"Oh."

The pair had ducked behind a corner in the ship's hallway to talk. They were given little space to actually move-hence the two standing in such close proximity-but they could be free from prying ears and the curious looks of their peers. Rey's back had pressed against the wall, cool against the metal and Finn had adjusted so that he would not necessarily be touching her, but obscured at the same time. That meant he had to bend his arms in weird angles and bend his head to actually be able to look at her, but the conversation was more important than their comfort.

"You don't sound surprised," Finn remarked, the arm hovering above his head pressed against the wall, gripping the corner. "I'm sorry if you were expecting something more impressive, but-"

"Listen Finn," Rey closed the little distance between them that remained as if to exaggerate the importance of her next words, a gesture that made Finn recoil, a soft blush dusting his cheeks, beads of sweat dotting his forehead. Rey cocked his brow and Finn cleared his throat, tense muscles noticeably relaxing.

"I'm… I'm listening."

"You don't have to apologize. I've had my suspicions before, but I think that something bigger is happening here." It was exciting to Rey in all truth. If Finn was force sensitive, she would see to it personally that he was taught properly-to avoid another Kylo Ren.

No offense to Ben of course.

"You recognize what is right and what is immoral, and that's good. This can be very useful. We could get you started on training right away, teach you how to hone the force and control it, wield it to your advantage-" Rey was rambling, voice half caught in a whisper, stopping the rushing of her thoughts that promised possibilities, and solutions. Perhaps even reviving the Jedi temple. Or what about the entire order?

She took a deep breath, her hands coming up, palms outward as if that would help to halt her spiraling thoughts. "Anyway, I also wanted to thank you. For helping Ben. I know that it wasn't easy, and probably not what you wanted, but it means worlds to me." She dropped her hands, every tension she felt before seamlessly slipping from her shoulders.

Friendship with Finn felt simple, talking to him without reservations. Though her mind still snagged on Ben and his situation, it was a relief to focus on something else. Anything else. There were hundreds of lessons coursing through her mind, except unlike Luke or any other tutor, she made a mental note not to lecture, nor speak of things like the weight of the galaxy relied upon discipline and that he was the one that would save them all or any other such nonsense.

Finn was not going to acknowledge the force like how she had been expected to, like some burden that she constantly had to fight to maintain control of.

"I did what anyone would have done." Finn remarked, as though trying to convince himself that he had simply been a good citizen when choosing against kicking Ben out to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Like he didn't have some sort of personal reasoning for doing so. He sounded convincing to himself, but Rey didn't buy it.

"You originally wanted him out just as much as Poe." Rey reminded him.

"You didn't."

"So?" Rey furrowed her brows at that.

"Maybe it's the force sensitivity thing and I can just see good in him or something."

"That's not exactly how it works."

"Can I just say you're welcome, and that be it?"

She nodded stiffly. "Okay, sure."

"Then you're welcome." Finn smiled-innocent in nature, and as if on impulse, Rey returned the gesture. Maybe it was best just to leave it at that.

"Ouch!" Finn's face suddenly split into one of discomfort, doubling over. Or he would have if his forehead hadn't smacked against her own.

Unfortunately for Rey, she couldn't move back any farther, hissing at the sudden burst of pain that exploded against her skull. Stars burst in her vision, and she cursed in every language she knew-which wasn't very many but the amount of expletives that emerged from her lips were impressive and enough to turn two heads at least. Her eyes watered, hand coming up to rub against her forehead until it had subsided and instead replaced itself with a dull throb.

"Stars, BB-8!" Finn winced, turning to their side. The familiar little BB-8 droid rolled by over Finn's foot with a whirring and exchange of sporadic beeps, seeming none too apologetic, rather curious and inquisitive instead.

"No, it's fine." Rey assured the droid, dropping her hand and looking at him through one eye as she attempted to refocus. "We were just talking."

BB-8 whistled low and exaggerated, his spindly welding arm aimed and ready.

"Nothing. There's no reason to worry."

BB-8 swiveled his head to look up at Finn, not taking the wide berth to go around them, rather rolled straight over his foot once again with one more series of informative beeps and whistles. It retracted its weaponized arm, rolling out from behind their cover.

"Breakfast?"

BB-8 chirped in confirmation, having expressed his indifference to Finn at that moment and meandered off to do whatever it intended to do next.

