Rey is completely disoriented by the Alaskan summer.
The party seems to go on and on forever. The sky turns a lovely evening gold, and still it stretches on and on, like the minutes have slowed to hours and they've been suspended in this never-ending moment. When the guests finally disperse, someone yawns and remarks how late it is. Rey checks her phone for the time and practically falls over to discover it's 10:30pm, despite the brilliant lazy late day glow of the sun on a perfectly illuminated world.
She's befuddled by the daylight, and exhausted to the bone by the party. The veritable soup of human interaction hasn't helped either. Her head is swimming with too much information about these people. It's an immense relief when the last guest leaves and there's only Ben and his family left.
Ben, who she really doesn't want to think too much about.
"Let's get you two to bed," Padme says with a little grin, looping her arm through Rey's elbow once more. "With the time difference from New York, I bet you're beat."
"I am," Rey tells her honestly.
Leia and Padme lead them upstairs and show them to a beautiful big room. The far side of the room is composed entirely of windows and a set of french doors, overlooking a sprawling wooden deck and the sparkling sea beyond. The room itself is decorated with a sort of mix between rustic cabin and luxurious modernity. The bed is enormous, bigger than a king, Rey thinks. There's a wardrobe and chest of drawers, an attached bathroom where she can glimpse a lovely big clawfoot tub she already knows she wants to try. This place has good energy. Rey likes it. She wants to crawl into that bed, bury her face in the pillows, and try to put this whole messy day behind her.
"So here we are, this is your bedroom," Leia announces unnecessarily, but she sounds proud, like she wants Rey to approve.
"It's amazing." Rey gives her a reassuring smile. She pokes her head into the bathroom for a better look. There's a fancy glass shower with half a dozen shower heads, and a tall structure that says it's a towel warmer.
She chokes back a laugh. Rey makes good money in her position, but she's always reluctant to spend it on things. She hoards it like a nervous dragon. Maybe she could afford something like a towel warmer, but she's never checked into it, didn't even know they existed, and right now has the distinct impression that she's stepped into another world. She moves away from the bathroom and its ludicrous trappings and wanders over to the windows.
"That view," she hums with a note of happiness.
"And the bed!" Padme points out eagerly. "Beautiful, right?"
"So beautiful," Rey agrees.
Ben had stopped in the hallways to exchange a few words with his father, but he comes into the room now. He doesn't really even glance around, just sets their suitcases down and starts unloading his own into the chest of drawers. Watching him do this, it hits Rey like a thunderclap that they're meant to stay in this room together. In a house filled with other rooms.
They're going to stay here.
In the same room.
With one bed.
She glances at Leia, clearing her throat. "Are you sure you're...are you sure it's okay that we…" she stumbles over the words like she doesn't know how to spit them out. Because she doesn't.
Leia spares her with a laugh. "My dear, we're not under any illusions about the nature of your relationship. We know you already sleep together. Mom and I were both young once too. We remember how it was."
Before Rey can figure out how she should respond to this, a sudden deep, low bark boomed through the room, making her jump. This is her only warning ahead of a huge brown-and-white shape barreling into the room, almost knocking Rey to the ground when it jumps up on her. She barely manages to keep her footing, staggering under the weight of the most enormous dog she's ever seen.
"Chewie!" Leia cries in horror. She seizes the dog's collar and hauls him off Rey. The mortification is unnecessary, though. Rey is delighted. She follows the big dog down, kneeling in front of him and scrubbing her fingers behind his fluffy ears.
"Hello, handsome boy," she croons, receiving a big wet lick to the face. "Where did you come from?"
"That's Chewie," Ben says with exasperation. "My dad's dog. He must've just let him out. We keep him put away while guests are because he has no chill. As you see."
Chewie vibrates with excited energy as Rey showers her affection on him. She loves dogs. Always has. But this might be the best dog she's ever seen. Huge enough to hug, fluffy enough to bury her face in.
"I love him," she decides immediately.
"Well he likes you to," Padme says with unveiled approval. "That's very good. It means he'll protect you from the bears."
Rey's fingers freeze, her gaze darting between dog and woman. She stands slowly. "Bears?"
