When she wakes, Rey is stiff and sore. There is a waterproof sleeping pad beneath her which does little to camouflage the roots on which she is lying and her stomach has been bandaged so tightly she can barely breathe. Pain pulses along her veins, spreading out from a central spike around which the wheel of agony turns. She cracks her eyes open to find that she is lying next to a small fire, which crackles merrily as it eats the sticks which are sustaining it. Past the flames, she catches sight of a mess of poles, struts and canvas polymer tumbled in a heap on the ground. Ben heaves into view, blocking her view of whatever has happened to the tent.
'Don't try to move,' he orders, stepping across the hearth and kneeling on the leaf litter next to her. 'You've been shot. I treated it with bacta patches from the medical kit but you won't be healed fully until morning. I found a sedative you can have if the pain is too much.'
She tries to shake her head, but the action sends a jolt of anguish along her nerves and she regrets it immediately. She tries to relax and reaches out into the Force to probe her body – the damage to her stomach is mostly superficial, and it is healing, but she has lost quite a lot of blood. It will take a few days before she is back to full fitness. There is a soft brush of something on her upper arms and she looks up to find him bending over her, his face a mask of concentration as he pulls a blanket up over her chest, trying not to disturb her wound. Then he returns to the other side of the fire.
There is something about his face in the firelight that calls to her. She remembers how the mechanical energy release of combustion alters his face like magic, casting a spell that smooths the hard lines of his cheeks, tempers the darkness in his eyes, makes his mouth soft. She loves how he looks in this light.
'Are you hungry?' he asks. 'I have rehydrated vegetables and some type of protein. It's white, so it could be anything.'
She is about to tell him that unless she is sure that the meal is plant based, she will not be touching it, but then she stops. She has been vegetarian for as long as she can remember, because killing animals feels both cruel and wasteful in a galaxy of limited resources where everything is connected together by a cosmic thread of hidden power. But then the smell of the meal drifts over from the container in which he has been stewing it, and it makes her mouth water. She hasn't eaten meat in so long that she finds herself wondering what it tastes like on her tongue, if the texture will be satisfying as she chews, if it will fill her belly in a way that endless polystarch cannot. This is food that Ben has cooked for her, and she decides that she will eat it, whatever it contains.
'Thank you.'
He is back across the fireplace with a plasteel cup as soon as she has accepted, placing it carefully within easy reach and then retreating to his own sleeping pad. After a short effort she realises that she will not be able to sit up without a great deal of pain and she slips back under the blanket again, deciding to try the food in the morning. Ben doesn't notice, he is staring sightlessly into the fire, and she is unable to read his thoughts.
His eyes focus on her eventually and when he speaks, the cut of his voice is at odds with the half daze of memory into which she has slipped. 'What's my name?' he asks. 'I know you know who I am. I don't appreciate being lied to.'
She sighs, and closes her eyes again, because lying to him will be easier that way. She can tell by his tone that he has run out of patience with asking the same question. 'The Resistance were shooting at you because you bear a passing resemblance to a First Order officer named Kylo Ren. He's dead, but no one found his body so they think there's a chance that he's you.'
He considers this for a second. 'And you don't think they're right?'
'I don't. You're nothing like he was. I helped you escape because I didn't think the Resistance should be allowed to execute you for the crime of looking like someone else.'
'Then who is Ben?' he snaps.
'Ah, Ben,' she takes a deep breath. 'I'm sorry about that. I was losing blood, and probably delirious and for a minute you reminded me of an old friend of mine. He was…very dear to me.'
He considers that for even longer while she keeps her eyelids shut and her breathing calm. It is a very good thing that the bond between them is not active because she is sure she would never have gotten away with such a falsehood if they were still connected by the Force across time and space.
Eventually he appears to give up. 'I still feel like there's something you're not telling me,' he mutters sourly, and she wonders if there is still a hint of the link there after all.
There is a rustling sound and a peek from the corner of her eye reveals that he is now lying full length, with his hands folded over his stomach, peering up into the jungle canopy high above.
'Where are we anyway?' he asks.
'Ajan Kloss.'
'Ajan Kloss,' he repeats. 'Location – Outer Rim, Cademimu sector, moon of Ajara. Atmosphere – breathable. Points of interest – mosquitos the size of dinner plates. Inhabitants – hostile.'
His breathing evens out into sleep before she has finished smiling and she follows him not long afterwards, entering dreams which are surprisingly, not riven by nightmares.
