"The lady said no, Enric. Very eloquently, I think."

"What do you want, Ben Solo?"

"To escort my girlfriend back inside." Ben dropped the older man's arm, and turned to Rey. "If you would like to, that is."

"I would, very much so." Rey and Ben put their arms around each other's waists and they walked back through the door together, shutting it firmly behind them and locking Enric outside. They were back to Rose before Rey heard a muffled thud from the emergency exit, and she decided that she really didn't need to take any more notice of noise from that source ever again.

Rose looked from Rey to Ben, and back again. "So you found her all right?"

"Yeah." Ben looked a little uncomfortable, and Rey wondered if the arm around her was just for show, but he pulled her tighter to him and looked around. "Actually, Rey, I'm almost sorry we can't go back outside. Is there somewhere we can talk?"

Rey was about to answer when she caught sight of Rose's face. When Ben was turned away, Rose mouthed Do you want me to stay?

Rey nodded, then spoke to Ben. "Back of the stage."

Guiding him up the rickety stairs at the side, she took him to the back of the tiny performance space where her chair and an old wicker hamper lay. She guessed the hamper wouldn't hold him, so sat on it herself and put the chair opposite.

To look at him.

But she couldn't. Not at first.

"Rey?" He was on the chair, his knees against hers and her hands dwarfed inside his. "Is it true?"

She took a deep breath. "Yes. I'm pregnant. That night … Anyway, I'm booked into the clinic tomorrow." Then, bracing herself, she held the next breath until she could hear what he said. Would he try to dissuade her? Deny it? What would he …

"No, not that." His caring tone almost had her in tears, and she heard the next words as if in a dream. "Walk beside me? You meant that about me?"

She looked up at him, and her breath came out in a long, deep sigh that took with it so many of the troubles she had held onto for so long. For all of her life, as far back as she could remember, she could not think of a time that anyone had looked at her with such tenderness, as if she were something wonderful and precious and worth looking for and finding.

"I've never had anyone write a song about me before. No. Wait. The song was about you, Rey, but you were talking to me in it. It was beautiful." He reached out and cupped her cheek. "You really are amazing, you know."

Looking at him, she felt as if he were reading her soul through the back of her eyes. "You're … not upset?"

"About you being pregnant? No. Only sorry that I got you into that state. I didn't realise – the condom came off, didn't it?"

"Yeah. And then I was sick and my pills failed."

"Why didn't you tell me? I mean, apart from in the song?"

"Well, the other day when we had lunch, I was all set to, but you said you wanted grandchildren, and I …"

"One day! Eventually – I don't want to start a family right away." He laughed, leaned forward and kissed her. "Look, this is totally your decision, and I heard what you said in the song. but I do have to ask." Now he looked uneasy, but resolute. "I learned from bitter experience that you can't just make assumptions, so please don't be offended, but I need to know. If it's just the money, or help, if that's why you had to choose, if I offered support – would you want to have the baby?"

She squeezed his hand. "No. No, it's not those. It's … it's taken me years to get here. To uni. A degree. A chance at a proper life. I was dumped by my parents at a fire station when I was three, and spent years in the foster system in some pretty terrible homes. I didn't want to end up just scraping my way through life like some of the other kids I knew. I need to make my own life, have a chance to be me before I'm responsible for another person. So thank you. You did need to ask, and I do appreciate you doing that, but that's not why I'm having the abortion."

"Then let me help."

"What? Turning up at my place tomorrow with a wire coathanger?" She watched as the expressions flitted across Ben's face – horror, realisation and then cracking up laughing.

"Mom would kill me if I took one from her wardrobe." He poked her, and she grinned. "It can't be cheap, and I doubt if your insurance covers all of it. At the very least, it is a shared responsibility. I'll pay half, and take you there myself."

"That has got to be the weirdest date I've ever been asked on in my life." Rey kissed him back. I wasn't going to ask him, but him offering is different. "Yes. I accept. Thank you. That does make it all a bit easier."

"Are you still up for supper tonight?"

"Definitely. No food after midnight though."

"Or you turn into a gremlin?"