"She's teasing you — mostly," Leia laughs. She moves over to the wardrobe and opens the cupboards. "By the way, there are extra towels and linens in here if you need them. Extra blankets if you get cold."
Padme joins her, rummaging around until she pulls out a particularly beautiful old quilt, made with rainbow geometric patterns. She puts it in Rey's hands. It's soft and heavy and smells like laundry detergent and antique wood. Very cozy and homey.
"Don't use the others if you get cold. Use this one. It has special powers," Padme says, patting it.
"What kind of powers?" Rey smooths her hand over the lovely design.
"I call it the Baby Maker," Padme laughs. "It gave me twins, and gave Leia the most beautiful son in the world."
"I'm going to tell Luke you said that," Leia says with a wicked grin. "Whoops, Rey, here you go."
She bends and picks up the quilt from where Rey had dropped it in a flash of horror, as if it had suddenly turned to living flames in her hands. Leia gives it back to her. She does not want an accursed object like that anywhere near her.
"Okay," she says nervously, handing it over to Ben instead. "We'll just be super careful with that one."
Ben carelessly tosses it at the bed. Rey makes a motion to protest but doesn't have time to tell him before it lands. Her skin crawls with revulsion. As if her haywire emotions aren't enough, as if that stupid kiss is not seared into her brain like some kind of brand, now they want to add Alaskan magic fertility blankets on top of it all. She wants to scream.
"Well, we're going to turn in," Leia is busy telling them. She takes her mother's arm to lead her away. "Goodnight, you two. See you in the morning."
"Goodnight," says Rey politely.
"Night, Mom," says Ben. "Grams."
"Goodnight, Benny." Padme gives them a wink. "We're at the other end of the house. Just in case you were worried. We can't hear a thing way over there."
Ben shoos them and the dog out and shuts the door firmly behind them.
They're finally alone for the first time since the plane. And a lot has happened today. Particularly one big thing that Rey really didn't want to think about, much less talk about. The silence that falls over the room scares her, like he might want to bring it up. So she makes herself ostensibly busy instead. She darts over to the bed and yanks off the voodoo blanket, tossing it on the ground. She also pulls off several dozen pillows from the mountain of them piled at the head of the bed. There's her suitcase to unpack, her phone charger to plug in, and her toiletries to re-organize in their carrying case.
Ben seems as eager to ignore her as she is to ignore him. He gets his things in silence and heads into the bathroom.
The silence is thick and heavy and Rey doesn't know what she'll find if she cuts it open. So she doesn't. Not at first. Not until she has to.
Rey fidgets. She tries to check email, but her cell reception is terrible and she hasn't yet asked for the wifi password. She finds her own pajamas and sits on the bed until Ben is done, piling her hair up into a messy top bun in the meanwhile because she can't stand hair on her neck while she sleeps. She rubs her fingers gently against her sandy eyes and tries not to wonder if Ben has thought about that absurd incident in the immigration center as much as she has.
He comes out of the bathroom smelling the faintest bit like toothpaste. His loose pajama pants ride low on his hips and he's in this black cotton tee that looks soft and does something to her, the way it clings to his broad chest but hangs comfortably, casually loose otherwise. The insane desire to see beneath the shirt flits through her, wondering if his muscles are sharply defined or merely suggested. She flees to the bathroom to banish this curiosity.
Ben glances at her as she passes him, and she catches a surprised double-take in his expression.
"What?" she demands, finally breaking the silence as she lingers in the bathroom door.
"I've never seen you with your hair up. Ever. In three years." He seems rather shaken, and she's quickly aware of the heat rising in her face.
She turns and shuts the bathroom door to hide from him. It's true. She never puts her hair up. Because of him, and everyone else. It feels...safer, somehow. Less exposed. She doesn't know why and can't explain it. It's been this way all her life. Putting it up is for when you feel safe. When you can relax. That isn't at work. Even that time in the hotel when Ben's room flooded and he had to come to hers, and they got a roll-away bed he pushed into the furthest corner of the room he could manage, she'd worn a hoodie to bed with the hood up and drawstrings pulled tight, instincts telling her to protect herself from the man in the room.
Trauma is hard to scrape off.
