Title: Fool's Day

Date Added: Mar 31, 2019

Rating: K+ (everyone)

Description: Finn dresses as Kylo Ren to prank Rey into a panic and uncovers the truth of her feelings instead.

Fool's Day

Finn struck a pose for Poe as Poe doubled over laughing in the otherwise empty lounge room of the battle cruiser the Resistance was currently stationed on. The few months that had passed since the Battle of Crait had treated the Resistance well, allowing them ample resources and recruits during a period when the First Order largely left them alone.

"I can't believe you dug up that Kylo Ren get-up!" Poe gasped out. "Where did you find the mask? It looks just like the one he wears on the holos. The whole outfit looks right… I mean, if I hadn't known you were under there, I probably would have soiled myself."

"Costume shop," Finn said proudly. He brandished the black cape that came with it and then bowed. "Discounted too. I thought I might give Rey a proper fright today since it's Fool's Day."

Poe sobered a bit at that. "You sure about that? She might kill you before you get the chance to tell her it's you. I mean, Kylo Ren kidnapped and tortured her. You sure she'll even find it funny after?"

Finn chuckled and took off the helmet. "It's Rey. She can take a joke. Besides, she's got it coming after she woke me in a panic saying there were rathtar loose on the ship. She had gotten BB-8 to project tentacle shadows on my window screen and everything and laughed her tail off at me when I fell out of bed screaming."

Poe crossed his arms and grinned. "Yea? So how did you sound when you were screaming?"

Finn glowered. "Like a little girl. You got a problem with that?"

Poe laughed. "Not at all. Just keeping you honest. So what's the plan?"

"Well, I happen to know she's taking a nap after training so hard this morning, so I thought I'd just slip into her room and wake her up dressed like this," Finn explained. "You want to come?"

"You mean, do I have a death wish? No, I choose life. Make sure to tell me how it goes after though."

"Absolutely," Finn said.

A few minutes later…

Finn stood inside Rey's room with the helmet back on and twitchy fingers. Yes, he wanted to give Rey a good scare, but Poe's words had set doubt in his heart. He knew she would forgive him, but was using the image of Kylo Ren to spook her going too far?

He leaned against the door and crossed his ankles as he considered Rey's history with Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren had kidnapped her on Takodana, of course, and then she and Finn had both fought Kylo Ren on Starkiller Base. Not much later, she had invaded the Supremacy alone, killed the Supreme Leader, and knocked out Kylo Ren in the process. He had asked her once why she hadn't just killed him then, and apparently some jedi thing stayed her hand at the time. Whatever. Well, she shouldn't be TOO scared of someone she defeated in combat before.

Finn grinned and stepped forward, trying to think of some appropriate way to wake Rey so he wouldn't have to stand there forever. He had overdone the morning training too. He looked around the room and failed to find anything inspiring. With a shrug, he knocked on the door despite already being inside.

Rey sat upright in a heartbeat, eyes wide and staring at him. Finn grinned underneath the mask, waiting for her inevitable panic.

It didn't come.

"Ben?" Rey said instead. She yawned and closed her eyes. "I thought I told you not to bother me when I'm sleeping," she said. Without another word, she flopped back down and curled away from him.

Finn's smile faltered, and dread filled his stomach. Something was wrong. This was not how Rey was supposed to react to her arch enemy, the leader of the First Order. This was especially not how she should react to having him in her bedroom. And calling him Ben? What was up with that? Who was Ben? Maybe she was confused? Hallucinating? Maybe he misheard her, and she had said Finn… which meant she had seen right through the disguise. It made sense, and he felt his heart calm down. Of course, he couldn't fool her, she was a jedi.

"Okay, okay, you got me," Finn said, pulling off the mask.

Rey flipped over and stared at him wide-eyed in horror. "Finn!?" she said, pulling her legs over the bedside. "I thought you were…" Her entire face blushed bright red, and she looked away.

Finn froze, and the dread came right back over his heart. She hadn't recognized him… she had genuinely thought he was someone else… Ben, who apparently looked just like Kylo Ren, or maybe Ben was Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren was probably a nickname, now that Finn thought about it, but how would Rey know Kylo Ren's real name? And why was she perfectly okay with that monster being in her bedroom?

What had he missed?

"Rey," Finn said carefully. She still avoided his eyes, and he sighed and sat the helmet down on her nightstand, then sat down next to her. "We're best friends, right?"

Rey nodded, but still avoided looking at him.

"You know you can tell me anything, right?"

Rey trembled, and she shook her head as tears slipped down. Holy stars, he had stepped on some kind of landmine with this attempt to prank her.

He took a deep breath, trying to process what he really knew. He had seen Kylo Ren kidnap her himself, and they had fought together on Starkiller Base, but afterwards… "Something else happened, didn't it? On the Supremacy?"

