. Anakin died bitter and alone. Was that what Ben wanted?

No. No.

Idolizing his grandfather had been a mistake.

Ben felt sick. Leia likely read this all over his face, because she gently took the photo album from his grip, turned the page, and changed the subject. "I don't think I've ever told you how they met."

"Grandma and Grandpa?" Ben had definitely never been told this story before, and he was eager for a new direction in the conversation. One that didn't make him nauseated.

"Mmhmm." Leia looked fondly at a picture of toddler-aged Ben perched on Padme's hip, elegant in her finest Chanel. "Your grandmother was from Scarsdale. You never met my maternal grandparents, but the Amidalas were old money. Just about everyone in Scarsdale is, but they were so old money that the rest of the old money families in New York held the utmost respect for them. They made those clowns in the Hamptons look like a bunch of kids playing Monopoly. Padme was destined to meet a nice boy from another generations-rich family, get in a perfectly agreeable arranged marriage, and live okay-ever-after. 'Maybe you won't be happy,' her parents said to her. 'But you'll be safe from all the greedy hounds trying to use you for your trust fund. And that's what's most important.' Then one day, she met your grandfather.

"Anakin was not rich, and he was from nowhere. He was a farm boy from the country, and the day they met on the side of Route 22 when he helped her change a flat tire, his overalls were covered in mud. She fell for him instantly. He fell too, of course—but he thought he had no chance with this fancy city girl. So imagine his surprise when she asked him for his address.

"She began visiting him at his farm periodically. He showed her his daily duties with his animals, and she even attempted to help. They fell madly in love. They kept their relationship a secret for some time, and the day that Anakin proposed to his fancy city girl, Padme packed all of her things, took her money, and left her old life in Scarsdale behind to start a new one with her soulmate. And the rest was history."

"Wow." Ben was glad his mom had told him this. Obviously, she'd done it so he'd feel better, and it worked. It was nice to know that at least the tragic end of his grandparents' love story was unlike the wonderful beginning. "Why have you never told me that story before?"

"Oh, you know," she waved a hand. "You were a kid. Every time I tried, you'd get grossed out. You didn't want to hear mushy love stories."

All that time spent idolizing Anakin when he should have been looking up to Padme instead. He was more like her than he'd realized, too. "So…what about you and Dad? I've never asked…how you guys met."

Leia grinned. "We met at a protest."

"Seriously?"

"Well, actually, that's inaccurate. We were in the streets of the city, protesting for civil rights. And both of us got arrested. We met in our jail cell."

Ben was in complete disbelief. "Holy shit." He supposed it wasn't that surprising. His mom was still an activist, after all. But how had he never heard this before?

"Yeah, caused a little scandal in my family. Leia Skywalker dating some guy she met in jail. But then they met Han, and they immediately warmed up to him. You know your dad and his charm."

Ben chuckled soundlessly. "Yeah."

"From the day we met, we were inseparable. Even when we were arguing, we were inseparable. So in love. Just completely, desperately in love. Like a couple of dumbasses. And we always will be."

He whirled to look at her, startled. What did she mean by 'always'? "Even now?"

Leia smiled at his shock. "Even now."

Interrupting their conversation, the timer on the oven downstairs went off. Leia hurried back downstairs to take the monkey bread out of the oven. The entire time she was gone, Ben absorbed this immense piece of information she'd just dropped on him cavalierly, as if she was telling him what day of the week it was.

His parents still loved each other. His parents had been separated since he graduated from college.

He sprung his response on her the moment she returned. "But you…you guys split up because of me. Because I left for Manhattan. It's all my fault you're not together anymore."

"Come here," Leia said, gesturing for him to lie down. He followed her command, laying so his head was in her lap. Once more, he was a kid again.

"Sweetheart," she began gently, "none of that was your fault. Your father and I realized that we work much better separated than married. Marriage was never great for us. We're both too stubborn, and we both love our freedom too much." She chuckled. Her hand, running soothingly over his forehead and hair, stalled. "But the truth is, he's my person. My great love. My only. And no matter what happens, no matter how bad of a fight we might have, no matter how much he drives me bananas, we'll always come back to each other."

Ben's voice was small. Fragile. "Really?"

