Ben was a huge menacing presence at her back that wasn't menacing at all. She didn't see him as his parents had, talking behind closed doors and deluding themselves into thinking that he hadn't heard-whispering about the anger and resentment that had boiled out of control inside of their son-speaking of him as if he wasn't their son at all, but a monster.

You are a monster.

Yes, I am.

He'd spoken those words with affirmation, but not because he had given the label himself, rather he had come to terms with it long before his descent into the mind of Kylo Ren. His eyes had been full of hurt, but acceptance.

It didn't prove difficult in their adventure to pretend that Kylo Ren and Ben Solo were separate entities, that Ben was not responsible for the atrocities that his other half had committed, but looking at him, marveling in the man that had followed her so far, her own delusion proved more real, reminded her that in a way, she was right.

She hadn't known what his parents had thought of him in their final moments, but she knew that her faith in him never wavered, not then and most certainly not now when he seemed so content. So himself.

She smiled.

Maybe that made her foolish or naïve, but she felt as if she was the one person in the galaxy who had any hope of understanding, and she strongly preferred that considering his alternative.

Rey regarded him for a few moments, his tight jaw, dark eyes fixed on the sky above their heads, laid out in the grass with his arms propping his head up and having not yet taken the initiative to put his shirt back on. She hadn't necessarily minded any of those things, watching him peek out from behind the shadow that had obscured him all this time. He'd saved her from the In-Between, braved the resistance only because she had asked him to with the knowledge that they would not welcome him home.

Every day that had gone by, every hour that she'd spent with him, talked to him, wondered if he was conflicted inside, if he was hurting, or if he'd finally come to terms with everything that had happened and moved on, she could see the tension slipping from his muscles, the constant need to be on guard dissipating. For once, Ben looked at peace.

More peaceful than when he'd slept with her in her bunk.

She wondered how much he had let go since then, pushing back against the dark chipping away, curling itself inside and poisoning him.

They were going to need to talk about it. Eventually.

But in the meantime: dinner.

It hadn't taken long for the suns to set below the horizon and drown them in night, the rushing of water and the chirping of various insects occupying the silence as Rey waited with her spear hefted in one hand. She'd thrown her tunic and trousers back on, crouched on a rock and carefully eyeing the water's surface-a more shallow part where it didn't run as quick.

Because of her lack of patience, the wait seemed much longer, her attention diverted between their meal and where Ben relaxed just behind her.

Rey wanted to see it, see him in this new depth and absorb the moment for what it was worth-his still form and the slow rise and fall of his chest and his hair slightly obscuring his eyes. In her world, one could never be sure how long such a moment would last, and she held out hope that she could admire him for a while longer at least.

She turned back to the task at hand with a soft exhalation of breath and a dismissive shake of her head, biding her time until she'd spotted a small silver body drifting by. With a precise motion and a steady hand, she plunged the spear into the water.

The point stabbed directly into its body, and when she safely discarded it onto the bank at her left, she hefted the spear back and tried again-she couldn't look at it wriggling, nor could she watch it struggle to breathe without feeling a pang of guilt, and Rey was well aware how ridiculous that sounded even to her.

One quick sweep over the river's surface, a soft scowl pulled at concentrated features.

Then the river began to move, a subtle push and pull that didn't quite match the current. Her brows creased, lowering her arm and stepping closer with more of a curiosity, lips slightly parted. The waves overlapped, a soft splash that suggested it was being thrown. She didn't see a larger creature, not outright, but the river's ferocity intensified.

"Ben-" Rey started.

A strong wave spouted upward and slammed squarely in the center of her chest. She barely had any time to draw in a shocked breath before she slipped on a wet stone and tumbled back into the grass.

With a startled gasp, she looked up just in time for one abrupt, singular gush of water to fall over her head, her once dry clothes now soaked, closing her eyes to brace herself against its attack.

She spit water from her mouth, blinking furiously before throwing her forearm up to shield herself from the abundance of fish that flew with it and landed on the bank beside her. They flopped uselessly, heaving gills and mouths parting and closing with their ragged breathing. She turned her head, just barely catching Ben-albeit in the same position, the smile that played at his lips betrayed his innocence completely.

"Ben!" She spluttered, chest heaving, a low growl rumbling in her stomach.

"You looked like you were struggling," Ben commented, waving his hand through the air as if it was so simple a concept to understand, that it was an excusable act for the sake of at least attempting to assist much to her own misfortune. "I was just trying to help."

"You're insufferable!" She made a face, but rather than feeling a sudden panic at a possible unknown attacker, she breathed out a laugh instead. With a shake of her head, she rose to her feet, wringing out her tunic.

Ben perched himself up, holding all of his weight against his forearms, looking at her in all of her drenched glory with an amused smirk.

