She begins with the tent. Or at least, she tries to. This is a two man plas-tent, designed for quick deployment in emergency circumstances and it is supposed to be capable of full inflation in only a few minutes. Ben has made an absolute mess of it. This particular model should stand around two and a half meters high and have a central living unit with a smaller sleeping module on one side and an all purpose equipment store on the other, with large round windows in every wall. It looks like he has attempted to erect it by hand and as a result the two smaller units have become tangled together and the living space appears to be inside out and possibly also upside-down.
Rey sighs, and gives him a nasty look.
'I couldn't find the instructions,' he claims unconvincingly, as he begins to unpack the speeder.
'No one needs instructions to put up a tent,' she grits through her teeth, watching as the thing attempts to inflate and then gives up and flops flaccidly around on the floor. She raises a hand and tries to manipulate it into the correct position with the Force.
Instantly Ben is at her side. 'Show me how,' he demands.
'The Force is a connection that exists between all things,' she replies, turning to face him. 'Reach out and touch it.'
He closes his eyes but she waits, staring at him, while a small part of her attention is busy unravelling the tent. This will be the moment when he finds himself again and she doesn't want to miss it.
His face screws up with concentration, his nose wrinkles and he catches the tip of his tongue between his teeth in a manner that she can't help but find endearing because he is clearly trying so very hard – the effort makes him appear far younger than he really is. 'I feel it,' he says eventually and she holds her breath for the revelation. 'How do I make it do what I want?'
'You just ask it to.'
He tries again, with no visible impact on the world around him. The main section of the tent is standing and Rey is manipulating one of the modules into place. 'How, exactly?' he asks, cracking an eye.
She considers this. For her, use of the Force has always been an instinctive action, she simply wills something to happen and it usually does – even before she had any formal training she was able to master simple tasks on her own. It doesn't appear that he is so lucky. 'I don't know, you just do.'
He opens his eyes and his expression is dubious. 'Have you taught anyone to do this before?'
'Not really.'
He glowers at her. 'You're a terrible teacher.'
'And you're a terrible student.' She has the tent up properly now, and is beginning to levitate the equipment inside. 'Try something simple. Move the sleeping mats into the bedroom.'
He puts out a hand, imitating her gesture and she can feel the tremendous effort pouring off him, but the corner of one of the bedrolls moves so slightly it may just be the wind. There is an accusatory expression on his face.
She shrugs, 'Practise.'
She hopes that he will get there eventually. This is the man who managed to prevent her from pulling a ship out of the sky on Pasaana, the man who stopped the swing of her lightsaber with only the power of his mind but watching him struggle with something that used to come so naturally she wonders how much of his basic self he has lost. He seems unable to regain the skills he needs to fly, maybe he will be unable to manipulate the Force in this way as well.
She makes a fire and sets out the cooking equipment, rehydrating a ration pack in a pan and putting it over the flames to warm through, before digging out the glowpanel she appropriated from the Resistance shuttle and suspending it from the apex of the tent. She creates areas for stores, medical equipment, washing and waste, unpacks clothes onto portable shelves, she inflates chairs from packing cases no larger than a fingernail and she builds the travelling fresher at a suitable distance from the rest of the camp. Then she establishes an alarmed perimeter so that she will have a warning if anyone comes to call and goes back to see how Ben is doing.
The bedrolls are exactly one hand's breadth from where they began and he is sweaty, frustrated and obviously short tempered. She scrapes food into a bowl and hands him dinner. 'I know you can do this,' she says, in an attempt to be encouraging. 'How did you feel when you used the Force before, when the Resistance were firing at you?'
He pokes at the mush in the bowl. 'Terrified.'
She nods, pretends to be eating while she summons her lightsaber from her pack with the Force, ignites it remotely and waits until the very last second before shouting 'Duck!'
He sees the blue flame whirling towards his head and throws himself aside an instant before she says, 'Try it now.'
The first bedroll skims past her face and smashes into the side of the tent. The lightsaber comes back for a second pass, closer this time and he sprawls in the dirt to avoid it.
'There was no need for that,' he yells.
'You're angry,' she notes, unfazed. 'Try it again.'
He turns his head and the second bedroll flies past her so fast it misses the tent altogether and crashes into a tree behind. As well as his meal, he is wearing an expression of surprise, which quickly morphs into an air of pride, but Rey just shakes her head, disappointed.
'You need a trigger,' she says. 'Fear, anger, hatred, they'll give you the power you're looking for, but that path is too easy. It leads to the dark side.'