Rey took several steadying breaths and nodded. "And before, but Finn," she said, finally looking him in the eye. "You can't tell anyone. They'll think I'm crazy. They would never trust me again."

Finn's face twisted in confusion. "What? Rey, you're our hero. Our own personal jedi who saved us from annihilation at Crait. How could they not trust you? We would all be dead if it weren't for you."

Rey shook her head. "It doesn't matter what I did. They still wouldn't trust me again."

Finn took Rey's chin gently and directed her towards him. "Look at me, Rey. Whatever you did, however crazy it was… it can be forgiven, assuming it even needs forgiving. I mean, I was a former stormtrooper, and they forgave me. How much worse could you be? I mean, it's not like you fell in love with him or something, is it?"

Then tension slipped away from Rey's body, and she stared at him with the most vulnerable, grief-stricken eyes he had ever seen on a person. "Oh no, no, no… it's not possible… Rey, it doesn't even make sense. When would you have gotten to know him? I mean, you barely spent anytime together, and most of it was when he was interrogating and torturing you… Oh no, this isn't one of those, um, what's it called… one of those stockholm syndrome things, is it?"

"What?" Rey asked, genuinely confused.

"You know, where you think you're in love with your captor because it helps you survive?"

"No!" Rey protested. "No, I had no feelings for him when I was his prisoner… Well, nothing beyond disgust and pity."

Finn frowned. "Then when!?"

Rey took Finn's hand then and squeezed it. "You can't tell anyone, Finn. You know that, right? Not even Poe or Leia. They wouldn't understand."

"Rey, I don't even understand, but I do trust you," he said, squeezing her hand back even as he feared what she would share. "I promise not to tell them though." Whether he would keep that promise would depend on what she shared, but she didn't need to know that. If she was in danger, he needed to know.

Rey nodded and took a deep breath. "Ben, Kylo Ren, that is, and I are connected. Through the force, that is." She sighed and closed her eyes. "No matter where we are, we can feel each other's presence. Sometimes, we can see and hear each other too." She opened her eyes and looked at Finn. "It's why I wasn't surprised to see Kylo Ren in my room. He's appeared before me in here many times before."

Finn's jaw dropped. "Many times… wait, so you two are, like, in regular contact?"

Rey nodded. "I've never told him anything that could betray the Resistance, and naturally, he's never given me anything I could use against the First Order, but we see each other. We chat, sometimes, though it's been rough since Crait."

Finn's thoughts raced as he tried to process that his best friend was so deeply entangled with their primary enemy. "How long?"

Rey sighed. "Since I went to Master Luke. I was terrified out of my skin the first time it happened… tried to shoot him. My blaster didn't do any damage though. I'm not sure he even felt it. He tried to use the connection to locate Master Luke, but the force doesn't work through it. We could only exchange words, and so we began talking. We became friends, of a sort."

Finn grimaced. "Friends? With that monster!?"

Rey chuckled. "I called him that once too, and he didn't argue it. Monster or not, though, he knew how lonely I was, Finn, and he was lonely too. He needed someone to believe in him, just like I needed someone to believe in me, and… I don't know, Finn. It felt right. Getting to know him, trusting him, being with him… it felt right. I even had a vision of us working together."

Finn shook his head in disbelief, and yet, he could see it. Rey had essentially been alone on that planet, and both she and Kylo Ren were all-powerful. "Hard to imagine him opening up to anyone. No offense, Rey, but he scares the living daylights out of me."

Rey giggled softly. "I know. He scared me too, but he is a lost soul under that mask. He saved me, you know. When I went on the Supremacy, the Supreme Leader ordered Ben to kill me. He killed the Supreme Leader instead, saving my life. We then fought the guard off back-to-back." She smiled and blushed. "It felt like we were an extension of each other, the way we moved together."

Finn found himself blushing. The way Rey talked about it made his own explorations in intimacy with Rose feel like child's play. "Must have been something," he finally said after clearing his throat with a cough. "So where did it go wrong?"

The smile fell from Rey's face. "He invited me to rule the galaxy with him."

Finn's brows pinched together in contemplation. If Kylo Ren had killed the Supreme Leader to save Rey and then offered her to rule with him, he must have loved Rey too. Strange, but Finn knew how easy Rey was to fall for. He could see it, especially for a monster of a powerful force-user who likely never had anyone to empathize with before. "That doesn't sound like a bad thing. I mean, you could do a lot of good from that kind of position of power, especially if he's head-over-heels for you."

Rey shook her head and tears streaked down. "He wanted me to abandon the Resistance for it… abandon them to their deaths. Finn, he was in a position to save them. We weren't on Crait yet. All he had to do was order his ships to stop firing, and he refused. He told me to let them die. I couldn't. We fought… there was an explosion. I recovered first and slipped away, and then there was Crait, where he tried to kill all of us." A sob shook her body, and Rey leaned on Finn's shoulder. "If he were really head-over-heels for me, he would've helped me. If he loved me at all, he wouldn't have tried to kill me after."

