This… lol did not go the way I thought it was going to go lol. Really, I was going to do one thing and then it went this way and then Ben and Rey said nope. This is our story in this fic and it's going to go this way.
So here it is. Lololol…
I hope you enjoy it. I really do. And this will not be your typical secret baby fic. I'm working on chapter six… and I wish I could tell you, but it would be spoiling it.
And let me know what you think!
"Wait, where are you going?" She asks as she follows him into the bedroom.
"What does it matter? I'm going somewhere far away where you'll never find me." He crams even more clothes into the duffel bag from the closet.
She should beg for him to stay, but he sounds like he made up his mind long ago that this was going to be their ending.
"Well, you know what, Ben Solo? Fuck you," she growls as she turns away and walks out of the bedroom. She doesn't go far when he grabs her arm to whirl her around.
"You know what, maybe I will, one more time for old times' sake?" He purrs, something dark and unrecognizable flashes in his eyes. Normally this would turn her on, but not tonight.
"You know what? No thank you. Been there, done that." She leans into him until their noses almost touch. "I really don't care anymore. Have a nice life, Ben."
She goes into the bedroom, picks up the half-packed bag and brings it back to him. Without a word she shoves it at him, and then opens the door to the apartment.
Several emotions she recognizes flash across his face. Unbelief that she's agreeing with his threats for once? Anger? Maybe even a flash of the man he once was before he started working for Snoke? The one she would do anything for?
Somehow, she keeps it together until he's out in the hallway. After she slams the door in his face and turns the deadbolt, she waits until she hears the bell from the elevator and what has to be the swish of the closing doors- then she walks to her hiding place in the pantry. The secret place not even he guessed was there, the place where she keeps her cash and her chocolate.
She reaches in and pulls out the positive test that not even ten minutes ago, she put a pink and blue bow on. Her exhale is loud in the empty apartment, and a silent tear trails down her cheek. With her other hand, she reaches for her cell. Three swipes, she's calling her besties who just moved to North Carolina on a whim to buy a bakery and a farmhouse that needed a lot of fixing up.
"Hey Rey! What's up Peanut?"
"Do you still need a baker?" Finn's silence is loud, but she continues anyway, "I need to leave town, hopefully once I get there, I can find another teaching job, but until then-"
"Of course! Are you ok?"
"I will be once I get there.'' She looks around the apartment. It's basically hers, he moved in a year ago after she got the job at the elementary school. Even though he made four times as much as she does, he always insisted that the little two-bedroom apartment was perfect. "Let me make arrangements, remind myself that I can drive a box truck from New York to North Carolina and I'll be there."
"Oh wow, you're serious then. Poe's in town, he's in town visiting his mother. Can he come help?"
She looks around again already planning on what she needs to take with her. Then she'll just throw away what's left, but she knows as well as anyone that she's not going to do that. She'll take every little thing, use it as weapons against herself when she remembers what it was like to love him.
"Yeah, I think I need him. Thank you, Finn. Tell Rose I'll call back later. I have to go rent a truck."
"I love you, Rey."
"Love you, too."
She hangs up, then in a moment of weakness, though she tells herself that she's just checking to see if his car is gone, she goes to the window overlooking the little parking lot where they always parked. Somehow the empty space beside her little Jeep hurts more than it should.
That's when she lets herself cry.
She's not sure how long she lays there, her tears even soaking the pillow under her.
That's when the knock comes. She holds her breath as if the person outside her door could hear her breathing. Her heart speeds up and for a brief moment she hopes- but then it's Poe's voice that comes through and not his.
Relief and disappointment floods her heart in a bitter combination but she gets up anyway. The door swings open, and he begins, "You know if Finn-" then he looks up and sees the mess she is. "Oh, Mi Amor! What happened?"
He lets himself in and even as he's setting down his bag, he gathers her in his arms before he leads her to her couch. The same couch her and Ben would Netflix and chill on.
"He left. I still don't know why. He came home-" She has to stop to catch her breath between her sobs. "He stormed in and started packing a bag. It pissed me off and I kicked him out."
"Well, I think I would have too. Why do you want to leave Brooklyn?"
"Because I'm pregnant." Poe's sudden inhale and she meets his eyes. "He doesn't get to have us now. He made his decision."
"A man needs to know-"
"Poe, I'll tell him, just I know that he doesn't want us. I've actually been thinking about moving with you and Finn and Rose. I miss all of you so much."
"We miss you too."
"This might seem like it's a rash decision, but it's not."
"What about your job at the school? You love those kids."
"It's summer. Perfect time to go." She rubs her forehead where her head starts to hurt. "Why are you trying to talk me out of this? I didn't think you liked me with Ben."