"Kriffing breakfast already?" Rey turned her focus back to Finn who was glaring at the retreating droid, taking a step out of their cover to rub at his ankle. Has time truly passed that quickly? How long had they been talking? "Come on, we can talk more about this later." She emerged from their obscured corner rather hastily, giving Finn one quick reassuring clap on his shoulder and bolted for the mess hall.


The cafeteria bustled with activity, members of the resistance crowding inside and chowing down for their morning meals. It wasn't much, but at least they weren't forced to hide anymore. All of their chatter was friendly, almost as if they had forgotten that Kylo Ren had taken up residence inside of their ship. Then again, he was locked inside of a cell-That's what it was, not a room, and that was likely the only reason for everyone's suddenly high spirits. It hadn't been an energy she had felt since arriving back.

The threat was locked away from them, even if they didn't know that Ben was a threat whether contained or not.

But things almost felt normal and she latched greedily onto that illusion for as long as she could. Whether or not Finn had taken into consideration any of her lecturing, she was relieved. She wasn't alone, although Ben had solidified the concept that she wasn't, but it appeased her to know that all of her nights spent in solitude, scavenging for her survival and relying on the foolish hope that someday, she would not have the crushing sense of loneliness as her only companion-when her parents were supposed to have come back for her.

"And I still think that you're one of the worst pilots I have ever seen." Finn grinned, recounting the time that they had crashed none too gracefully in the Jakku desert and only one had emerged accounted for. Finn. Who had resorted to teasing Poe about it for the last ten minutes. "Rey can pilot a rust bucket with at least some grace."

"The ship was shot down. What did you expect me to do? Pilot away from a bunch of First Order ships with subtlety? Do you not remember the chaos we left their base in?" Poe challenged.

"You? Subtle?" Finn scoffed.

"Says the guy with the subtlety of an AT-AT walker. You're literally the worst stormtrooper I've ever seen, blaster-boy." Poe quipped in return.

Rose tossed a defeated look in Rey's direction, rolling her eyes. Rey's smile was as equally defeated, obscured around a mouthful of food that she had stuffed in order to avoid being pulled into the boy's antics.

"And I helped Rey fix the rust bucket without even knowing how!" Finn boasted.

"I thought you said that you knew how?" Rey said incredulously, coughing as she worked to swallow her food. A low whistle from BB-8 only confirmed her assumption. Finn sat up straight, averting his guilty gaze. "You didn't just lie about being a part of the resistance?"

Finn flinched, recoiling from her. "I… may have had BB-8's help to kind of fool you."

"BB-8!" Rey turned to the droid as he rolled back and forth on his spherical axis, issuing a series of whirrs and beeps that didn't sound as convincing as he attempted.

"Oh, you felt bad for him?"

BB-8 turned its head, and with one final beep of finality he sped around the table behind the safety of Poe.

"I was not trying to impress her!" Finn objected. "I just didn't want to be found out, and you know, get kicked off the ship or anything."

"Except you were." Rose added.

"Blaster-boy is also a lover-boy." Poe agreed.

"The First Order only taught their stormtroopers how to shoot and take a hit. I wasn't given a lesson in repairing garbage ships." Finn scoffed.

"Taught you how to miss, maybe." Poe mumbled under his breath.

"And don't disrespect the falcon like that. It made the-"

"Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs." Finn, Rose and Poe said monotonously in unison.

"We've heard you say it at least a million times." Finn mused.

Rey's features scrunched together. "It's still a good ship."

"Rust bucket." Poe corrected. "We should just melt the thing down and use it for spare parts."

"Don't you dare!" Rey gasped, her neck snaking back.

"Anyway, Rey's second crush aside-" Rose interrupted.

"Second?" Rey and Finn scoffed.

"I put some blankets and essentials in the hall over there." Rose jabbed a thumb over her shoulder towards the mess hall. "I figured you could hand it to Ben. He'd probably appreciate it more from you than us." And while she seemed sure of that fact, Rey was still reluctant to agree. "Just as a token of peace, I guess. He was pacing a lot earlier and really agitated. I figured we could make him at least somewhat comfortable." Her gaze flicked over to Poe and Finn who shifted uneasily, and although they had the best intentions, they were also partially right.

As much as she hated to admit it, their decision of sacrificing one person's comfort to several hundred seemed like the best option. Especially since they didn't know Ben. Not like her anyway.