She hated it.

Yet it simultaneously left a flipping sensation in her stomach; gnawing, a harsh blush dusting her cheeks. Secretly, she blamed the Dyad-and recently it was getting more difficult to use their connection as an excuse to her feelings-but the thread whipped between them and seared with an untold energy. Insistent. Demanding.

She rolled her eyes as he shrugged his shoulders, ignoring that insistent tugging at their thread that begged her to close the distance.

"Sometimes you think I'm alright."

"And sometimes I want to hit you."

"There are sometimes that you don't?" He quipped.

Rey crossed her arms, both as an attempt to appear angry and shield herself from the blustering wind. She shivered.

It was still preferable to the hotter climate planets. "Yes." She answered with honest sincerity. "But they are few and far between."

The thread burned, snapping with a fiery intensity as the space between them closed, opening up the parts of their minds that only recently they hadn't tried so hard to keep hidden. She admired him as Ben, her Ben, both the man she knew all along and her Force Dyad, her soulmate, her home.

Even if she tried to act as if she was angry, an action she ultimately failed.

Ben hovered so close before he actually leaned in, wrapping his arms around her waist and laying his head against the crease of her neck, feeling that sense of safety, security. He had to brace himself in order to keep them upright-pressing her drenched tunic against his bare chest. She felt the goosebumps that ran the length of his arms, and wrapped her own around his neck.

She caressed the side of his cheek where his scar had been before, pressing the utmost gentlest of a kiss there, just below his eye. She flashed him a smile, elated.

"Are you hungry?"


Rey watched the dance of orange and red in front of them while she gutted the fish and sliced them into fillets. The flames flicked high alongside a plume of smoke and sparks, the fish skin browned and crisped in the heat. The smell that radiated from it was heavenly, the rumbling in her stomach intensifying with the crackling flames and searing meat. She only hoped that she wasn't drooling while sitting next to Ben, the only distraction from her appetite being her form pressed up against his, their legs touching, their sides molded into one another. Her head lingered just next to his shoulder until she finally leaned into it.

"How does a scavenger from Jakku know how to cook fish?"

"Rose taught me." With her spear, Rey handed one of the fish over to Ben who straightened up to retrieve it. Her head slipped, coming to rest on his forearm instead and with a gentle sigh, she straightened to dig into her own meal instead.

It was difficult to see him as anything other than a neglected boy that had grown into a man that had once desired nothing more than to live up to a family legacy, a bitter man looking for his place in the stars, a lonely troubled soul that went by the name Ben. Kylo Ren did not exist in him now, or at least if he did, he was too obscured by Ben Solo to influence him anymore.

A man who had once been so dangerous and had no qualms about taking a life, someone who could crush his enemies by flexing his thumb picked the parts that he didn't like out of his meal. She smiled, digging into her meal much more ravenously and savoring the taste on her tongue. Her stomach growled with a vengeance, demanding more than what she was giving it at one time, and without hesitation, she shoveled the bits and pieces into her mouth.

The sounds of flowing water and sputtering flames were lulling, the tension oozing out of her limbs and leaving her feeling oddly relaxed. Satisfied. Happy. She envisioned all of the tension, all of tightness falling out and slipping into the river, being washed away and leaving her with a content feeling for as long as she allowed. Part of her wanted that to be forever, but even she knew that was impossible.

Their lives would always be complicated, what lingered between them was more than complicated, but they were somewhere and that counted for something.

With a full belly, Rey found it much more difficult to stay awake. Her eyes fluttered momentarily, a cloudless night blurring just behind her eyelids-the rain had ceased several hours ago, but because of Ben's prank, a slight shiver seeped through her drenched clothes and she found herself pressing closer.

She leaned into Ben, him providing a necessary cushion as her eyes closed.

"We can go back to the ship if you want." He mumbled into her hair.

"It's fine unless you think you can carry me the entire way."

He chuckled low, the rumbling soft against her ear. "I have before."

Looking back now, it felt like such a simpler time. A terrified scavenger with no idea or plan for the future running away from a cloaked figure in the forest while her friends fought for their lives around her. She'd been whisked away to safety, put under his spell while he personally saw her to his ship where they would inevitably talk for the first time.

"How could I forget?"

She felt him smile next to her at the memory, the warmth of his thoughts reverberating to her. A brief image came to her, his hand rising toward her, the trepidation that flashed through her eyes. Then they were both surprised, the feeling that had passed between them; an energy they recognized in each other. It was gone and suddenly they were labeled adversaries again, but they both knew after that moment that they wouldn't be the same.

They both harbored dark and light, but the only part that mattered was which they chose to act on and she liked to think they were doing well so far, considering.