She is so tired that the sun is already hot on her face when she wakes up. Although the jungle is dense here, patches of light do penetrate it and she has been unfortunate enough to go to sleep right underneath one. The brilliance of the light against her eyelids ensures that she will not be able to drift off into slumber again. She sits up, stretching, knocking over the congealed dinner of the night before and she jumps to her feet, cursing quietly, both at her clumsiness and at the continued ache in her side. The fire has gone out and from across the other side of the blackened twigs Ben still snores, lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his body and his blanket thrown into a crumpled heap.
She takes a moment just to stare at him, for this is a side of him she has only seen once before. Once, when he was unconscious on the floor of Snoke's throneroom she watched him sleeping and wondered whether or not she should kill him but now as she stands there she feels only gratitude that he is still alive. Of course, he is a shadow of his former self – he does not remember who she is, or what they were together, but he is also not tormented by the ghosts of his past and he sleeps soundly, his face relaxed, as untroubled by nightmares as she was. She turns her face to the light and happiness rises to match it, as brilliant as the sunshine. The battle is over, the Resistance have won and here she is, free and alone with the man who is her other half.
She has not changed her clothes or bathed in many hours and there is a large patch of crusted brown blood down the front of her top, splashes all over her leggings. She steps away from the campsite and spreads her awareness until the sound of water fills her senses. Ajan Kloss is a jungle, and cenotes are plentiful; there is one within a short walk. She collects some supplies and a change of clothes and heads out without waking him.
The entrance to the underground lake shows evidence of use, there is a faint path through the jungle as she gets closer which leads down a set of natural steps and Rey hops from rock to rock to reach the bottom of the massive pool. The water is so clear and still it almost looks as if it is not there at all and she can see the sand which carpets the bottom, the small rocks near the edge picked out in crystal detail. She drops her clothes on a large boulder, intending to scrub them clean with the soap she has brought once she has finished bathing and then she struggles with the bandage around her waist. It has been wrapped so neatly any medical droid would have been proud of the workmanship and underneath the bacta patches are applied in a textbook display of precision, covering her wounds at the precise depth and angle to secure maximum healing. Already the skin underneath is knitted, although the whole area is still red and she can't touch it without wincing.
She lets her hair down and steps carefully into the water, which is so cold it takes her breath away and she ducks underneath before she can lose her nerve, swimming for a few minutes to brush off the worst of the chill. Then she washes her hair, sluices the dirt and stress of the last day from her skin, finds a rare patch of sun and floats on her back in it for long enough that time ceases to pass. There are birds in this forest and their voices are loud, calling to each other amongst the trees as they go about their morning routines. Listening to their song, she misses the first few noises but eventually a scraping from the bank catches her attention as a rock slips somewhere and there is a crash in the undergrowth.
Quickly, she puts her feet down, standing with the lake waters lapping around her waist as her eyes blink to identify the threat. Ben is standing on the bank, with a bag in his hands, caught in the act of retreating back up the path. She doesn't know how long he has been there. She isn't sure what he's seen but the pond is so clear and the fact that the water only covers her middle suggests that he has seen everything she has to offer. She isn't sure what to do. He turns his face away but his cheeks are bright red as he hurries to retrace his steps.
'Sorry,' he calls. 'It was so quiet. I didn't realise you were here.'
What is the right response in this situation? Rey knows what she wants – yesterday she kissed this man, and she would never have taken that first step if she didn't intend to complete the journey – but things have changed. He won't remember the kiss, or what it meant, and he is clearly embarrassed to have disturbed her bathing. She doesn't want this to be awkward so she attempts to act naturally.
'It's alright,' she shouts, waving her arm at him. 'Come in and join me.'
He almost runs back up the path.
She frowns as he disappears, and, too disturbed to continue, completes washing her clothes in silence, and then, dressed in a fresh tunic and leggings, trudges back towards the camp with the dripping roll of fabric under her arm. By the time he bothers to return, his face slightly pink, Rey has packed up the half assembled tent, tidied away the sleeping pads and kicked apart the evidence of the fire. They cannot stay here. The path to the cenote means that this area is inhabited and she must find somewhere safer to stay before she attempts to retrieve his memories.
He will not look her in the face as he slings his bag over the back of the speeder with the others.
She ignores his childish reaction and points at the seat. 'Get on,' she orders. 'I'll teach you to drive.'
