"We're going to be late!" Ben shouts.
"I'm never late," Rey huffs.
Ben ducks his head into the room. "You're never late, except when you are. Which is always." He smirks.
She sticks her tongue out at him, and he laughs. She still loves his laugh and the big grin that accompanies it. It's been a year since their first tour together. An entire year, and she's not quite sure how so much time has passed already.
"Come on," he says. "They'll be standing outside the door waiting if we don't get down there soon."
Rey sighs and follows him out of the hotel room. He's often like this, antsy like a toddler who can't wait to eat the candy bar his mother got him. She may be perpetually late, but Ben has no patience. Together, they're quite the pair.
"I feel like I should check on the pub," she says, pulling her cell phone out as they get in the elevator. There are memories there and she smiles. It's the same elevator they'd been in after Poe had so unsuccessfully hit on her, and she smiles at the memory.
"Relax," Ben says, reaching out to put his hand over the one that still holds her cell phone. "Mitaka's on top of things." After Ben's former coworker had gotten out of the hospital, he'd been jobless, and Rey had offered him a position at the bar. It turned out that not only was he a hard worker, but he had a knack for bartending and customer service. He'd become indispensable and this summer, when she and Ben decided to help out his father with the tours, Mitaka had agreed to manage the pub in her place.
"I know. He has a good head on his shoulders. He'll be fine." She tucks the cell phone back in her pocket. "It's just…"
"I know," Ben says. He pulls her close to him and kisses her softly on the lips. "Everything will be fine."
She nods, and he wraps his arms around her, rests his chin on top of her head.
The elevator makes a soft ding and they separate as they head off toward the room. Ben reaches out and takes her hand in his, entwining their fingers. Han is there to greet them, just outside the door. He gives them that same sardonic half-smirk that she's come to think of as "the Solo grin."
"Hey kids." He reaches out and claps his son on the back, then kisses Rey on the cheek. The two have, if not mended all their fences, at least come close. Chewie is taking the summer off from driving for the tour. He doesn't want to and it's the first time Han will be running it without him, but he needed a knee replacement from an old injury when he and Han had been young and stupid and nearly lost their lives to a storm. He's already had the operation and is in rehab, doing well from all accounts.
He'll be back on the road the next year.
But this year, Ben is playing driver, and his father couldn't be more excited.
Rey's along for the ride, spending the entire summer with Ben and his father, chasing storms with the group. It costs nothing more to have you along, kid. She's still blushing a little from that implication. Han's not shy about such things. Neither is Ben's mother, Leia. She's a powerhouse of a woman, one who tends to embarrass Ben, sharing baby pictures and stories that make him blush right up to the tips of his overly-large ears.
Rey had tried to talk her into going with them, but Leia had waved them off and told them it was her time for peace around the house. She had leveled her serious gaze on Rey. The Solo men are known for creating chaos, Rey. Don't you forget that. And then she'd grinned with all the affection a wife and mother can have for the men in her life.
"You two ready?" Han asks.
Ben wraps an arm around Rey and pulls her in close, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Always," Ben says.
Han turns and walks into the room. Rey and Ben follow, and as they step over the threshold, she closes her eyes for a moment. There are memories there, of meeting Ben for the first time, of her first taste of the life she now seems destined to live.
You knew Maz, didn't you?
"You okay?" Ben asks when Rey doesn't move forward with him.
Her eyes open and she smiles at him. "Never better." And she steps into the room at his side, ready to begin the rest of her life.