'What does that matter?'
'It matters.' She has lost her appetite. She would rather he lose his powers altogether than have him regress back into Kylo Ren. This is surely not why he came back from the dead. 'You need to find better triggers. What makes you happy?'
His face takes on a pensive expression, his brief triumph forgotten. 'I'm not sure.'
She has seen him smile exactly once, she knows what makes him happy, but given his speech this morning she is not sure that suggesting she kiss him again is going to be well received. 'What about your wife and child?' she suggests. 'Do they make you happy?'
'Do you think they exist?'
She shakes her head.
'Neither do I. I get the impression that whoever I am, I'm alone.'
She wants to reassure him that he isn't, but he is striding away and the perimeter alarm gives a warning as he exits the camp. She abandons her meal, retrieves the sleeping pads and heads for the tent, changing into the short trousers and vest which are most comfortable for sleeping in a jungle. It is never cold here, but the biting insects are a menace so she draws the netting over all the windows and pulls it taut over the door of the sleeping module.
She is not sure he is going to join her. In hindsight, she should perhaps have chosen two single tents, because the bedroom arrangement is cosy to say the least, and once the inflatable mattresses are side by side there is no space to slip a credit chip between them. She makes up his bed with the blanket he used yesterday and then tries to settle down but her heart beats too fast and she can't switch off. He has not regained his memories and all that she has achieved today is a demonstration that he leans towards the dark, even when he has no idea who he really is. She lies awake and listens to the howl of the primates living their simple lives in the branches, and she envies them.
She is still awake when the perimeter pings again late into the night but she pretends not to be, closing her eyes and lying on her side with her blanket around her waist. He hesitates as he unfastens the mosquito shield and she can feel his uncertainty as he wonders whether or not to climb in beside her, or disturb her by moving his pad into the living room. He chooses the former and there is some fiddling around before he slides in beside her, presenting her with the wide expanse of his back as the netting is sealed behind him. She lies next to him in the dark, and she can just see the shine of his skin in the dim light as she realises that she has forgotten to pack him any spare clothes for sleeping. They are very close, but she does not dare bridge the gap between them.
'The Resistance were right about me,' he murmurs. 'I'm your enemy.'
There is no victory in his words, he no longer seems proud of the fact that he has found a way to manipulate the Force using anger and fear, in fact, he sounds like something in him has broken. It must be terrifying, she thinks, not to know who you are. She suspects he would be even more upset if he realised that his suspicion is correct, from the perspective of the rest of the galaxy. But this is their little world, this room in this tent and so she stretches out her hand and, with fingertips that are soft and gentle and only shaking a little, she runs a line down his back. She isn't trying to start anything, she is just trying to let him know that she is listening and his response is a sigh, and a gradual descent into sleep.
In the morning when she wakes it takes her a moment to realise she has made a mistake with the sleeping arrangements. He is simply too big for a room this size, too tall and too wide and most of all, too heavy. She appears not to have moved but he has rolled over in the night and his arm is draped across her waist, trailing half way up her back where he is attempting to use her as an extra pillow, and she is supporting most of his - not inconsiderable - weight as he snores gently. She would be annoyed if it were anyone else, but it is Ben and he is right here, so close that she has a detailed view of the unmarked skin of his chest where she healed the scar she'd given him. She can see the pulse throbbing in his neck, hear the catch in his respiration that is driving the snores, and she can smell him, all hot and warm and cuddled around her. She wants to touch his face. She has only touched it once, just before he died and then for a few brief seconds, and it is too tempting to resist.
She wriggles just enough to slide her hand free and she lifts it to his cheek, hovering for a second while deciding whether or not to take the plunge. Her fingers remember what he felt like, her lips recall his taste, but her heart reminds her what was lost not long afterwards and it is fear of that loss that holds her back.
She delays too long and his eyes flicker open, soft with sleep before consciousness wakes in his gaze and he glances at her hand, outstretched but not yet touching. He doesn't recoil though, or push her away but something in the way his expression changes tells her he is sad. 'He was a lucky man, your Ben,' he whispers.
She withdraws her fingers as he rolls over awkwardly, but now she knows what she must do. He is getting up, yanking open the netting and allowing fresh air into their pod. 'I'm going for a swim,' he announces, and she knows he is only saying that to make sure she won't follow, but it doesn't matter.
Yesterday he reconnected with his powers and his memories didn't stir. Today she must make sure that he reconnects with her.