Rey laughed. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I'd like to try it another time."

They walked off the stage and back to Rose, who was standing ready to go.

"I was about to head off myself and get some sleep. I take it you two are going out?"

"Yeah." Ben had his arm back around Rey, and she was leaning into him. "Thanks for sending me out there, Rose. You were right."

"She usually is." Rey let go of him and hugged Rose. "And, um … you don't need to take me tomorrow morning."

"What?" Rose's face darkened. "He didn't change your mind, did he?"

"No, it's not that." Rey shook her head at the fury that had enveloped her friend. "Ben's going to go with me to the clinic himself. He's … " She looked up at the tall man beside her. "He wants to be there for me."

"I'm coming anyway." Rose bounced from wrath to resolute in an instant. "It's not often I get to walk through the antis as a friend rather than an escort. It'll be better with both of us there. Sorry, Ben. Didn't mean to jump to conclusions."

"It was understandable." Ben grinned. "But remind me never to get on your wrong side."

"You'd better believe it, Solo." Rose picked up her bag, hugged Rey again and walked out.

Thirty minutes later at a nearby café, Rey put her fork down, and leaned back. "So what did you mean by Rose was right?"

"You know when you finished your song? I was right at the back, and you glanced at me then rolled your eyes. I thought you were angry at me for turning up." He took her hand and started running his thumb over the back of it. "Then I saw Enric stalking up to you, and you looked as if you had smelled something bad. I realised you hadn't seen me at all. So when you two headed outside, I went to Rose and asked if I should talk to you."

"And what did she say?"

"That you'd probably be pleased to see me. And I think you were."

"I was. Yes. Thank you." Rey looked down at her hand, wondering how it could feel so comfortable in his. "I mean, I probably could have got out of that, but your assistance was timely."

"I should get you home. You need some sleep before tomorrow." He paid the bill, then helped her into her cardigan. "Look, I need you to know. At any time, if you don't want me around, if I'm being too forward and insistent, just tell me."

She took his lapels, pulled him down to her, and kissed him. "I want you with me tomorrow; I want to see you again afterwards; and in two weeks, I want to shag like bunnies." She kissed him again. "Cool?"

"Cool." He kissed her back, then took her hand and they headed into the warm night.

- o 0 o -

At seven, Rey opened her door to find Ben there holding a bunch of daisies followed immediately by Rose. Rey put the flowers in a water jug, then the three started on the walk to the clinic. The morning was cool and fresh, with dew on the grass and a few scudding clouds across the just-risen sun, and none of them spoke until they were halfway across the park.

"Do you want me to take you back to your place afterwards, or would you prefer to come to mine?" Ben sounded nervous, but Rey was glad he had asked.

"Your place, please. I want to check out your books."

"Weirdos." Rose laughed.

"Well, I'll have about three hours between when I leave you at the clinic and when you come out. I could go pack you a bag of stuff and bring it back over." Ben ran his hand through his hair. "If Rose could come down and help me."

Rey's heart swelled with something she couldn't explain, and she felt like crying. "Thanks." They walked in silence a bit longer, then she spoke again.

"Ben?"

"Hmm?"

"What did you do to Luke that has him yelling at you like that?"

He laughed. "Oh you do not want to know."

"Oh yes we do!" Rose raised her eyebrows.

"Right. So you know he's fanatical about books. Reveres them, adores them, almost worships them?"

"I've noticed." Rey winced, hoping the archway hadn't fallen yet.

"I was twelve, and a Lego devotee. And he had a book all about the history of the company." Ben took Rey's hand and swung her arm. "I found it, and took it to my treehouse to read it. Not a problem, until he came out and yelled at me." He laughed. "Scared me so much that I dropped it. It landed in the fishpond. I didn't realise it was a special edition printed for people in the company. There's only twenty-seven extant copies, and one now is warped and stained and worth a tenth of its original price."

Rey punched him with her other hand. "You inhuman brute."

"Oh I don't know," replied Rose. "Could have been worse. Like what if it was the complete guide to the Chronicles of Thomas the Coven Keeper?"