"Thank you, Rose." Rey forced a smile, still casting one gentle and warning glare Poe's way for his earlier comment. "He'll appreciate the gesture I'm sure, and I'll give him your regards. I should go check on him." Rising from the table, Rey started for the food line and waited. She tried not to stamp her feet or sway with anticipation. Most difficult of all, she resisted the urge to search down the tether of the force that connected her and Ben to gauge how it was he currently felt.

When her turn finally arrived-after waiting a scarce few minutes for one of their younger resistance members to stop arguing about the menu for the day-she grabbed a tray of whatever stew had been prepared the previous night, and a couple of foreign fruits. Retrieving a nutrition drink that filled the gap in their very sparse diets, her arms were full.

Rey wobbled out of the cave into the winding hallways of the ship, balancing the drink and tray in her arms, making a pit stop for the blankets neatly folded by the room and the essentials that Rose had so graciously packed. She arranged the items carefully, balancing them with a surprising amount of expertise and meandered down the remaining distance of the corridor.

Unfortunately for her-and Ben-she very much felt him before seeing him. The stirring, well the scratching against the front of her skull was aggressive and oppressive at the same time, smothering almost. Adrenaline shot through her veins, electrifying the rapid pulsating of her heart.

His thoughts were intoxicating, choking and suffocating her. She knew he sensed her there, feeling the flurry of emotions through their thread in ways she promised herself she would never purposely do. She fell to the temptation, and it mocked her. This was the part of her that she recoiled from, but one she had learned to embrace. It wasn't right-prying, but Rey let herself feel it, breathed him in.

She was drawn to the power, but it wasn't the power in itself that conjured this heady mixture of apprehension and hesitance within her. It was just Ben. His thoughts, his wants, his fears, attempting to squash them in the force, to think, to remain in control. Absent of words, void of everything and stripped down to just the raw veins of emotion that coiled around his very being. She felt the manifestation of his feelings laid in bare thought.

All at once, she withdrew completely.

Despite retreating back into her own mind, she could still feel the heaviness of his emotions. It cast a tension over the ship that left even her on edge. A darkness that absorbed that negative thought, kept back only by the light that resonated within Ben Solo. For once, Rey felt like the outsider looking in. The one that wanted some piece of his world, wanted to understand.

Stopping outside the durasteel doors which were manned by a droid, it eyed her with its face of blinking and alternating lights, a series that flicked from red to green in confirmation. The doors parted, and with one breath to steel herself, Rey ducked her head and pressed in before the doors could part all the way.

Ben sat cross-legged, eyes closed and lulled into a sense of calm. After the events of the day, it was no surprise that he would want to delve into somewhere quiet, and peaceful, even if the terrors of his mind simultaneously awaited him there. A glass of water levitated just a few inches off the ground next to him, and Rey could sense every little shift in the air while he concentrated. Calm washed over his expression, his own feelings numb to her in that moment, focused on something much farther away.

Rey's presence however hit him like waves in an ocean. A tide of anxiety, electric in the air giving way to a startling resolve. Her presence echoed so strongly back at her that even his meditation couldn't keep her out. Breathing in deep, his eyes snapped open, his rear hitting the ground, the glass of water tumbling to the floor beside him. At first he made no move to get up, his facial features twitching in slight irritation, blinking to finally look up at her when she emerged inside of the room. That focus switched off instantly, and he clenched his jaw to keep from frowning.

She reigned back her anxieties at the sight of him, and she averted her gaze at staring too long, moving to the side of his room to empty her hands. A lot of space was left unoccupied, Ben looking so much smaller than he actually was. When she turned to look at him again, he had mastered the art of masking thoughts that otherwise scrawled themselves over her own face. She couldn't read what wasn't in his eyes, but undoubtedly she knew that he was reading her.

When she originally stepped foot inside of the room, she had expected a raging storm from the way Rose had put it, but it had been her that had gusted through in a storm of emotions, nerves riding a squall that proved to be hypersensitive against her original apprehension. She inhaled a sharp breath, measuring up his stature with an emphatic sweep of her stare. From his black boots to the tufts of dark hair at the top of his head, he was coiled tightly with control. She was here pouring herself at his feet like the glass he had spilled. Just stop. She told herself with a deep breath. "Rose gave these to me to bring to you."

"Oh," Ben answered lamely. "That's…" A pause. Picking for the right word. "Good." He sounded apathetic enough, indifferent to his current situation, but Rey knew that was merely a mask that he had put on. Uncaring, indifferent, but even she knew when he was slightly bothered.

