As soon as he stepped out of the shuttle in the Redemption's main shuttlebay Ben caught Rey against his chest as she flew into his arms and captured his mouth with hers. He felt her try to slip into his mind but rebuffed her. He wasn't quite ready for that just yet. He slipped into her mind instead, 'Soon, my love.' He promised and then pulled away.
She frowned up at him. "What is it?"
"We need to talk first." He replied looking as though that was not something he was looking forward to.
She could feel his level of nervousness rise with every footstep as they walked to their quarters.
Once inside she asked, "Did the conference not go well?"
"It went well enough." He replied dismissively. "There will be a holoconference in a month. They want to meet you themselves."
Sensing that there was definitely something bothering him she asked, "And?"
He stared at the wall over her head for a moment as she could actually see and feel the mask he donned to hide himself from her. "Ben?" She asked, clearly worried. "What is it?"
He stood stiffly staring over her head.
She stood up on tip toes and kissed the tip of his chin. "Talk to me, what is it?"
"Maybe you should sit down first." He said finally, his voice, like his face devoid of emotions.
Rey could feel nothing coming from him and it made her feel as if she was missing half her heart. She sat down, stiffly alert, in his desk chair and he peered at her tensely before he began to speak. "Rey," he began as if repeating something he had practised saying many times. "First, let me start by saying thank you. Thank you for the past month… for loving me… for showing me the path back from total darkness." As he spoke his mask slipped considerably until she could see and feel his guilt. "I love you, I want to be with you every moment for the rest of eternity." He raked a hand savagely through his hair. "I hope you'll find it in your heart to forgive me."
"What did you do?" Her senses went on high alert, ready for anything.
"I couldn't show you everything, I had to keep some things hidden from you. Some important things. Until this plan was in motion I couldn't risk losing you." He eyed her warily for a moment. "If you want me to go after this, just say the word."
"You aren't making any sense. After what?" She reached out to his mind.
'This.' He thought and then flooded their shared conciousness with a memory that she had never seen in his mind before.
As the image stabilized she could feel the dry oppressive heat rolling off of the red-orange sand around him and feel the pain in his eyes from the glaring sun. He hurried to keep up with a tall man with brownish blond hair in a brown robe. She could feel his annoyance as his boots slipped and slid through the loose sand.
Everything about the place reminded her of home. The heat. The sand. The smell. The sounds. Even the color of the sand.
He wondered in annoyance why Luke had them traipsing around the desert in the heat of the day but refused to ask again. The last time he had asked, Luke had told him to stop being a baby. 'I'm not a baby!' He thought angrily at Luke's back. 'I'm almost Thirteen!'
Rey was startled to learn that she was in a memory of his from so long ago, and wondered why he could possibly be afraid to show her this memory.
"There! See? I told you it was right over this dune." Luke said triumphantly pointing over the crest of the sand dune they'd been climbing.
"You said that about the last ten dunes." The sound of his childlike voice startled Rey. She hadn't ever met a human boy his age, she hadn't expected him to sound any different than how she'd always known him to sound.
"Well, I was right about this one." Luke said with a grin and started down the powdery sand dune toward a halfburied shipwreck that had only become visible from the top.
At the bottom of the dune the duo approached the wreckage carefully. "Hello!" Luke shouted. "Anybody home?"
"Don't move or I'll shoot!" Came a harsh voice from inside of the blown out bridge of a crashed rebel cruiser in front of them. "Wha'ya want here, stranger?" The voice added after a moment.
"I came here to find somebody very important." Luke called back.
"I got a blaster pointed at ya! That's the only important thing you need to know! Now, who are ya?" Came the cantankerous reply.
Rey could feel Ben's mild suprize at finding out the reason for their trip through the hot desert.
"My name is Luke Skywalker, I am a Jedi Master, this young gentleman is my apprentice, Ben. We've come to speak to you about someone who is inside that shipwreck." Luke called back calmly.
"You're 'The' Luke Skywalker? The one who killed the Emperor and Darth Vader?" The voice asked.
"I am the Luke Skywalker that helped cause the downfall of the Empire, yes." Luke called, stepping forward carefully. "Can we talk inside? It's a bit hard to have a conversation like this."