He strides away in the direction of the cenote clad in only his trousers while she stands at the door of the tent and admires him. He carries his strength lightly and he has lost that stomping, hunched gait he used back when they first met, but she knows how fast he can move, how high he can jump, how skilfully those arms can wield a lightsaber, even if he doesn't. When she is sure he is gone, she spends some time scouting the local area, ignoring the splashing and the muttered complaints as he grumbles to himself at the chill of the water. When the noise has died away and she is sure he is decent, she shows herself, disturbing him while he is scrambling back up the bank. This cenote is buried within the earth, half its roof having collapsed at some point in the past, which means that she is able to stand on the surface of the jungle and look down, while he clambers up out of the hole in the ground.
'Come here,' she calls, and it is not a request.
He freezes, straightens with a dark look on his face. 'How long have you been watching me?'
She jumps from the roof of the cenote, uses the Force to prevent herself hitting the water and then turns the energy to launch herself forward, landing lightly on the rock at his side. She raises an eyebrow at him. 'I have better things to do than stare at you all day. Do you want to learn to do that or not?'
He has no option but to follow her back up to the diving board she has chosen, standing there wreathed in sunshine with droplets glistening all over his naked chest and she feels it again, that low ache in her belly, the current in the air that sparks between them.
He just looks at her with an air of suspicion. 'How exactly did you do that?'
She closes her eyes to ignore the distraction. 'Reach out, feel the Force around you, become one with it, then let yourself fall into the void. When you want to stop, the Force will catch you.'
He peers over the edge. 'What if it doesn't?'
'Then you'll get wet. You might want to take your clothes off.' The grin she gives him is teasing as she steps out and trusts the Force to arrest her fall when she tells it to. As she lands on the bank without so much as a bead of water on her clothing a tremendous splash sends waves slapping at the rock behind her and she suppresses a smile before returning to the top of the bank.
He stamps back up to join her and while she waits she remembers that not only did she forget to pack sleeping clothes, she didn't pack him any other clothes either, which means that he is going to have to remove those wet trousers as well in the not too distant future. It is hard to stop the corners of her mouth from turning up. 'Congratulations, you became one with the water. Next time try to become one with the Force.'
She steps out into the empty air again, this time pivoting as she falls to give him a wave. He is off the top of the platform right after her, an expression of extreme concentration on his face but it makes no difference. The splash is higher, the waves are larger, and he looks thunderous as he regains the top of the cenote in her wake.
This time, she gestures him forward. 'Let go of your emotions. You are connected to everything, all around you. There is peace in that.' He teeters on the brink and she can see the tension in the set of his shoulders; he runs his hand through his hair with an impatient flick. He will fail again, she is sure of it, he will fall, and she wonders if this is what characterised his training last time, mistakes and disappointment. She steps to his side, ignores the likely objection, and takes a firm grip of his hand. 'Not with anger,' she says. 'With me.'
Then she drags them both off the cliff.
This time he is focused on the fact that she is holding his hand. In the split second of flight he glances down at it more than once and as a result it is not fear or anger that is controlling him when the moment comes to stop. She feels the flex of his power, a pent up bubble in the Force that pushes up beneath their feet, leaving them floating over the restless waves of the pool below, suspended. She has to divert the flow of strength so that they reach the bank safely, but he has demonstrated that the capacity is still within him, he just needs to channel it. When their feet touch the ground and she lets go of him it takes a second too long for his fingers to release hers. She retraces her steps to the jump point without attempting to hide her smile.
He doesn't look at her when he takes his place beside her again, but his manner is different and he stretches out his hand towards hers tentatively.
'I'm not your enemy,' she reassures him, reaching out to take it, but as their fingers touch he manages to pivot and the next thing she knows, she is falling backwards towards the water and he is leaning out over the edge with a smile on his face.
'I know,' he yells, and she is so surprised by the smile, by the wide, uncomplicated pleasure in it that she forgets what is happening and the icy water has closed over her head before she can stop it.
She emerges from the depths coughing and spluttering but it is impossible to be angry when this is only the second time in her life that she has been smiled at like that. It sets off something warm inside her, a chain reaction that burns off the cold and lights her up as she clambers out, her hair sticking to her forehead, her clothes dripping and goosebumps rising all over her skin. He is on the shore, waiting for her, still smiling, having obviously just made the jump on his own.
She rolls her eyes. 'You will take off your clothes and jump into the lake,' she says, injecting her words with all the Force compulsion she can muster.
'I will take off my clothes and jump into the lake.' His hands drop to the waistband of his trousers as he prepares to comply.