He pushed himself to his feet, flicking one look over her before his eyes settled on the tray of food at her side. His voice raised to be heard, and perhaps that was the only reason she caught the uncertainty behind it. Even with his tone even, and his expression flat, his gaze lingering over her if only to look. And then he suddenly blinked, shaking his head. "I suppose I'll have to thank her then."

"She was a bit concerned about you before I came." Rey started again with a stronger resolve, albeit more awkwardly. Small talk was something the two never excelled at, their talks consisting of who would be joining which side and who would be the one to take whose hand. They had never come upon an agreement on that-not really-but Rey had taken Ben's hand in the end, and she counted that as a win.

But what could she say at that moment? Inquire about how it felt to stare at the same four walls for hours? What he thought of her home or her friends? If he would rather be anywhere else? Her fingers fumbled to pry open one of the nutritional drinks, her stomach rolling at the thought of ingesting anymore. When she'd managed to get it open, she extended it to him. A token of peace, an olive branch, a truce, whatever would get him to take it.

"I talked with Poe too. I managed to buy you some freedom. At least, I can chauffeur you around without someone breathing down our necks at all times."

"Is that it? Is my freedom something we have to buy now despite their earlier agreement?" It did feel degrading to talk about him in this way. She'd been tiptoeing around the larger and more glaring truth, that Ben had followed Rey home and she led him to this misery. He'd warned her and she didn't listen.

"I'm sorry, Ben." She fumbled, her words proving to be insignificant, but the apology extended far beyond just the day's events, or the last few.

"Yeah." He took the drink in his hand, rolling it over in his palm, and set it down next to the cot.

Silence filtered through the air between them, their breathing almost inaudible, slow as though if one were to hear it, it would break the fragile peace that finally settled in their lives, however brief it was. But the world out there was irrelevant, the people in the hall, the guards, everything. It was just her, and him. Her voice sounded so clear and soft and fragile, and Rey mentally kicked herself for waving that weakness around him so freely.

Ben didn't look at her first, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, eyes cast out somewhere else. "It doesn't matter."

"But it does." Rey argued. "If they can just see that you're like me, that you can help the resistance-"

"You're nothing like me." Ben interrupted. "You're… you. Good, bright.." The tone of his voice dropped to mirror her own, turning to face her, looking her over as his head sunk between his shoulders. A sigh ripped through him. And then he smiled, almost genuine, pulling at both edges of his mouth as he looked up once more.

More than anything, she wanted to root herself beside him and never leave; remain the being that kept watch. Protective, fierce, and ready to endure the perilous journeys ahead, whatever may come for the both of them. She hadn't realized how long she had waited for Ben Solo, her very soul recognized him and refused to relinquish its hold. Whatever his was, hers played a careful part. Two halves, barreling towards whatever end.

That smile had cracked the facade that she had deeply studied for so long. Her own lips mirrored his into a dimpled grin. "Well, there's still a light in Ben Solo. I can see it."

Rey had acknowledged the kinks in her sore muscles already, a result of being compacted against him on her skinny cot the night before. It had been the best sleep she'd ever had. "I haven't always been deserving of their help either." She admitted after another stretch of silence, reflecting on the many times she had almost given up on the resistance-on the war. How she had thought of returning home to her life on Jakku where things had been more simple, back when she had known exactly what she had needed to do and how to get it done.

It'd been lonely, empty, repetitive, unforgiving, but predictable and without anticipation of when she would say goodbye to this new life that had been so ungracefully thrust upon her. "You give me a lot of credit. Yourself, not enough." Ben was everything. A person that weighed heavy in her heart, undeserving to be tainted by the crushing dullness of the cell.

But Ben drew himself back from her, the air of estrangement thickening between them. She didn't allow it, closing the distance between them and snagging his wrist in her grasp. "Why don't you eat? You'll need your energy for tomorrow." Another half-taunt, a purposeful shrouding of details to catch his curiosity. To get him to anticipate something.

"I give myself the credit I deserve." Ben slid into the seat that she had directed him toward, "People were afraid of me because I was a child that couldn't control my emotions, but what I could do was smash an entire row of plates into the wall when I was angry." His eyelids fluttered, as if replaying the memory, and Rey swore she could see it.

The fear on his family's face, Leia urging him to calm down and think. How he had tried, but it was an unwavering anger that he could never control, that control buried amongst other things. "They tried their best I think. My parents, Skywalker, but nobody knows how to control an out of control force sensitive child."