"It was never that, he's not the same man that he was before he started working for Snoke. You know that."
"I do. That's why I feel like I need to get out of Brooklyn, out of New York."
"Will you at least try to call him? He needs to know."
"Look, are you going to help or not? I don't have to go to North Carolina. I can go to Texas."
"Rey, of course I'll help. Finn and Rose would be really upset with me if I didn't. I just don't want you mad at me later because I helped you pack."
"If I want to come back, I'll come back. Just something's telling me to leave."
"Did she admit that she was cheating?" His boss' snake-like voice slithers across his ears. It took years for him not to shiver when he does this.
"No, Sir," he simply says. Something deep inside him still wants to protect her, even if Snoke showed him the evidence that she is cheating on him.
Besides, he knows the job he has to do.
That part of him that wants to protect her keeps telling him that his sweet Rey of Sunshine would never do these things Snoke is accusing her of.
That's why he's doing this...
"Now." Snoke throws down the file he holds. "Our informant said that they are moving Jessika Pava tomorrow. Coordinate with Ap'lek to fix our little problem, please? Once she's taken care of, Bazine has another job for you."
"Yes, Sir." Ben turns to leave but Snoke continues, "Since you broke up with the girl, I think you should go by the name Kylo Ren."
"Permanently?"
"Yes, permanently."
"Very well, Sir." This time Ben makes it out of Snoke's office. He barely gets the door closed before his composure slips. His lock is silent as he feels it click into place before he slides down the door, crumpling to the floor. He doesn't ever cry, but after today, he knows what a broken heart feels like.
She slams the door to the box truck with a satisfying boom. The handle clicks into place and secures the lock. It would be her dumb luck to have the door fly open and her favorite bra end up on the side of the interstate.
A ghost of a grin at the image of her underwear hanging off her Jeep must be funnier than she thought because Poe says, "That's the first smile I've seen from you in days."
"When I was locking the door to the truck, I imagined my underwear scattering all over the interstate between here and Asheville."
"That would be funny." She shakes her head when he checks the handle on the other side. He turns his attention to her Jeep on the tow dolly. "Let's check these tie-downs one more time then we'll hit the road." Their eyes meet over the tow hitch where the dolly is hooked up. "I'm going to ask one more time and I'll never bring it back up and while you still have a place to go back to, are you sure you want to do this?"
She nods. They ended up packing everything. Even his new suits that he didn't come back for. His shampoo out of her shower. His boxers that she had found on sale at Target that have those stupid chickens on them, but he wore them anyway.
The cufflinks she saved for six months to buy him that he wore every day. Well until last Wednesday.
"Yeah, I'm sure. Are you sure you want to drive ten hours with me in this box truck?" She's glad that he is. He cancelled his plane ticket back to North Carolina as soon as he realized that she was serious about leaving New York. He's the one who called his cousins to help load the truck. Amazingly, they had it packed in two hours.
And now, here she is. Ben left her on a Wednesday, and she's gone the next Monday.
"Yeah, but you have to drive this, with your Jeep trailing behind out of the city-"
"Rey? Poe?" Leia, Ben's mom, walks around the front of the U-Haul. "Why is there a U-Haul- where's Ben? Are you leaving him?"
"He left me. Have you not talked to him?" Rey whispers her heart falling. Ben calls his mom every day. If he hasn't talked to her…
"No I haven't, I was on this side of town and decided to swing by. What happened?" Rey can see the worry on Leia's face because it reflects her own.
"He came in the other evening after work. Grabbed my old duffel bag and started throwing clothes in. We screamed, we cussed, and he left." She looks down at her worn flip flops and chipped nail polish on her toes. He picked out and painted them that shade of metallic purple. "He never came back." A deep breath she looks back at Leia. "I haven't heard anything from him, but I really don't care anymore." She tries to sound like she doesn't care but by the way Poe and Leia are both looking at her, she knows it's not working especially when tears run down her cheeks.
Is it too soon to be this emotional?
"You really haven't talked to him?" Rey asks Leia.
"I haven't. I've called, Han tried calling. Goes straight to his voicemail. Then this morning-"
Rey doesn't wait for her to finish when she's digging out her cell. Three swipes and she hears that this number is no longer in service. Poe takes the phone from her and finishes listening for himself while Leia, or is it her, hugs the other.
"What is he doing?" She whispers in Leia's ear.
"I don't know, Dear. Do you think it's Snoke?"
Ben was already working for Snoke's law firm when she met him that night at the bar down the street from her apartment. She was bartending to get some extra cash when he walked in.