She washes her face and brushes her teeth. Her survival instincts are quiet just now. They were when she packed too. She changes into her pajamas and immediately regrets her choice. Rey runs hot at night. She sweats. She always has. She vaguely assumed she and Ben would be in some hotel, or at the very least in separate rooms, and she was too distracted by the stupid mark on her neck to think of contingency plans. She kind of hates this unknown dynamic they've shifted into, this power struggle where they stand at odds but pretend to be united in emotion. It leaves her feeling...discombobulated. Unsure of herself. Unsure of him.
If Ben is surprised he's never seen her neck, he's going to be shocked at what he's about to see now.
She grimaces again at her PJ's. The shorts are very small. Barely shorts at all. And she cuts the sleeves off this old Galaxy Wars t-shirt forever ago in an effort to make a sleep cami. It swoops too low in the front, because it turns out Rey isn't very good at repurposing old shirts into sleep camisoles. It's never been a big deal until right now, when her assistant is about to get an eyeful.
If she'd still been under the delusion that Alaskan summers were cold, she'd have brought her hoodie and sweat pants. She'd boil alive sleeping in them, but at least she'd be all covered up.
Not much to do now.
"Hey, Ben?" she calls through the door, trying to make her voice sound authoritative, and failing miserably. "Don't look when I come out."
"Kay," his deep voice calls back distractedly.
"Close your eyes."
"Mm-hm."
"Are they closed?"
"I'm not looking."
"That's not exactly an answer," she grouches.
"Rey," he sounds exasperated again. "It's fine."
"Okay...I'm...emerging," she says awkwardly, and flushes hot because trying not to be weird somehow made it so much worse.
Ben laughs. "Like a moth from a cocoon."
Rey ignores him and opens the door, darting to the bed as quickly as she can. Ben is at the dresser again. She dives under the covers and buries herself up to the neck in blankets, safe from view.
"Did you look?"
"Yep."
"Bastard."
He chuckles and straightens, glancing over his shoulder at her. "You look great. Nothing to be embarrassed about."
Not as nice as Zorri, some horribly petty part of her chimes in, and Rey quickly stifles it.
Ben strides over to the other side of the bed and starts to get in.
"What are you doing?" Rey cries, shimmying so far to the edge one leg falls out.
He pauses, frowning. "Going to bed?"
"In here? No you're not!"
Ben looks around the room. "Where else do you propose? Got a roll-away stashed somewhere?"
"No. I — I thought —" She glances at the wardrobe. "There's a bunch of blankets in there. You could make a bed on..."
"On the floor?" He arches a brow. "No thanks. I don't want to wake up sore tomorrow."
"It wouldn't be that bad!"
"Then you sleep on the floor. I'm at home. I might not be in my bedroom, but I'm at home. I'm sleeping in a bed."
"Ben," she protests, anger and discomfort rising in her in quick succession. "We can't sleep together."
"We're not sleeping together. I'm sleeping over here, and you're sleeping over there. This bed is big enough that we can have a huge neutral zone with no touching."
He gets in without further argument. The mattress must be good because she doesn't even feel it dip when his weight settles in. He's right, the bed is ridiculously big, they're no where near touching. But they're under the same covers and Rey's heart is beating so fast. She could sleep on the floor. She's done it before, during the bad times.
But the idea of gathering all those blankets and trying to find a suitable place to settle in is too triggering, and to do so while being watched by this man her whole body was hot for just a couple hours ago — no. The floor is not an option. She rolls over onto her side, facing away from him. The silence blooms again, heavy and awkward. Rey stares out the windows at the midnight sun just skimming along the horizon. This is too weird. The bed situation, and the fact that it doesn't feel at all like night.
"So you haven't been home in a while," she says after a minute, needing to escape the silence more than needing to pretend he doesn't exist.
"You know, I haven't had a lot of vacation time in the last three years." The usual bite is gone from his tone, but she can hear the amused reproach anyway.
She doesn't rise to take the bait. They won't argue right now. "I thought you came to visit them twice a year?"
"Can you remember granting me the time off for that? Because I can't."
"Oh." She swallows. All her usual cool detachment fails to engage, and she's left with an uncomfortable sensation of guilt.