Eyes diverting from her as he said it, his voice was hushed, straightening in the uncomfortably small chair. "I was given enough chances, and they were wasted because I was scared and alone, and because I listened to Snoke above everyone else. I was weak, and not confident that I could live up to the Skywalker name." Frustration lilted his tone, even if his voice remained as calm and neutral as it had always been.

Rey nodded, taking a seat across from him. "I imagine the truth of your lineage was very difficult for you to handle. There is no reason to feel you need to atone for that."

"It was at a very public meeting. My mother's political enemy told the entire senate before she had even informed me, only because it wasn't the right time." He quoted her words. "I was already angry. But it all suddenly made sense. I didn't stop to think about those I killed in entire villages, only because they were in the way of the First Order, or because someone annoyed me. Reasonings didn't matter then, and my reasonings now shouldn't matter to you. They don't matter to the Resistance." Despite his casualness of the subject, the feelings connected to the memory had been snuffed out.

His face was void of emotion when he spoke of it, unless a generalized frustration counted.

"It is behind you. A memory buried behind the history of Kylo Ren. Someone you are no longer." But the only thing anyone would remember when they saw his face. An out of control son of the faces of the galaxy, the failed birthright of the Skywalkers.

"So what is happening tomorrow?" He turned to look up at her, as though eager to divert the subject. It'd already been said, and it was all that needed to be said. "You mentioned something about tomorrow."

Rey reeled at his memory while it flickered about inside her mind, conjured up by the strong emotion still attached to it. Ben gave no outward approach to acknowledge it, but there were still more moments than not where their connection was raw. Their minds bridged together like a path to one another, so much so that she caught the wisps of his anger-endless and suffocating-and the sense of betrayal that would act as kindling for what would become Kylo Ren of the First Order.

She couldn't justify his actions, but she remembered how it felt to learn of her own parents, being a Palpatine. The hurt and betrayal at thinking she had been abandoned, sold off, felt as if she could have ripped the sky from over their heads, being the granddaughter of such a dark lineage. She couldn't imagine living that life in animosity, but she shook the thoughts away for now. He had changed the subject so fluidly from his past to their current present, she had no reason to believe that he had not come to terms with it.

Propping her elbows on the table, she leaned forward, resting her chin against her hands. "It's a surprise."

The steam from his soup wafted toward her, igniting her endless appetite despite eating earlier. "Okay, it's not really a surprise. Well, it kind of is." Rey babbled on through Ben's inquisitive expression, cocking an eyebrow and watching as she continuously talked herself into a hole.

"There's a training course set up behind the cave and a sparring ground. I'm sure it's primitive compared to what you're used to-" Rey's face continuously flushed as she rattled on. Ben did that to her, made her nervous in ways she couldn't accurately assess.

"Sure."

"What?"

"You and I, bright and early?" Ben dug into his soup, much slower than she would have been. Even if it was not the most exotic meal that he had ingested compared to the First Order, a look of content passed over his face and steeled the nerves that ran rampant on her.

"I- Yes. It's somewhere that you can exercise and stretch."

"Not being confined to four white walls, you mean?"

"Right."

"I could use the extra practice." Ben went on. "If I'm going to be able to stand toe to toe with you."

Rey was leaping over moons to see him respond to something positively for the first time in two days. And with as much excitement as she felt herself. It'd snagged his interest in the way his eyes had met hers so quickly, about how he jested her about needing the practice. "We'll have to get there early to claim it for ourselves," She reasoned, a newfound excitement in her own tone, her heart leaping in her chest.

She'd get to see the rising of the sun stars too. But she kept that guilty pleasure to herself.

"I'm sure they will run when they see us coming."

"Well, I'm still convinced you had let me win the last few times we fought." Ben had always held his own when he very much could have overpowered her. She could feel how he had held back, as if waiting for something more to lash out of her. It'd been a previous life, and all of his hesitations eventually led to his undoing when she slipped in a moment of anger, the regret now seated into her memories when she'd plunged a saber through his abdomen on the remnants of the Death Star.

I'm sorry I nearly killed you that one time, and slashed you in the face, and nearly buried you under rubble. There was also that time I closed a door in your face but you weren't technically there…

The recollection felt too heavy to say aloud and it likely would for the rest of her days, still a tender wound not yet healed. Rey focused on the thrill she had always tried to ignore when they came face to face-aggressively or not. He'd bettered her. She learned by Luke and Leia, but she had been tested by Kylo Ren, continued to be by Ben Solo. Only one of them tested her emotionally.