"Ewww." They were laughing now as they approached the clinic, their good humour deflecting the worst of the yelled insults and the comments from the protesters lined up outside. Several other escorts, recognising Rose, formed a protective grid around the three, and got them into the clinic, where Rose hugged Rey.

"You right from here, hon?"

"I'm fine. Thank you." Rey kissed Rose. "You really are amazing."

"And you, tallboy." Rose looked up at Ben, and although it felt to Rey that Ben was twice her friend's height, she knew Rose had the upper hand.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"You look after her or you've got me to deal with."

"Yes, ma'am!" Ben leaned down and kissed Rose's cheek.

Rey and Ben sat on the cold plastic chairs as she filled out the form. Then she sighed and leaned into him.

"Do you think, perhaps, Ben, that for our next date we might try something a bit more conventional?"

"I was thinking a guided tour of the morgue. What did you have in mind?" He grinned, and she poked him with the blunt end of the pen.

"Sounds lovely. Let's do that for Hallowe'en." She doodled on the corner of the form. "For my last non-engineering subject, I've enrolled in a unit in bookmaking. I think I'll use my engineering to make it a pop-up book. They're pretty cool."

"That would be amazing." Ben leaned over and kissed her nose as a nurse called out Rey's name.

"I'll see you here in about three hours." She picked up her small bag, and headed inside.

- o 0 o -

Four hours later, slightly sore, still dizzy from the sedative, and greatly relieved, Rey clutched the hot water bottle to her stomach as Ben put a cup of tea beside her.

"Time for more painkillers?" He moved the bottle of pills aside.

"Another hour."

"How's the cramping?"

"I've had worse." She snuggled into him, and relaxed as his arms wrapped around her.

"Want to watch a movie?"

"I'll fall asleep."

"Nothing wrong with that." He held her tight, and her eyes closed as she relaxed and let herself feel safe.

- o 0 o -

Two years later.

"You know I don't deal with new books." Luke scowled at Rey before he sipped from the champagne glass he was holding.

"You deal with special books, Luke. You can cope with this one. Shhh. Leia's about to give her speech." Rey smoothed down her skirt, then smiled as a large arm wrapped around her waist. She looked up into Ben's eyes and grinned as he leaned down to whisper directly in her ear.

"I am so proud of you."

"Shhh. Your mother."

Leia stepped to the front of the bookshop, barely visible over the heads of the large crowd packed in there on a warm June evening. "Friends, it is with great pleasure that I am here to present to you a magnificent book, written and created by an amazing woman whom I am lucky enough to mentor. Rey is a qualified engineer, but her application of engineering principles in crafting of an interactive book such as this, is at a level rarely seen in the genre. The models, tactile, kinetic, will interest students at many levels, and perhaps draw young people into the wonderful world of practical hands-on ..."

As Rey mingled with the crowd afterwards, signing copies of her book and accepting the plaudits, she was acutely aware of Ben beside her, Rose and Paige admiring the final product of the work she had bored then with over the last year, and her own satisfaction at walking the road she wanted.

"I never asked you, Rey. Was that time in my office the first time you'd met Ben? When he was in the process of moving back to town?" Leia's question sounded casual, but Rey thought there might be more behind it. After all, Leia had been quite surprised when Ben had insisted that his first dinner back at the family home included her prize student.

Rey smiled while she madly tried to think of a way to answer without giving too much away, but Ben spoke before she could reply.

"I heard her singing a few weeks before, and couldn't get her out of my head." He pulled her close to him, and she relaxed into his body. "But we didn't really connect until I ran into her here, at the bookshop, when you had me deliver a note to Luke. And then I heard her perform again a few days later, and, well, you're right."

"I am?" Leia's eyebrows rose.

"She's amazing."

Rey felt herself blushing, that praise of all she had received tonight wrapping itself around her heart.

"And Rey? You're making a name for yourself in engineering education, you've published your first book, and you have your first album coming out next month. What else do you have planned for your life?" Leia asked.

"From here?" Rey held Ben's hand as she answered from the depths of her heart. "Anything I want. Because I can."