"Really. I know our separation must have hurt you dearly. I'm sorry. But I'm not worried about us. I know he'll crawl back to me because he always does. In the end, he can't live without me. That's your dad. Always coming back. Never giving up on the people he loves. And that's how I know he'll never give up on you, either. Because you're our great love, too. He knows you're as stubborn as me, and that's why he'll never stop trying to get you back. And he'll go through hell and high water to do it."

Ben knew this to be true. He didn't argue. Only nodded in acceptance.

"And I can only hope that one day, if you find your great love—or if you already have—you'll have the courage to fight for them, too."

He stared at her. Leia stared back at him, a knowing calm fallen over her.

She knew. Somehow, she always knew.

So Ben took a deep breath, and he let the truth burst out of him. Because keeping it hidden away from everyone, including himself, was excruciating. It was destroying him. He couldn't take it anymore. "I…think I already have. I think I found her."

Leia smiled. "I had a feeling."

"But…I messed up," Ben said. "Bad. I broke up with her because of the scandal."

"Because it wasn't a secret from the public anymore," Leia guessed, so accurately that it was almost frightening.

"Yes. Being exposed was a terrible experience for both of us. But I made her feel like…like she wasn't good enough for me. Like I was embarrassed by who she was. She was crushed."

"To be fair, you did prioritize your job and reputation above her," remarked Leia.

"I know." He groaned, covering his face with both hands. "The stupid job that I don't even like anymore! Why did I do that? What is wrong with me?"

"You were scared."

Ben dropped his hands. "…Yeah." It was mortifying to admit.

Nothing got by Leia's notice. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. Many people are scared of love, Ben."

"You and Dad weren't. Grandma and Grandpa weren't."

"That's because we were all young and stupid," she said with a dry laugh.

"I'm young and stupid."

"You're not stupid. You're cautious about people. And that's not a bad thing, necessarily."

"Then why did I prioritize an old man who treated me horribly and ruined my life over everyone who has ever loved me?"

Leia paused for a second, pensive. Then she took his hand, placing a kiss on it. "We accept what we think we deserve."

The words cut into him, cut him deep. Tears sprung to Ben's eyes. He wiped them away before they could come out.

"You're right," he said, and his voice shook.

She was right. He let Snoke take advantage of him and manipulate him because deep down, he believed he wasn't good enough. He'd believed that the constant control and abuse from Snoke made him better.

He'd pushed his family and Rey away because they loved him for who he truly was—someone he believed was inferior. They loved the Ben without the decorum, without the status, posturing, and the money. The Ben he was behind closed doors, in private.

The Ben he thought didn't deserve to exist.

Ben Solo from Long Island. This was who he was.

And he deserved to be loved.

For the second time in one day, he was overcome with emotion so powerful that all he could do was cry. Tears poured down his face. He didn't wipe them away this time.

"Oh, God." He could barely speak through his racking sobs. "She really did love me. She loved me. What have I done?"

Ben curled up into a ball. Leia cradled him in her lap, holding him in silence.

There was no need for him to explain to his mom the no-strings arrangement he'd had with Rey, because it had been a lie. A lie that Ben used to get closer to her without feeling guilty or scared of the innate connection they had. Without the risk. Without the hurt.

Ben was only scared of outwardly committing to Rey because he was already hers from the night they'd first met. Admitting that would mean losing the mutual game of chicken they were playing, the who-cares-less contest they had between them. And they both lost. Spectacularly.

This girl who crashed his party, the girl who worked at an Apple store and baked cannabis desserts for regular, everyday people who adored her, the girl with a nose ring and tattoos that were meaningful and beautiful and had friends who were her family, who she would die for…this Brooklyn girl meant the world to him.

She reminded him of who he was supposed to be, in an alternate life without all of his bad decisions. Who he truly was.

And he missed her so much he could scarcely breathe.

"I love her, Mom." His voice broke, and he whispered, "I love her. I love her so much."

Leia's voice was gentle. "I know."

"I pushed her away."

"You were scared," she said again.

Ben wiped his tears with the back of his forearm. "What am I gonna do? What can I do? I hurt her."

"Apologize. Ask for forgiveness."

"I left her. She has no family, her parents died when she was young. She's afraid of being alone, that's her worst fear, and that was exactly what I did to her. I abandoned her."