"It's fine." He says it after a minute, and maybe he's trying to be reassuring, but Rey doesn't feel like it is fine.
She can feel her face getting warm, and it's silly. She knows it's silly. He's in a demanding career, and it's not like he's obligated to be there. If he hated her treatment so much he could have gone over to Imperial when they started trying to woo him. She shouldn't feel this much guilt. But being ignorant to his family, and to how much they've missed him, has mercifully fueled her ignorance so she didn't have to think about the cost of her demands. She doesn't want to think of it, or to feel it anymore. But if she tries to think of something else, her awareness becomes immediately filled by the knowledge that in her same bed is her big, hot assistant—
STOP, she commands herself, horrified. She can't think of him as hot. That is a dangerous thing to think, especially here, especially now. She closes her eyes and grimaces.
"I'm sorry."
There's a pause. A slight rustle in the blanket. She peeks over her shoulder and he's giving her a wary look. "Why are you sorry?"
"That you never get to see them." She doesn't know how to acknowledge the discomfort bubbling around inside her. All those people here who love him, who haven't seen him. Because she refuses to grant him any mercy. Any reprieve. Why does he put up with it? When he has a community here. And...someone like Zorri here. The woman's face resurfaces in Rey's mind, and something sours in her gut. She grimaces. "You should be allowed to bring your girlfriends home to meet your parents. You should be allowed to see your old friends. I guess what I mean is, you should be allowed your vacations."
"You're using passive language to say that," he says, glancing over at her with an arched brow. "You know you're completely in control of that, don't you?"
She rolls her eyes and looks away. "Right. Yeah. I should allow you your vacations. Thanks, Mister Editor."
He chuckles. It's a low warm sound that travels right to the very center of her heart. "It's okay, really. You kind of save me from them, I guess. It's kind of complicated with my family. We don't see eye to eye on some things. If I just focus on work, we don't argue."
Her fingers worry the edge of the blanket, and she looks up at the sun glow shining on the ceiling, words stuck in her throat. She doesn't know what else to say. This is not an area with which she has any familiarity whatsoever. The finer workings of families elude her.
"I don't have one, by the way," he says softly after a minute. "A girlfriend. There's — no one."
She wants to make some sarcastic quip about Anne the barista who writes her number on his coffee, or any other of the many women who are always throwing themselves at him, leaving their numbers on his things. But she doesn't, because the way he says this reassures her. It shouldn't. She has no reason to feel relieved. But she does. Maybe she's at least glad that this ill-advised sham engagement isn't robbing some other woman of her man.
Mine, her inner voice corrects, and she bites her tongue so hard it hurts.
"What about you?" he asks. "You really never take vacations?"
"You have three years of evidence that I don't."
"Why not?" He turns his head towards her, and she can feel his gaze, soft but ridiculously intense like it always is.
She rolls onto her back. "Where would I go?"
"Somewhere beautiful? Somewhere relaxing? That's what most people do, anyway."
"Relaxing. I don't think I know that word."
"I don't think you do either."
She gives him a heatless glare. "Anyway, it seems kind of pathetic to travel somewhere beautiful and relaxing by yourself. I do fine with my routine."
"I know you said your parents were gone. But you really have no people? That's the other thing people do with vacation time. They visit their people. Their family."
All at once, Rey discovers her limit for this conversation. She rolls over onto her stomach and gives an exaggerated sigh. "Ugh, how do people here sleep? It's way too bright."
Ben's silent for a minute, and then he shifts. She hears a click, and he must have triggered some mechanism because huge, thick curtains slide across the windows and plunge the room into absolute darkness. Night at last.
"Thank you," she mumbles.
"You're welcome."
Rey sleeps deeper than she has in a long time. She has no concept of night time or morning in the nebulous dark of the curtained room. She wakes once, sweating and panicked that they've somehow slept through the day. She's really hot and uncomfortable. There's hot air in her face and a hot weight wrapped around her. She can't see anything in the dark, but a quick assessment reveals, with breath-snatching alarm, that she's completely tangled around Ben. Her legs are wrapped through his, his arms clutching her tight to him, her whole body flush against his. Ben's lips are inches from her forehead. She can feel his breath on her brow. He's sweaty too, the comforter covering them is way too thick for two people to share body heat beneath.
