Chapter 2: The Talk

The bright light was harsh against Rey's eyelids as, with a tiny and pretty groan, she stirred back into the conscious world. As her vision came back into focus, the blurry countours of a man - handsome and chiseled face, black hair - grew sharper in relief.

"Ben...?" Rey's smile was lovesick.

"No," the voice - higher than Ben's - rumbled. "It's me."

Rey's face fell, her eyes twinging in wary fear. "Poe?" she mumbled. "Where am I?"

"Ajan Kloss. You're away from Exogol; we got you off in time."

Her vision by now fully restored, Rey slowly sat up, casting her gaze about. "Where's Ben?"

She noticed Poe shift nervously in the chair by her bedside, and her heart began to pound. Rey's scanning of the room became more and more frantic.

"Where is Ben, Poe? Where is he?"

"He's being treated," Poe finally admitted. "We had to care for him, too, in order to keep him alive. We're not a hundred percent certain what will be done with him after that..."

"I have to see him."

"Rey -"

"Poe, I have to see Ben now!"

"Rey, I really don't think..." But Rey was already ripping the IVs out of her arms and leaping out of bed, despite Poe's weak protestations. A flimsy, sea-green hospital gown swishing at her ankles, Rey pelted out of the hospital room, past the guards posted at her door, and sprinted down the hall. The Force Bond, that inner voice inside of her now howling to be near him, guided her down the maze of passages towards Ben's Force signature. She could feel his aura, bright and luminous and glorious, beckoning to her like a beacon.

At last, she came to a hospital room with two posted guards similar to the room she had just vacated. She had lost Poe a while ago, and could no longer hear his futile calls to stop at her back. Waving her hand with a quick Jedi mind trick, Rey bluffed her way past the guards, and opened the door with the Force.

Bursting inside, she saw Ben in a hospital gown similar to her own, and out of bed himself. He was trying to talk his way past a busybody nursemaid droid.

"I'm sorry, sir, but protocol states that I can't discharge you until..."

Rey and Ben's eyes met. With a flick of his wrist, Ben simultaneously sealed the door behind her and also flung the poor nursemaid droid into one corner, so that the tool collapsed in a shower of sparks. Running into each other's embrace, Rey leapt into Ben's arms, folding her arms about his neck and her legs about his waist as she furiously crashed her lips against his.

A joint groan emanated from deep in both of their mouths as Ben and Rey furiously kissed. Her eyes drooping shut with the finality of a freighter door, Rey pried open Ben's mouth with hers and wriggled her tongue in between the split, deepening the kiss. Her jaw was unhinged, the muscles there quickly growing sore but she continued to kiss him with abandon. She felt almost a little pleased with herself, at how well her technique was improving. Beads of salty tears pricked behind her eyelids as she happily tried to pour out words of love around his own plundering lips, but Ben's tongue was deliriously stuck in her throat and she could barely form the syllables.

"Ben... Bemmmmm... Hmmmm... I love... Mmmmhmmmm... I love you, Ben... Mmmmm..."

As she tried and failed to talk, Rey's hands were desperately seizing and pulling on every inch of fabric that she could reach. Her grappling eventually managed to shrug loose the top half of Ben's hospital gown off his shoulders, so that his chest appeared rippling before her in all its glory. Snarling, spinning them both around, Ben slammed Rey into the nearest wall, keeping her pinned there by his strong and calloused hands bracing her hips. Boldly, Rey's wrist snapped out to cup a writhing, alive and stiff thing brushing up against her center. A stiff thing that with every involuntary brush of her pelvis was already making heat pool in her belly and flood her knickers until they were damp.

"Ru...Hmmm... Rub it against me..." Rey whispered into Ben's wild mouth. "I want you to rub it against me... Mmmm... Fuck my pussy!"

Growling, Ben bit down on Rey's lower lip, causing her to let out a tiny yip of excitement. Assertively, Rey clamped her thighs around Ben's clothed cock and he maddeningly thrust between her muscular calves, imitating sex. Rey furiously rocked back, squealing happily.

"Hmmmm... Oh, Force..."

"Oh, Gods, yes..." Ben hissed.

"Oh... oh my..."

"Yes... yes..."

A sudden banging made Rey wrench her lips away from Ben's with a high-pitched squeak, her flushed and very kissed mouth dropping open in mortified shock as her entire face flamed fuchsia.

The door to Ben's hospital room was rattling on its hinges from how hard it had been thrown open, and in the entryway stood an embarassed and very awkward Finn.

"OK... whoa. Whoa. Hello there. I, um... oops. Sorry."

Ben glowered at Finn as though the ex-Supreme Leader wanted nothing more than to fling the smaller man in an ion cannon and catapult him out of atmosphere. Eyes connecting with her dear friend over her lover's shoulder, an embarrassed Rey smiled weakly.

"It's all right, Finny. Come on in."

Finn toddled a few awkward steps into the room, as Ben gallantly set Rey down. Smoothing down the front of her gown, her smile still flustered, Rey asked, "Is there a fresher near here?"

Ben pointed to an adjacent door leading from his room.

"I'll... I'll just go and... wash my face. Fan myself..." Rey was rambling, almost to herself, as she stumbled - still in a lovesick tizzy - into the connecting fresher and closed the door behind her.

For a parsec, there was silence, as Finn and Ben glanced to each other, then just as quickly away. At last, Finn's face hardened with resolve. Dark eyes glinting in protective anger, he jabbed a sharp finger at his former superior.

"Rey wants what she wants. She's a grown woman, and I can't stop her, as much as I might want to. If you are ever... intimate with her, you had better the hell treat her like a perfect gentleman, because if you don't, Ren, I'll... I'll..."

"You'll what, FN-2187?" Ben challenged.

Finn faltered. "I'll... chaperone her for the rest of her days..." he finished rather lamely.

Ben actually hooted at this. "Is that all you've got?"

"I mean it!" Finn tried to double down, get the bobble out of his voice. "I'll be the most devoted chaperone and never let her or you out of my sight!"

"Finny!" Rey squealed, now standing in the fresher doorway and gawping in mortified horror.