Leia whispered, "So go back to her."

"She'll never forgive me. Not in a million years."

"Don't make that assumption. You don't know what she'll do. Sometimes people can surprise you." She ran her hand over his hair. "You thought I was angry at you. Remember? That's why you spent years being too afraid to come home, thinking that it was too late. And now look at where you are. Look at us." She whispered again, fiercely, "When you love someone this much, it's never too late."

"But how can I be sure? What if I risk it, I'm wrong, and she never wants to see me again?" He looked up at her. "How does someone know?"

"You know because that's what a great love is. It is a risk, but it's the greatest kind of risk a person can make. You look at them, and you just know. You know that this person is meant to be in your life and stay there as this constant, and you in theirs. The sky is blue, the oceans are deep, the grass is green in the summer, and you love them. The world turns, time passes, life happens, death happens, and you love them. You will always love them, and it's a fact. And you will never not love them, because just like gravity going away, that would be impossible. And even one day, after they're gone, you'll still love them as long as your heart is still beating. And even after that."

Ben's heart raced. His mother's powerful words were the truth, and he felt them in his soul.

"Go back to her," Leia said again. "And if she takes you back? Never let her go."

Sitting up from her lap, he nodded. Now, all at once, for the first time in weeks, Ben knew exactly what he needed to do. And he wasn't afraid.

"You know, you still haven't told me her name."

"Her name is Rey." Speaking her name warmed him from the inside.

Leia responded in a way that Ben found strange. At the sound of Rey's name, she nodded, and a slow, knowing smile spread on her face.

What she knew, though, she'd never tell.

Instead, she told Ben, "Honey, I think maybe you owe your dad a visit. It's time." She tilted her head. "Don't you think?"

Ben thought it over. "I'll consider it. But there are some things I have to do first." He stood up from his childhood bed. "And I need to start now." It was time to leave old things behind.

"Go do what you have to do," she said with pride. "I'll support you."

After spending so much of the last several years of his life in uncertainty, Ben now knew for certain that his mom did support him, and she was always on his side and looking out for him. No matter how many unfathomably stupid things he did.

"What about you?" he asked. "Don't you think it's time that you and Uncle Luke made up?"

She looked at him for a long moment. Then she sighed and smiled. "I think you're right."

As she promised to call Luke to work things out soon, both of them went back downstairs. Leia placed the now cooled monkey bread into a plastic Tupperware container, giving all of it to Ben to take home with him.

After making their way toward the front door, he turned, bent, and kissed his mom on the cheek. "I'll be back again soon."

She lifted an eyebrow at him in wordless skepticism, folding her arms.

Ben laughed. "No, really. I mean it this time. I promise."

Leia chuckled too, shaking her head good-naturedly as she watched him head out the door. "I'll hold you to that."

#

Ben had thought he could handle his life without Rey. He thought he could handle no longer talking to her, no longer hanging out with her, and not touching her and not kissing her and keeping himself at a safe distance away from her, so that he couldn't screw up her life any more than he already had.

Ben had been lying to himself.

Because when someone is your great love, you cannot just push them away and go on as if you had never met them. As if they hadn't irreparably shifted your entire life's trajectory just by meeting them.

There was this scientific theory that had fascinated Ben since childhood. It was called the butterfly effect; the theory that the beating of a butterflies' wings could cause a hurricane halfway around the world.

If Rey was the butterfly, then the torrential, thunderous windstorm in Ben's heart was the hurricane. From day one he could never, ever forget about her if he tried. And damn it, he had tried. He'd tried so hard. But even attempting to was a losing game.

Because Rey was his great love.

Rey made him believe in all kinds of things. Lots of things. Even impossible things—that New York wasn't so bad after all. That one could eat pancakes at any time of the day, that puddles exist to be jumped in, and that weed in moderation was pretty cool, actually.

That he, Ben Solo, could be loved. No, not just that—that he deserved to be loved. That he, Ben Solo, could love. And not just love—love so grandly and deeply.

And that the way that he loves Rey could seem so ancient, as if his love for her had always existed. Like his soul had always known hers. Like getting her wine glass spilled on him at his party wasn't their first time meeting, but a reunion.

She made him believe that his love for her was as old as time, as old as the universe, and bigger than the both of them. Bigger than New York.