My Ben, that traitorous voice inside her sighs with wonton contentedness, but Rey is not content. She's horrified.
She shoves him hard, disentangling herself from him in a spasm of limbs. Surprisingly, he doesn't wake. He grumbles some soft sigh and rolls over, away from her. She feels her way back to her side of the bed, discovering with chagrin that she was the one who crossed the neutral zone and came to his side.
Rey kicks off the covers and lays there, sweaty, willing her heart to calm down. Willing her fiery desires to cool. She checks her phone. It's only 4am. The bright light of the screen cuts through the darkness with welcome intrusion.
Ben's breathing is rhythmic and calm. His presence permeates the room, swirls through her head, makes her dizzy. It's comforting too though. With a little distance, she can appreciate his soft, steady noises a little better. She hasn't heard the sound of another person breathing in the night for...well, she can't remember. His deep, steady cadence soothes her after a while, drawing a blanket over her so inexplicably comforting, it feels weighted. It lulls her into a sense that all is well. All is right.
Ben is here.
Despite her chagrin, she falls back to sleep with that inexplicably comforting thought tugging at her mind.
She's woken again the second time rather more violently. The sharp, startling sound of a ringtone shatters the stillness, jerking her upright in the bed. She'd once again found her way to his side, spooning him like he's her security blanket. Not now, though. Now she's sitting up straight, groping blindly for the sound.
"Ben," she mumbles reflexively, "answer the phone."
"We're not at the office," he says, his voice muffled by the pillow.
"Ben," she hisses, crawling back to her side, searching. "Answer it."
"No."
Rey scrambles to shut off the infernal sound — the default ringtone her phone came with, because she's never been bothered to change it. She usually keeps it on vibrate anyway, and right now she can't remember exactly why she turned it off. She can't really think at all.
She clambers head-first off the bed with catlike maneuvering, clawing after her phone when her swiping knocks it to the floor. "Crap, where is it?"
"It was in your purse, side-pocket," mumbles Ben sleepily, clicking whatever mysterious button makes the curtains open just enough to give her some light.
Finally she grabs it and squints against the assaulting brightness of the screen.
Monica Mothma
She answers immediately. "Hello. Hello? Monica?"
"Ms. Joh—n," the glitchy voice on the other end rattles, the connection severing most of the word.
"Monica, I'm here." Rey's voice tilts louder, desperate to reach this VIP of all VIP authors. She's one of Luke's oldest friends, former senator and Secretary of State, a good friend of Leia too, actually. They served together. Her previous books have sold like lightning. They have been printed by Dagobah's main imprint, but this newest book is a YA Novel, specifically addressing her impoverished upbringing and its impact on opportunity, couched in the framework of a young woman character struggling to find her place in the world. It's already generating a ton of buzz. She is a whale of a client, and one of Dagobah's most important authors.
All of this makes Rey frantic as she screeches into the phone trying to get Monica to hear her, until Ben finally snaps and lifts his head.
"Rey! You're going to wake the whole house!"
She immediately lowers her voice to a whisper, "Monica, I'm sorry, I have horrible service. Just give me one second."
She throws on a plaid robe she finds hanging behind the door and slips down the hallway and down to the kitchen, sliding her feet into a pair of boots. She doesn't even care whose they are.
"And now Oprah's people have called," Monica is saying when Rey finally stumbles outside and manages to get a single bar more. It's enough for a clearer voice. "And I'm just feeling a lot of pressure. I don't want to do it."
"Monica, I'm so sorry you feel this much pressure," Rey says soothingly. "I thought you'd be comfortable being interviewed, with all your PR experience."
"I have avoided interviews about my upbringing my whole life, Ms. Johnson," Monica is saying anxiously. "My entire political career, if reporters or opponents asked me to talk about my poor childhood, I shut them down. I can't face a whole interview specifically about that now. And it will be about that. Of course it will. The whole book is about that."
"I understand. I actually really do. I know how it is to have to shut out that part of yourself. I get your apprehension."
There's a bark and Chewie bursts through the door behind her and out into the yard, prancing around her happily. She finds a stick and throws it to send him running.