Several drinks and a lot of flirting, he's in her bed before midnight. He never left, moving in his stuff by the end of the month. Everything was amazing and wonderful until last Wednesday.
"It's the only thing it could be, unless he's seeing-" her voice cracks and she hates that he makes her feel this way, but then again, she loves him. More than anything, she loves Ben Solo. "Should I stay? Go look for him? Is he in trouble?"
"I'm not sure what we could do. I think you should go with Poe." Leia lets go and takes a step back. "I think it would be good for you to get out of town for however long you need to. I can see that you want to get on the road, can I ask where are you going?"
"North Carolina. They need teachers and I have friends-"
"I'm glad you'll have someone. I know you've been missing them since they moved." She digs in her purse and hands Rey a card. "I'm not sure if I ever gave you my number, but this is my cell, and yes I still have a house phone. Will you call me? Text me? "
"I will."
"Is everything out of the apartment?"
"Yeah, it was in my name so we cleaned it out and I turned in the key a little bit ago."
Leia looks at the truck behind Rey. "Did you take his clothes too?"
"It didn't feel right to just leave his stuff in an empty apartment for Unkar Plutt to get. So, I packed his stuff, even his deodorant and shampoo." She feels guilty admitting that, and would have gotten those boxes out for Leia to take to him, but...
"That will work," Leia chuckles in spite of the grief between the two women. "Drive safe. Take care of her Dameron."
"Yes, General." He salutes.
Poe is asleep as soon as she crosses the Pennsylvania State Line. Which is fine, after driving a U-Haul through the city, she's ready for quiet.
Her mind does what it does when she's alone and quiet, she thinks.
Ben lived with her for almost a year in her shoebox of an apartment.
The only things he brought when he moved in were his clothes.
No pictures.
No mementos.
No books, even though he's a lawyer. Don't they always have to keep up with changes in the legal system?
Nothing that even she, as an orphan adopted when she was almost ten by Amilyn Holdo, would consider important. Even now, her important box full of stuff from her life is the first thing that she'll unpack when she figures out what she's doing once they get to Asheville.
Nothing.
She's not sure why this bothers her, unless… a cold shiver of something pierces her heart. Did he have another life he never told her about?
He never asked her to come by his office. The cold speck in her heart grows when she remembers that he only asked if she wanted to go to his Christmas party because she was looking up a menu on his phone when he got an email about it.
It was a magical evening. He'd brought her a red velvet scrap of a dress with a jacket that matched so she wouldn't be too cold in the New York December.
They danced the night away.
Even if he didn't introduce her to anyone.
She spent Christmas with his family, which was a dream come true, while Mama Amilyn was in Africa. She knows that it was too soon for a ring, but when she opened the little blue box her heart stopped. He did give her a ring, a beautiful pink sapphire -that she loves even now.
With a whisper of a promise of another ring next Christmas...
Her heart falls a little because she'll never wear it again. She touches her stomach where she imagines he or she is. The ring will be for them when they get old enough. Her tears spill as she thinks about it. She only has the ring, some pictures, and his clothes to pass down to their baby.
"That's ok little one," she whispers. "Mama-" her voice cracks when she thinks of herself becoming a mother, "will take such good care of you, we won't miss that asshat at all."
And now she's lying to herself.
And she cries herself all the way to the Maryland state line.
He's not sure why he's doing it. But he drives by anyway. Ushar told him three days ago she moved out.
Part of him wants to see if he's telling the truth. Part of him wants to know if she left his stuff behind. His snort is bitter as he wonders if all of his Armani and Burberry suits are in the dumpster behind the apartment. Another part wonders if she's really gone.
Would she just leave like that?
The first thing he notices is the absence of her Jeep. School's out, so she should be here. He parks his Silencer in his usual spot and climbs out. It only takes a minute to reach their apartment. The lock clicks as he turns the knob.
The empty echo of the memories are the only things that greet him.
Not her.
He closes the door behind him even though it's evident that the apartment is empty. As empty as his heart is. A quick walk-through tells him that he's right. She's gone.
Really gone.
That's when the enormity of what he's done hit him square in the chest. His Rey of Sunshine is gone and he's the one who made her leave.
For the first time, he lets his tears come. As the saltiness reaches his lips, he knows that he will never be the same. He sinks into the corner of the empty living room; that's when he lets his heart break for breaking hers.
"Hey, Princess Holdo," Poe mutters as he shakes her shoulder. They traded places somewhere in Virginia and she promptly put her head in his lap and snored all the way to North Carolina. "We-"
"Rey!" Her door flies open. Rey slowly sits up, exhaustion making her forget where she is. But then she meets Rose's wide eyes.