"It's a good excuse to not be in here." She mentioned casually instead, skirting around thoughts desperately wishing to be expressed. "But it is much more spacious than my room, and you don't have to worry about cave creatures sneaking in." Too many times she had awoken to various different bugs skittering across her drowsy form. Revolting, and never would she get used to it.

"Your room also holds something that this place does not." Before she could ask, he clarified, a dusting of pink brushing her cheeks at his confession. "You. Your belongings, your habits, the time you spend inhabiting it, thinking, everything else." He passed the empty bowl across the table, leaning back in the chair to look at her and acknowledge the befuddlement on her face with the slightest grin. "It holds character. This place, four white walls, a pane of glass and a door. Anyone could be in here and you'd never know the difference. I'd know yours at first glance."

Not to mention it'd been where he'd slept the day before. It was just the two of them, in a space very much her own, with her pressed up against him, and his sleeping form more content than she'd ever seen him…

Rey cleared her throat, standing up to put her hands on her hips and breathe.

"I think I'd take my own space even with 'cave creatures'." Much needed space was put between them, something he noticed as he stood too, taking the excuse of retrieving the nutritional drink by his cot. "Even with its lack of space in comparison." He finished, fingers tapping on the bottle, his back to her.

His room-his cell-was bland. Dents marred the walls from other unruly inhabitants, and a few she hadn't noticed before. The floors, the walls, the ceiling all held the same tone of nothing. Her corner at least held personality; creatures, junk, research, and all.

Once upon a time, she had been in his quarters, physically and mentally. Sleek lines, and polished surfaces, it radiated him and she'd know it at first glance. Coldness, loneliness, all of the things that embodied Kylo Ren. Seeing Ben within here now, some place with similar qualities, he looked displaced.

He was much more than what his room told her. The story that told her very little of who he truly was. How would Ben Solo keep his room if he had one? An actual one.

While he occupied his anxious hands with the carton, Rey toyed with his bowl in her own, turning it and shifting it in her hands. Her gaze fixated on it, willing the color to drain from her cheeks and to stop her thoughts from straying so far. "I'd like to, really. See your own space, I mean. A space that is actually yours. Ben Solo's."

"It wouldn't be too far from yours." His tone filled with determination-likely the last bit that he could muster, short so as to not give away the trembling in his voice, making his nerves more open to her than they already were. Downing the nutritional drink in one fell swoop, he crossed the room to place his bottle next to the bowl, having to reach past her in order to do so. While he did avoid her eyes, he still looked at her, his eyes lingering over parts of her that she couldn't quite define at a mere glance. "If you had seen my room back at the Jedi Temple, you would not be impressed." He finished, eyes darting up to meet hers once again, a challenge that never seemed to get easier despite how much time had passed.

He was so close, her heart rate picked up.

And a breath released that she hadn't realized she'd been holding. His closeness was always disorienting, but something about it seemed so much stronger in that moment. She caught his gaze with her own as he straightened up, and she ignored the pecking sensation that begged her to peek inside of his thoughts. Sometimes she gave in, but she didn't know if she would be able to handle whatever she found now.

A list of excuses as to why they could share quarters again flitted the inside of her mind. Rey could have been straight forward, suggesting that she merely wanted to, that she wanted to make sure that he was safe and would be comfortable being locked away from the rest of the universe.

Treading upon this new territory was terrifying within itself-and hopefully mutual-but she didn't acknowledge it. Her chair grated against the metal floor as she stood, pushed back by her legs. Ben had withdrawn, but she persisted, caught up in a magnet that urged her closer. She measured him up with a gaze that demanded to steady her nerves. A focused expression caught his mouth, the curve of his jaw, his unruly hair.

Rey couldn't do it. "I am going to take this for you."

What if he could feel the longing? Surely he was lonely too, just like her? Confused? Uncertain? If she didn't concentrate, he would be able to slip through the defenses of her mind, being much more experienced with the force than her. She'd already felt the comfort of his solid form against her, how she fit so neatly around him, and him beside her. How could they be separated in the first place?

Poe and literally everyone else, of course.

Then again, it was no wonder why he was so confused. She was the most unattractively awkward thing to ever grace the galaxies. Ben Solo was not perfect by any means, but definitely something much more than he would acknowledge himself. More than what she had expressed to him before. Rey knew her answer before she bid him a quick goodbye and took his tray out to the hallway. Long before she could expose even a hint of eagerness for the morning.