"So if you get it you'll cancel the interview, right?" Monica is asking. "There's a reason I haven't done publicity for my last two books."
"Of course we can cancel if that's what you really want—" Chewie is back in a flash, shaggy fur glistening with morning dew. He barks. "Sorry, sorry there's this dog — of course we can cancel, Monica—"
"That's what I want."
"And I want you to be happy. But let me ask you this—" she hurls the stick again. "Why did you write this book?"
"You asked me this last time."
"I know. I'm asking you again. Why did you write this book?"
There's a sigh. "I wrote this book for all the young low income girls and boys out there who aspire—"
While she goes on her noble speech about all the inspiring reasons she wrote the book, which Rey has already heard before, Rey notices that Chewie has not come back this time. She can't even hear him. She whirls and searches, stumbling across the yard with the obligatory "mm-hmm" sounds to encourage the author to keep going while she frantically looks around.
Suddenly she sees him a little past the tree line, dappled in shadows, hackles raised, and a deep growl in the back of his throat.
"Right," Rey tells Monica faintly as her heart climbs to her throat. "We all need your story. All of us kids who grew up being told our destiny was a—"
Her breath fails as her gaze travels from the dog into the woods ahead and she sees it, shrouded in shadow but nonetheless distinct. A huge bear.
Monica is saying something else, but Rey only hears the rushing static of panic in her veins.
"Chewie," she hisses, lowering the phone from her mouth. "Chewie get back here. Leave it alone."
The dog doesn't budge, snarling, head low. The bear is whuffling and making low growling sounds of its own, swinging its head back and forth.
"Tell you what," Rey says into the phone, her voice gone small and breathless. "Let me send you my thoughts in an email. If you still feel this way tomorrow, I'll cancel. Okay?"
Monica sounds reluctant, but it's the best Rey can do right now.
"I know, I'm sorry. I promise we'll talk more. Right now I — I have — an emergency—"
The bear stands up on its hind legs and roars an earth-shattering roar. Rey screams and shoots forward, running as fast as she can towards the dog before it gets mauled or eaten. She's never sprinted so fast in her life, tearing across the lawn in boots that are too big, a robe flapping open on shorts that are too small, straight towards a giant predator who could probably eat her in a couple gulps.
She throws her phone directly into the bear's face just as she reaches Chewie. It smacks off its forehead, distracting it momentarily. She grabs the dog's collar and bodily hauls him backwards and away, the two of them running towards the house. But Chewie, the bastard, stops halfway and turns again, barking full, terrifying barks.
Rey looks backwards to see the bear had tried to pursue, but is once again held off by the dog's barking. It roars and snarls and makes all kinds of nasty noises, but it won't advance. It stomps, swings its head, stands and bellows, but it doesn't not step closer to the dog.
Before Rey can wrap her head around what in the world is happening, Han comes striding past her with a gun, firing into the air.
"Get out of here, bear," he shouts. "Go."
The bear roars again and then backs away. Chewie walks forwards on stiff legs, herding it back towards the trees. Han follows them. When they're about the spot the bear was when Chewie found him, Han fires another round into the air. The bear turns and sprints.
By the time the animal has disappeared completely, Rey is pretty sure she's aged a sixty years from stress alone.
She flops back into the grass and stares up at the bright blue sky while trying to get her heart out of her throat. Freaking Alaska.
Han comes over to her, a crooked grin on his face. He offers her a hand and helps her up when she accepts it.
"You okay, kid?" he asks.
"I think so," she says shakily. She doesn't know if she's about to burst out laughing to dissolve into tears. She feels crazy. "That was so scary."
"Don't worry about that, we get them every once in a while. I'll let Wildlife Services know and they'll come relocate him somewhere safer, without so many people around."
Chewie lopes up beside Han and gives his hand a lick. Han pats his head.
"It was about to eat Chewie," Rey explains feebly.
Han laughs. "Nah, not ole Chew here. He's tougher than that. Bears are scared of dogs, did you know that? Chewie's saved my life from a grizzly plenty of times."
"You mean I…?" Rey falters.