A silence stretched thin between them but not in a way she found awkward. They were two beings occupying the same space, something she most certainly didn't mind, not that she ever had before. It gave her time to think and thinking about their moment in the water only made that childlike giddiness swell inside of her.

She was unable to hide her smile, a flush to her cheeks as she recounted the moments after where they didn't part with a hushed excuse, rather absorbed the rare and forgotten warmth of two lonely people finally reunited after a lifetime of knowing some part was missing.

Finally, he had removed his metaphorical mask that kept the most private and intricate parts of him hidden from her, a gesture of vulnerability, and trust. They'd both smiled and laughed at how ridiculous they'd been and she'd seen that happiness bring him to life at last.

Rey tried to remember to breathe and was suddenly reminded that an infinite galaxy did exist and she wanted to see it all with Ben. Some day.

Beside her, he shifted and when she opened her eyes again Ben was resting his cheek against her head, taking her hand into his own. They braced themselves against the wind, blustering through the grass and whipping against their backs.

Neither were cold.

Ben's eyes were cast out to nowhere in particular, but he looked more at peace than she had ever seen him.

"Ben?"

"Hm, what?" It must have been the tone of her voice, a questionable inquiry that flicked a part of the thread between them with general anxiety. It pricked her chest momentarily, and she imagined how hard it was hitting Ben just then.

She gave him a smile and gently squeezed his thigh to help ease the tension.

"I'm proud of you." Rey assured him gently, if only to let him know. "You've come a long way."

A look of relief had gone and passed, as if he had any reason to worry about what she thought of him since his slow ascent into the light side, as if he feared that she thought of him any differently for his struggling to be something more, something good. "So have you."

"We would have lost the war if you hadn't been brought back to the light. I guess I just want you to know that I saw you. I saw that you were trying."

"I wish I could have done it sooner."

Ben wedged himself in her heart, whether she wanted him to or not. He made her feel worthy, not alone. She didn't quite know what to do when he came to her, but when they touched hands it cemented her fate.

"You did in the end." She mused quietly, tucking the bottom of her head underneath his chin, feeling the rapid pulsating of his heart in her ears. "Now all that's left is to figure out what you want to do with your freedom."

"Stay with you." Ben answered without a moment's hesitation. "Go to Naboo. Follow whatever happens to come after that."

"You've got it figured out." She grinned.

"One of the few things." And she felt him grin back.

Her lips pressed together as she asked her next question more carefully, treading into an unknown territory when it came to asking about Ben's inner thoughts rather than peering into them directly. Simply looking felt invasive, almost as invasive as finding him nude in the washroom because she had thought he was being attacked while being indecent. At least if he had been fighting some sort of enemy, she could have saved him the humiliation by being there to help. "You mentioned before on Tattooine that you knew the difference between what was real and what wasn't. What did you mean by that?"

"Exactly what it sounds like," His voice was so soft and abstract from the dark timber that she was used to. "I didn't before, when I first joined the order. I think I was too young for that, but eventually some things just started to make sense."

Rey cast her eyes up at him, looking so relaxed in his posture. "What began to make sense?"

It wasn't the reaction that she was expecting, but he pulled in a deep inhale. He suddenly became distant, his features tensed and the curve of his brow pulled into a hesitant scowl. And just like that, he was locking his mind from her, shifting so that she had to sit up and snake her neck back to see him clearly.

"Nothing. We should go." He stated flatly.

"What did I-?"

"I mean, we need to go." He turned and threw his head upwards and only then did she just barely catch a blurry shape in the distance descending into the atmosphere. Straight for them.

A ship-a First Order Dreadnought if she wanted to be really precise in that moment. Not one, but several.

Ben was suddenly moving to his feet and grabbing for her wrist. "Come on." He urged, already tugging her with clear restraint to not break into a run.

The tension that radiated off of him was strong, suffocating and terrifyingly familiar. Even his own rising anxiety couldn't overshadow it, something that lingered just a little bit above the rest, but noticeably snuffed out. A spark demanding to be rekindled, and it was growing stronger.

The dark side.

"Ben, calm down." She ushered him gently.

All it took was his actions to know there was something else, nothing she could ask right then. Rey used the water from her canteen to pour over the fire, scattering the twigs as much as possible to cover their tracks. It would look like a camp, the flattened grass would spring back and all that would remain would be a small scorch mark in the ground.

To a dedicated tracker, it would be obvious but there was also the possibility a pursuer would walk over it-she hoped as much. They both ran through the long grass towards the river. It was only upon reaching it that she realized they had run into a dead end. The embankment was a steep incline of dirt and moss with no clear sign as to how they would get back up. "This way!" She pointed before taking the lead

They headed east along the river against the flow of water. There had been too many instances through passersby on trader's ships or merchants of foolish or inebriated travelers who had dared the waters at night and were never seen again, drowned or caught in some current and pulled downstream. The water was slow moving, but in her current state, she couldn't help but entertain the possibility for it to be the one thing that would finally do her in.