A stoop shouldered old man stepped into the light holding what appeared to be a rusty stormtrooper blaster rifle down by his side. He had a grizzled grey beard and brown leathery skin. "I reckon you come for the girl, huh?"
"The girl?" Luke asked and his shoulders slumped a little too.
"The little girl me'n Ebby found out at the shipwreck graveyard by Neema Outpost." The old man motioned them forward. "Always figgered somebody'd come lookin' for her someday."
The inside of the wreck was pitch black after hours in the glaring sun. Ben followed blindly as the old man, who introduced himself as Guffy, lead them deep inside the belly of the wreck.
Finally he shoved open a door and light flooded out from a room that appeared to be a on old mess hall, many of it's tables still bolted to the floor and stacked with piles of bits and bobs from the wrecks that littered the nearby desert. "Ebby! Wake up, darlin', we got visitors."
The old woman lay under a table on a pile of rags, sweating dispite the cool clamminess of the room. As she came awake she began to shake and moan.
"What's wrong with her?" Ben whispered to Luke but it was Guffy who answered.
"She aint had no med'cin in a few days. Old girl caint go without it, ya'know?" Guffy said, shaking his head sadly.
Ben looked askance at Luke. Luke made a motion with his hand and Ben realized that the old codger meant booze when he said medicine. His already low opinion of the junker fell even further.
Ben looked around at the squallor and wondered how anyone could live like this. That's when he saw a pair of huge brown eyes staring up at him from under the closest table. He flinched then felt upset for it.
The girl was far from scarey. In fact, she was rather adorable despite the smudges of grease on her nose and forehead. Her hair could have been brown or blond, it was too filthy and snarled to tell. She stared intently up at him, unsmiling, unblinking.
He squatted down and looked at her just as intently. After a moment he smiled and offered her his hand. "Hi, there. Who are you?"
She looked at his hand but didn't reach for it.
"I'm Ben." He said, trying to be friendly. "What's your name?"
She stared at him another moment then said shyly, "Reyso."
"Reyso?" He smiled, "You can come out of there, I wont hurt you, I promise."
"What's that?" Guffy said, glaring at Ben. "Oh, ya found her. Get out here, girl! These people wanna see ya."
"She's a baby!" Luke complained loudly when the little girl walked out from under the table and pressed herself against Ben so hard he fell over and wound up with her clinging to him from on his lep.
"She aint no baby, she's almost three. She aint even in nappies no more." Guffy said indignantly. Then added, almost as an after thought, "We call her Rachael, after Ebby's dear departed mama."
Ebby moaned at the mention of her name, but didn't speak. She just lay there shaking, panting and sweating.
Ben was too busy trying to peel the little girl off of him to pay attention to the conversation going on across the room as Luke pulled the old man aside to speak to him.
"Rachael," Ben started to say but she cut him off with a fierce little growly-groan.
"Reyso!" She insisted, gripping the front of his tunic and glaring up at him.
"Reyso," He started again. "Can you let go of my shirt?"
She shook her head.
"Please?" He asked nicely.
"No!" She said loudly and threw her surprizingly strong little arms around his neck, clinging to him so hard her shoulder was nearly choking him. "My Ben!"
Ben met Luke's troubled gaze from over the little girl's shoulder. Luke looked back at the old man and frowned before nodding his head and placing a few coins in the old man's hand. He walked over to Ben and extended a hand to help Ben stand up with the toddler still clinging to him like a vine.
"Let's go." Luke said, his eyes clouded with emotion.
Ben tried to set the girl down but she wrapped her legs around his middle and screamed bloody murder right into his ear. "Noooo! Nooo! My Ben! Nooo!"
"May as well keep ahold of her, she's going with us." Luke said with his voice full of resignation.
Ben gaped at him.
The little girl gave a happy squeal and stopped trying to strangle him with her shoulder for long enough to smack a big sloppy toddler kiss right on his cheek.
Minutes later, she waved happily at Guffy as the trio of man, boy and girl left him staring after them in the blazing Jakku sun. "Bye-bye!" She called in a sing-song voice from the cradle of Ben's arms.
The memory faded and Rey blinked up at Ben. "Luke Skywalker is the one who bought me?"
"There's more." He said softly.