"Rushed straight at an Alaskan Grizzly and threw your phone at it's throat to save my dog even though he didn't need saving? Yeah, pretty much." Han grins this lopsided grin that reminds her of Ben, and puts his hands on his hips. "But as far as I'm concerned, that's the most reckless badassery I've ever seen, and you've won some points in my book."
Rey looks towards the tree line again. "Do you think my phone is gone forever?"
"You mean this?" Han pulls the thing out of his pocket. It's cracked almost clean in half. "Yep."
"Great," she sighs.
The door to the house opens and Leia and Padme appear on the porch. Do they go everywhere together?
"Han, what's going on?" Leia demands. "We heard shots fired."
Ben is out the door too, striding right between his mother and grandmother and covering the distance over the lawn in a few strides, his face wreathed in concern. He's still wearing his pajamas.
"Nothing to worry about," Han calls back to the women. "Rey just met the locals."
"What happened?" Ben demands.
"Relax, she's fine," Han says. "Your lady's tough to scare, Ben. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go reassure your mother."
Rey watches him go with a wistful feeling she doesn't understand. She's still rattled and frightened by what happened, but his approval is strangely...comforting. She's always despised guns and has never understood Americans' obsession with these particular instruments of death, but right now, she's sorry to see Han and his gun go.
"What happened?" Ben asks her again, his voice quieter this time.
"Your grandmother was right. There was a bear," she starts to explain. His face immediately blanches and he seizes her by the shoulders, turning her this way and that as he inspects her for injuries.
"I'm fine," she insists and he looks her over. "Chewie, he was barking, and then the bear got up on its hind legs and I thought — I thought it was going to kill Chewie, so I ran to get him and I threw my phone and pulled Chewie away and then your dad came with the gun and—" she exhausts herself, producing the broken phone with a sad shrug. "Anyway, I don't know what I'm going to do because Mothma is freaking out and I really need to be able to communicate with her."
Ben is apparently satisfied that she has suffered no injuries. He still looks shaken, though, and Rey doesn't know why because it wasn't him who just had a terrible wild animal encounter. "You almost got killed by a grizzly and you're worried about work?"
"It's really important."
He passes a hand over his face. "Okay, we'll just go into town and order you a new one. We can pick it up tomorrow."
"Oh." She pauses. "Really?"
"Really." He looks her over once more, and Rey realizes how chilled she is now that the adrenaline has worn off. She's still in her tiny pajamas and the robe and borrowed boots, and she feels a little exposed under Ben's scrutiny.
"Are you sure you're okay?" he asks softly.
She shivers. "It was so scary."
His hand lifts, hesitates, and then tucks some of her flyaway hair back behind her ear. The lightest stroke dissolves the lingering traces of fear and Rey's body relaxes. Safe, the touch says. You're safe.
"Brave lunatic," Ben murmurs so quietly. His eyes have gone suddenly soft. "Fearless and protective."
And like a drug dripping into her veins, the words sink into her mind with heady pleasure. There's this look in his face that should spook her, but with his touch and his words, she can't find it in herself to worry about it. She wonders if he knew how she kept finding him in the night. If he ever woke up and found her there. And if he did, why he chose to let her.
Abruptly he lets his hand drop away again, shoving them into the pockets of his pajama pants. "So there's breakfast in there, and then after you eat you need to get dressed. My mom and grandmother want to take you into town for something special."
"I don't want to go," Rey says immediately. Under any other circumstances she'd be thrilled to spent time with two powerful women such as this, but the situation is awkward and familial and Rey doesn't know how to act here.
"I know," Ben says. "But I think you should."
"No. I need to stay here and get connected to the wifi and work."
"It's the weekend, Rey."
As if he hasn't worked several hundred weekends with her. Their roles are completely upended here, and she doesn't feel like his boss right now, so she can't find any authority to explain why it's important that she keep working. It sounds feeble when she tries to protest.
"I know, but—"
"Do it for INS, then. The more my family knows about you, the more convincing it will be when Krennic inevitably interviews them."
She grimaces, running a hand over her forehead and discovering more flyaways, reminding her what a sight she must look right now. Lovely. Anyway, she really can't argue with that. She needs to convince Leia and Padme this is real, so they can convince Krennic, so he'll help her get a green card, so they can divorce and put this whole thing behind them.
Rey sighs. "What do they want to do?"