"Rose!" Standing behind her is, "Finn!"
"Oh thank goodness you're here!" Finn says as he pulls her from the truck in his arms then it's a human knot of Finn and Rey, then Rose and finally Poe in a huge hug. "What's wrong Peanut? Why are you crying?"
"Come on guys," Poe says. "Let Rey breathe for a moment-"
"I have to pee," she confesses.
"Come on, I'll show you where the bathroom is." Rose looks over her shoulder as she walks arm-in-arm with Rey. "Go ahead and unhook her Jeep?"
"What are you unpacking?" Finn yells across the yard.
"Let me go to the bathroom,'' Rey laughs for the first time in what feels like forever when in truth it's only been since last Wednesday. "You didn't tell me that the house was finished."
"We finished a couple of months ago. I was hoping you'd come for a visit soon-
"And here I am." They step into the kitchen and it's truly amazing. White cabinets, topped with white granite countertops and antique light fixtures. "This is what you wanted."
"It is," Rose nods. "The guys can do anything.'' She walks over to a door on the other side of the farmhouse dining room table. "Go through that empty bedroom. The bathroom is in there."
When Rey is finished, Rose is waiting in the bedroom.
"Will you show me your house? It's beautiful." Rey asks.
"I'd love to." Rose smiles. "This is where you'll be staying."
"It's just until I get a job and get my own place." She looks around the room. The attached bathroom is a full one with an old-fashioned claw foot tub. She can't wait to soak in tonight. The room is painted a soft sage trimmed in white. It's empty of furniture- "Wait, where's the furniture?"
"Right now, it's out in the barn. Or we can unpack yours."
"You want me to move in?"
"The house is huge, Rey," Rose says. "We have four more bedrooms upstairs. I didn't put you up there because-"
Rey shakes her head at Rose's blush. She's one of the only people who knows about the relationship between rose, Finn and Poe. "Yeah, I know how loud the three of you get." Rey turns to her best friend. "I have news. And after I tell you this news, I understand if you want me out."
Rose steps closer and wraps Rey in a hug. "Whatever it is, we can do it together."
"I'm pregnant. And no, Ben doesn't know," Rey pauses when Rose leans back to meet her eyes. "His mom came by before we left. I didn't tell her, but she doesn't know where he is either." She lets the tears that she thought she left in Pennsylvania flow. "No one knows where he is."
"Did you call his office?" Rose steps back and Rey can feel her taking her in.
"Ha-ha no. Not after the way they treated me at the Christmas party. They can all go hang." Rey looks down at her still flat tummy. "We'll be alright."
Rose grabs her in a hug again. "Yes, we will!"
"Yes, you can sleep upstairs tonight!" Finn insists while taking another bite. They are gathered around the table eating the supper Rose fixed after she showed Rey the entire house.
When they bought the house last year, she'd just met Ben. On a three day weekend from school, she got a cheap flight and flew down. They were halfway done with the house then.
"You know, the house really does look amazing." She looks around the living room again taking in the little touches. "Somehow, it's all three of you."
"We tried to do that on purpose," Poe chuckles. "I'm glad you noticed."
It's amazing really. She sees part of Rose's Vietnam culture combined with Poe's Guatemalan roots then Finn's American influence… "It's really amazing."
"Alright, let's talk business." Poe says. "You are welcome to stay as long as you need to." he doesn't have to say the underlying sentiment of since Ben dumped you. "We will unload the U-Haul into the barn and bring in your bed and whatever else you might need. Tomorrow of course, I know I'm exhausted, so I know you and little bit must be too."
Finn's eyes narrow. "You forgot to tell Finn," Rose whispers.
"No, I didn't, you've been really distracting," she says. "Finn I'm pregnant, yes it's Ben's, no he doesn't know, and yes I'm going to keep it. That's why I packed up and moved."
"Oh, Peanut," he coos as he throws his arm around her shoulders. "It's settled then. You get the downstairs bedroom. And whoever is in there, they are welcome here too."
He knows he should go back to his apartment in Soho.
But this is the place where he fell in love.
Where he promised her forever.
Where if he's still enough, he can still smell her, hear her, taste her…
His phone stopped ringing two days ago.
His stomach still protests after three days of being empty.
He read once that you can go forty days without food, he never thought that he'd get to test that. The landlord beat on the door yesterday. He shouted through the door jam that he has until the end of the month unless he wants to pay the rent.
He wrote the check this morning.
He won't be able to replace everything in here like she had it, after all she's gone and he doesn't know where.
Even if Snoke is watching, he'd still go to her.
But she's gone.
And Ben Solo went with her…