A love so old, as if it had happened before—in other life, maybe. Perhaps in another time, another place, in a faraway galaxy. Loving her exactly as he does now, with no conditions, and her showing him acceptance, understanding, and warmth, and the beauty in things he'd never thought beautiful before. Sharing a cosmic connection that was unspoken. Maybe being separated, by tragedy or sacrifice or otherwise. Only to find each other again.

Here. Now.

Rey made him believe in all sorts of impossible things. And now his future was full, was bursting to the brim with color and hope, and with the greatest love he'd ever known.

And if he could help it, if she would have him, he'd be damned if he lost her again.

But first: some very important tasks to complete.

Ben had much to do over the next few days. He made a nice, numbered list of them all. And then he got to work.

First off, the hardest task of all. But he'd wasted enough years living a lie and being miserable, being someone he wasn't. It was time to rip the proverbial bandage off and be who he truly was.

Effective immediately.

#

The next day, Armitage Hux, mystified, stared at him across the outdoor table they sat at with utter incomprehension. The scone he'd ordered had a single bite taken out of it, and it seemed he had completely forgotten about its' existence.

"You're…you're giving the company to me?" He stammered. "Did I just hear you correctly?"

"Yes, you heard me correctly," Ben answered evenly. He'd already gulped down his sugarless black coffee.

Hux blinked. "…But…you hate me."

"I definitely do," Ben said.

"And I hate you."

Ben nodded. "That's a fact."

"…So do you realize what you just said to me? Or are you having a psychotic break?"

Ben rolled his eyes in disgust. He was tempted to punch him for such a scummy, ableist comment, but he had much more important things to do after this. And he didn't fancy getting into a fistfight with Hux on the streets of Manhattan. Too many witnesses.

The only thing he wanted to see about himself in the news during the next twenty-four hours was news of him stepping down from his own company.

"This work no longer fulfills me," Ben explained to him, blunt and matter-of-fact. "I've decided to retire."

"You're retiring?" Hux asked with disbelief. "Why?"

"Yes, I am. I've gotten everything I've wanted out of this career, and now I'm bored of it. And since you're so desperate and pathetic, it seemed the most efficient way to take care of my problem and yours in one fell swoop." Ben smiled. "Merry Christmas."

Hux was staring at his smiling face warily like he was staring at the incisors of a hungry tiger. "It's the end of September."

"Then happy birthday."

"My birthday isn't for two months."

Ben sighed, long and suffering. "Do you want this or not? I'm doing you a favor here. If you don't, I'm sure I could easily find some other willing person to give the company—"

"I want it." Hux said it savagely, with an almost frightening hunger.

Ben stopped. "I know."

"So badly." His face turned pink again with eagerness. Or maybe it was embarrassment at his own groveling. It was a little hard to watch.

There was part of him that Ben felt a bit sorry for. Maybe because if he had been born to another family, perhaps Ben would've been Hux. Desperate and willing to do anything to get more than what he had, to have money and power.

Ben had both. And now that he knew how utterly unfulfilling and empty they both were, he no longer wanted it. So he'd give them both to someone who did.

"I know you do." Serious, Ben stuck out his hand toward his new successor. "Kylo Enterprises is now yours."

Hux hurriedly met his hand, and they shook with a firm business shake. And Ben felt the weight of ten universes lift from his back and shoulders.

"Do not let me down," Ben said to him soberly, his jaw set.

For perhaps the very first time, Hux wasn't looking at him with disdain or condescension. There was…respect in his eyes. He held his chin up high as he replied, "I won't. I swear I won't let this company down."

Ben let go of his hand. "Be better than I ever was."

A smirk flickered across Hux's features, and the regular him returned. "Oh, believe me. I will."

The company needed someone as soulless as Snoke to run things. A shiny, cold-hearted, business-bot to make deals and pull strings. Someone with no life of their own, and with nothing more important to them than money and power and climbing up the social ladder.

Indeed. Armitage Hux would do just fine in his place.

Ben smirked back. "Good."

And then he was free.

First task on Ben Solo's New-and-Improved Life List: completed. Only three more to go.

Only one part and an epilogue left, y'all. Stay tuned for the ending, and thanks for reading!