The eagerness with which he mounts the machine tells her that he is not a man who relishes being as helpless as he was yesterday and she already knows he will take to flying easily. She hops up on the running board and demonstrates the controls, leaning across his lap to point them out. 'Ignition. Accelerator. Brake. Repulsor field control for landing - you already know that one. Cruise control. Altitude indicator. Speed indicator. Navcomp for directions. It's easy. Just turn it where you want it to go.'
She is very close to him, aware of the warmth of his hip where it rests against her side, the clean smell of his hair fresh in her nostrils when he runs his fingers through it, pushing it back. He has seen her naked. She has had the same privilege. They have kissed. There is a tingle of something in the air between them as she delivers the commands in a direct, no nonsense voice. She feels a heat low down in her stomach and she wonders if he feels it too.
She jumps back as he starts the engines, jerks too hard on the accelerator and the vessel rises vertically from the forest floor. He yanks on the controls, but his touch is clumsy and the responsive steering of the speeder turns directly into the massive trunk of the nearest tree. She hears his yelp of alarm, watches him overcompensate as he tugs hard on the controls, leaning to one side and then he actually manages to tip the speeder so hard he falls off and she has to reach out and kill the engines remotely to stop it flying off into the distance.
Ben sits up, rubbing an elbow and covered in leaves. His face is dark with anger. 'I don't think I'm cut out to be a pilot,' he says.
Rey doesn't know what to say and for the first time she starts to wonder if he is a clone after all. His father was a pilot, his uncle was a pilot, he is as strong with the Force as she is – he cannot possibly fail at this. 'Get back on and try again,' she orders.
He hits a tree. Then he manages to plough the entire right hand side of the craft into the ground, knocking all the cargo to the floor and leaving her to pick it up while he walks around the clearing kicking things. Ben Solo is appalling at driving. Rey finds this extremely hard to believe, but the day is fast turning into afternoon and she doesn't want to stay here any longer, especially since his experiments in crashing are making quite a lot of noise and she doesn't know how far away from the Resistance base they actually are.
She climbs back into the pilot's chair and, very reluctantly, he clambers on to sit behind her. She waits for him to put his arms around her waist. This speeder isn't really meant for two, and there is no harness in the back to secure him in place. If he doesn't hold on to her, he may well fall off. She hears the flick as his hair is raked back again, and she decides that that habit is going to become quickly annoying.
'Just one thing before we go,' he says slowly, and she notes that he has waited until she can't see his face to broach whatever subject is coming. 'I don't want you to get the wrong idea.'
'About what?'
'This morning when you – ah – wanted me to join you swimming. And yesterday when you said I reminded you of someone you care about. I… think you might be projecting. I think you might have wanted to rescue me from the Resistance because I remind you of this other person, this Ben. But I don't know who I am and for all I know I may have a wife out there somewhere, and children, and I don't want you to get the wrong idea and think that I'm open to something I'm not, just because we're alone together in the middle of nowhere.'
He has finished in a breathless rush and Rey finds her hand tightening on the throttle. The arrogance of the man is astounding. But maybe it shouldn't be. He'd offered her his hand twice in the past and blithely assumed she'd take it; he had always had an overinflated sense of his own attractiveness.
'You think I want to sleep with you,' she states and she carries on as he tries to stammer some kind of reply. 'I wouldn't sleep with you if you paid me.'
He shuts up, fast. 'I'm certain I'm not the sort of person who ever needs to pay,' he says stiffly.
She is angry as she fires up the craft and prepares to leave. 'You look exactly like the sort of person who pays for sex to me,' she says.
She sets off so fast he nearly falls off and then accelerates to top speed while racing through the jungle, using the full range of her Force enhanced senses to anticipate and avoid collisions. Soon, she breaks through the trees and beneath the speeder the ground falls away into a valley below. She pulls the vessel into a sharp dive and he manages only a couple of seconds before giving up, flinging his arms around her waist and pressing his face into her back as they fall. She feels the anger recede slowly and it dies back to a dull simmer as she levels out, racing through the forest for the next few hours with Ben glued to her back, apologising with a continuous hug.
The day is stretching towards evening before she pinpoints a likely place to stop for the night. The canopy is thinner here but still dense enough to hide a speeder and she is sure that the interior of Ajan Kloss is sufficiently remote that the light from a fire will not be noticed. There is water enough in a cenote close by so she drops beneath the trees, mooring the speeder to a large trunk and switching off the engines.
This is where they will stay. This is where she will teach Ben Solo to use the Force.