Maybe, Finn thought. Then again, hearts worked in mysterious ways, and rejection could drive someone to do quite a few things they would otherwise regret. Still, he had zero interest in encouraging Rey to pursue someone who was so incredibly dangerous and cruel. She deserved better. Maybe someone like Poe, who had always fought for side of the Resistance and been kind to those he cared for. Maybe he could set those two up on a date or something after this. He had tried several times before with no luck. Poe was interested, but Rey had always declined. Then again, now that he knew what her hang-up had been, maybe he could talk her through it.

"It's so painful seeing him now," Rey said. "And I'm constantly terrified someone will find out and think I'm betraying the Resistance, but I can't control it… I don't even want to see him, but I don't know how to make the connection go away."

That's right. Rey and Kylo Ren were still interacting. "You're sure you're not accidentally leaking secrets to him?"

"Yes," Rey said. "He doesn't even ask me anything about the Resistance when the force connects us. He asks about me."

Finn's thoughts froze. That sounded entirely too much like Kylo Ren still cared for her. He shuddered. "Is that so? I wonder why," he said, trying to play it cool while he dug for more information. As much as he hated it, if Kylo Ren did still care for Rey, the Resistance could use that against him.

Rey shrugged. "I don't really know, Finn. Before everything changed, I would have thought he was worried about me, but he tried to kill me, Finn. It doesn't make any sense. All I can figure is he's trying to find out my weaknesses."

Finn's heart sank. Somehow, he knew this wasn't the case. "What do you tell him?"

Rey's voice became small, somehow. "I tell him to leave me alone and stop bothering me," she whispered, and more tears streaked out. "And he does… for that connection, anyway, and then when we meet again, he asks again. Over and over, for months now."

Finn felt nauseous. The First Order's strange disinterest in the Resistance's activities the last few months… Kylo Ren's concern and respect for Rey in their talks… It made sense. That monster definitely still cared for Rey, and she obviously still cared for him or she wouldn't be so worked up over this. "What would you do?"

"What?" Rey asked.

"What would you do if he did love you? If he was only asking about you because he cared for you?"

Rey turned white and shook her head. "I have no idea. I can't imagine it, Finn. He wanted me dead."

Finn sighed. "I know that, Rey, but what would you do? If the next time you two met, he knelt down, apologized for how he behaved towards you, and begged your forgiveness, would you give it? Would you still tell him to leave you alone?"

Rey trembled. "Don't tease me, Finn."

"Would you give him another chance?" Finn said. His mind was racing with ideas, and he needed to know.

Rey sighed and withdrew from him to hug herself. "I would," she whispered.

Finn nodded to himself quickly. "Thanks, Rey. Thanks for trusting me with this. No one should have to endure what you did alone."

"And you won't tell anyone else?" Rey asked.

Finn smiled at her, though his heart grieved. "I promised, didn't I?"

Finn stayed a while longer, talking about Rose's disastrous training and Poe's latest antics to calm her before leaving. After he closed her door, he marched directly to the bridge to speak with General Organa.

"Finn, what's the matter?" General Organa said on seeing how pale he looked.

"I think I can end the war, but I'll have to break a promise," he said. "Come on, you'll want to have this talk somewhere private."

...

A few weeks later, Finn and Poe were hanging out alone in the lounge again. "You know, you never did tell me how Rey reacted to your Kylo Ren costume," Poe said. "Then again, considering what's happened the last few days, I'm guessing she wasn't as freaked out as you thought she would be."

"No, she wasn't," Finn confirmed.

"I still can't believe it though… I mean, Kylo Ren is, like, evil incarnate, right? He's kidnapped and tortured me… kidnapped and tortured Rey… killed countless people… and yet has a soft spot for Rey? I mean, if he were going to have a soft spot for anyone, I suppose Rey makes sense, but still… enough so to end the war on the condition that she works with him to restore order? And he's even following her suggestions? I thought for sure it was just a trick to lure her out and kill her at first, but he's really doing what she asks, and she seems so… happy."

Finn smiled at that. He still thought Rey deserved a better partner, but if Kylo Ren was where she found happiness, he wasn't going to fight that.

"It just doesn't make sense. You've seen the way they act together. It's only been one week since the treaty was formed, and yet they're acting like lovers. Holding hands, sneaking kisses, giggling together… when did they get to know each other like that?"

Finn shrugged. He had to tell General Organa the truth to get things moving, but he was still Rey's best friend, and he would not betray her completely. "Who knows?"

"Not me, that's for sure," Poe said. "It's so freaky, but I guess all's well that ends well, right? And we'll still beat Kylo Ren up if he ever hurts her, right?"

Finn nodded. "Definitely."

I hope you enjoyed my little wholesome Reylo contribution to April Fool's Day! Please let me know what you think!