"Shopping, sightseeing, some kind of surprise." His eyes track her hands through her hair and linger there a moment.
She's never particularly cared what he thought of her appearance beyond seeing her as a professional, but right now, she really hopes he's not put off by how disheveled she's become after a night of surreptitiously snuggling him and then going toe-to-toe with a grizzly.
"I don't do shopping or sightseeing and I really hate surprises."
"You might like this one. You never know."
"Ben, I—" She hesitates. "I don't know how to do this."
"Pretend? I thought you said yesterday you were a great actor." His lips twist in a little smile. "I think you're doing okay so far."
"No, I meant…this family thing. I don't do family." Her voice gets small, because if Rey doesn't talk about her past, it's because there's a secret she never talks about, and she isn't sure she wants Ben to know, but she needs him to understand why she's reluctant to go out with his mother and grandmother today.
He gives her a quizzical look. "What does that mean?"
She sighs, chickening out. "Never mind, forget it."
"Oh. Okay…?"
"Breakfast, then go?"
"Breakfast, get changed, and then go." His slow smile is returning. "Are they still watching us?"
A quick glance over his shoulder and Rey can see Leia and Padme and Han chatting but very much clearly still watching them. She nods.
"I think we should hug, then," he says. "A hug after a scary bear encounter seems right."
"I don't want to hug you," Rey says miserably, because she does want to hug him, in fact a hug sounds like the nicest thing in the world right now, but every time she gets close to him physically she loses her grasp on the truth and starts slipping towards something a lot scarier than a bear.
"Come on," he coaxes, his hand finding hers as he steps closer. "I think it'd be a good idea."
"Ben," she complains half-heartedly, but he's already there, winding his arms around her, holding her tight to his chest.
His natural, slightly soapy, slightly masculine scent envelopes her along with his huge body, and his t-shirt is soft and his chest is hard and Rey is pretty sure she's never felt this safe in her whole life. Bear be damned, nothing can hurt her here. She melts into it, closing her eyes while a shiver runs down her spine. Ben, that thing inside her purrs happily. Her heart throbs with a peculiar ache and she finally lifts her arms to twine around his massive middle, holding onto him so tight lest he try to escape.
Maybe Ben understands because he doesn't let her go for a long time. His cheek slides against her hair and she can hear his soft inhale, can feel the breath expanding in his lungs.
"Hey, you two gonna come eat breakfast or what?" Han shouts at them.
They part reluctantly. Rey's face is warm. Ben takes her hand and leads her back to the house, and she pretends that it isn't just because of their charade. If she'd known it was so nice, hugging him, she would have done it a long time ago.
No, no she wouldn't have. Because what excuse does a boss have to hug her assistant? Maybe if she'd managed to be his friend first, and they hung out casually. But then, Rey didn't really do friends. She didn't hang out. There is no scenario outside of this where she sees herself getting a hug from him again. Or snuggling up to his warm, comforting body in the night.
She eats pancakes and bacon and eggs with the family, listening to Han tell his version of the bear story, listening to Leia's praise of Rey's reckless bravery, listening to Padme talk about how her late husband got into trouble with a bear once and had to be rescued by his brother, Ben. And Rey learns who her Ben is named after.
After breakfast they go back upstairs. Ben hangs out on the porch while she showers and changes. She puts her hair up again in a ponytail. It feels good, and there's no one here to hide from, and the way Ben's eyes seem to trace all over her when her hair is up makes her feel kind of powerful in a different way from what she's used to.
Rey finally comes out of the bathroom to see Ben silhouetted against the dramatic Alaskan landscape, his back to her as he stands at the edge of the porch. Seeing him in this setting, with his family, stripped of all the trappings of the office, Rey sort of gets the feeling she's meeting him anew for the first time. Like she's never actually seen him before.
It's a complicated experience.
He turns before she can speak, chest expanding in a deep inhale. He gets is funny little smile. "Feel better?"
"Yeah," she says quickly, nervously. "Um, so I'm going down to meet up with your mother. She said we can take the truck, we don't have to go by boat. I'm really glad about that. I'll uh...see you later, I guess."
He takes a step towards her, but she turns and dashes out of the room.