The further up they went, the darkness offered by the cloud and late hour caused a dusky atmosphere. It was getting difficult to see too far ahead of them but they pressed on, feet occasionally losing their footing against rocks or algae. Ben retained his tight hold on her wrist, and she pulled back to intertwine their fingers instead. Somehow that seemed to calm him-subtle, but she would take it if it would obscure that bit of darkness that tried to undo what he had accomplished thus far.

Everything ahead was a blur outlined by mountains and a distant forest. Nothing else was visible, and she became starkly aware that they were out in the open with the only hope of obscurity being tall grass. Vulnerable. She took a beeline and slid down a vertical slope.

Ben followed her down, feet skidding as he came to a stop nearly running into her back as she surveyed the unknown land around them.

Unfortunately, the wind hadn't stopped its torrent but they pushed through. The river was still too wide to swim across, but her feet carried her up a tall mound and she turned her head over her shoulder to see if a pursuer was visible.

Nothing.

It was a good sign, but not anything that settled her nerves. Adrenaline coursed through her body, propelling her legs and feet to go faster. Her heart hammered in her chest, and blood rushed through her veins and threatened to burst. At the top of the mound, the embankment below slipped away, and further down she could just scarcely catch a glimpse of an overhang. "In here!"

Rey jumped down, landing in the rocks on the side of the river as she scrambled into the rock shelter, shielding them from above. It offered protection from the wind, and hopefully protection from their possible pursuers.

She pressed her body up against the dark and jagged wall and inhaled several shaky breaths, ragged thanks in part to the sudden burst of running. Even then her body took a moment to catch up with the sudden stillness, hands shaking.

Ben followed in tow, landing quite clumsily on the rocks as he moved into the shelter beside her. He took no consideration into putting space between them-even if the cramped space didn't allow much room to not be touching. He backed up, pulling her back as his arm braced in front of her, his tall form overshadowing hers quite easily.

She looked over to Ben and caught his eye, holding one finger to her lips.

Through the wind, after what felt like a literal eternity, she made out slow and steady footsteps in the grass above. Inside, she was in turmoil, a deep guilt that if they were caught it would be due to her own incompetence. Ben had trusted her, and she had failed. It curled up inside of her chest and created a tightness, a choking in her throat that developed.

Rey told herself to suppress it so she could concentrate on the steps.

On the top of the mound, above where they were, they stopped. Whoever it was, they were taking the opportunity to look out to the hills and along the river, across the landscape, surveying it for any silhouettes. Fear rippled through her. They were so close. Her eyes were pointed up, wishing they could bore through the rock and fall upon the person up there.

Was it the First Order?

Was it the resistance looking for her?

For Ben?

The footsteps had stopped, but the person lingered. She heard a small thump and to her utter horror, a pair of hands started feeling along the edge of the rock.

Beside her, Ben's chest heaved as he gulped down air as quietly as he could, eyes warily flicking to the overhang. His form was tense, fingers twitching at his side with what she could only assume was ill intentions. With slow and careful steps, searching, and the glimpse of a shadow, Rey felt a twist in her gut, a stabbing sensation that threatened to take what little breath she had from her. She only hoped for a simple misunderstanding.

And silently did she hope for a quick death at least, no drawn out monologues or any chances for "last words". She knew what her last words would be, and also a hand gesture that she wouldn't need to speak for this new enemy to understand. She thought she deserved to be that petty at least, if those were to be her final moments. A few days was long enough to see the world, she supposed. Or at least to spend with Ben.

An icy wave of panic burst from her chest. She fought every urge to run, just barely catching Ben's eye and shaking her head with a silent warning.

Don't.

Their gazes were torn back as the silhouette felt around the overhang, urging her to press back further into their hiding place.

It was too late.

The hands vanished, their absence quickly replaced by a form jumping off the top and landing where they had been only moments before-rocks kicked out from underneath his feet and tumbled into the river, the sound echoing much louder in her ears with her own rising panic.

He straightened into a taller posture, facing the river before turning around.

The newcomer was tall, albeit not as tall as Ben, with warm eyes and still wearing the same ratty resistance jacket since landing on Jakku for the first time when she'd nearly killed him for thinking he had stolen it-he had technically stolen it. He looked relieved, even overjoyous to see her.

"Thank the force, it's you!" He let out a small cry of relief.

She was glad to see him too, but even that feeling suddenly morphed into one of dread.

"Finn?" even over joyous to see her.

"Thank the force, it's you!" He let out a small cry of relief.

She was glad to see him too, but even that feeling suddenly morphed into one of dread.

" Finn ?"