—Chapter 10: Exchange—

It had been four days since he'd last spoken to Rey, and Poe was getting incredibly antsy. He really didn't want to be the one to initiate contact again, but he was getting tired of feeling clueless about whatever was happening with Rey's training. Her communicator's GPS had given him regular updates on her position, so he felt reasonably assured that she was still alive and moving around freely. Her mention of the cottages had prompted him to look up the historical maps of Dendrokaan, and indeed, this planet had once been refuge to a colony of hunter-gatherers who lived simply, benefitting from the plentiful resources and vibrant web of life here. It wasn't until after the rise of the First Order that this colony had chosen to evacuate to a more industrialized planet.

The maps he'd found also gave him the ability to better picture the terrain Rey was navigating. Her position due north put her on the outskirts of a colony that had clustered in the denser forests, and Ben's cottage was also positioned on the perimeter of that forest, only his was sitting right next to a good-sized lake north-northwest of the base, just as Rey had said. It was all very quaint.

His work in establishing the new organizational structure and strategy within the Resistance had kept him very busy. Though he'd had a couple meals with his friends in the past four days, the meals had always been too brief to sustain a lengthy conversation. This afternoon had left him with a couple unscheduled hours, and he decided he would spend it talking to Finn.

Finn typically worked in or around the hangar, making himself useful to Rose when he wasn't brushing up on his rudimentary piloting skills. Poe had taught him the basics of flying a long time ago, but Finn was by no means a natural, and he didn't practice often enough to have improved all that much. Lately, he'd had more time to practice, but his flying still wasn't great. Poe held on to a thread of hope that he'd find Finn parked inside a simulator.

Surprisingly, Finn wasn't in the hangar—but Rose was. She was on her back under an old B-wing starfighter, wires dangling down from the undercarriage—it appeared she had eviscerated it.

Poe greeted her with enthusiasm. "Hi Rose! Seen Finn around lately?"

"Hi, Poe! Yeah, he was just here. He cut his hand pretty bad when he helped me open up this hatch here, so he went to the med bay to get it looked at." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you hoping to find out if he's talked to Rey?"

He sighed, regretting that he hadn't already thought of a believable phony excuse he could give. "Yeah, I was. Is it that obvious? I haven't heard a thing in four days, and I'm tired of pretending like that's not bothering me."

"Well, I don't think he's talked to her either, but you're welcome to ask," she replied. He appreciated her willingness to help, in spite of how little she actually knew. At least she wasn't giving him a hard time over his concern.

"Okay, thanks, Rose. I'll go look for him in the med bay." He eyed the disemboweled B-wing, adding, "Try not to blow that thing up in the meantime."

"This thing is no worse off than it was when I got here, trust me," and she stabbed into it with a Harris wrench, sending sparks raining down upon her jumpsuit.

Poe walked away toward the medical wing of the base, hoping to catch Finn before he missed him again. It appeared that at least a little luck was on his side today, as Finn was just pulling on his jacket to leave as Poe walked in.

"Finn, good, I didn't miss you!" exclaimed Poe.

"Aw man, I wish you'd been here five minutes ago, I could have shown off this gash I got!" Leave it to Finn to express juvenile pride in a nasty injury.

Poe feigned interest in his friend's laceration. "Bummer, you'll have to show me later. Hey listen, I've been wanting to talk to you. Have—"

"—Have I talked to Rey?" Finn finished for him, cocking an eyebrow.

Poe sighed, staring at his friend. "Yeah," he replied contritely.

"No, Poe, I haven't, I've been trying to just be satisfied with doing my own thing for a while, while she's out there doing hers. I don't check the communicator as often as you do, I'm sure, but I can see that she's still alive." He was walking out of the medical bay, and Poe followed close behind.

"Or he's just moving it around for her to make it look like that—uh… not that I'm suggesting that that's actually what he's doing, I'm just saying," he added hastily, immediately regretting how paranoid that one comment had made him sound, and trying in vain to ramble his way out of it.

Finn's eyes narrowed. "So what is it exactly that you would like to discuss?" He was walking briskly toward his quarters, and Poe was struggling to keep up.

"Well, you remember how pissed off I told you she was when I called her that one time?"

"I do," said Finn, flatly.

"Well, I really think one of us should try to talk to her, and well, I—"

"—You were hoping it would be me so she'd have one less reason to be irritated with you." Finn stopped walking, and gave a small laugh. They were in the common area in the middle of Finn's residence hall.

Poe looked at him guiltily. "Yeah."

Finn sighed. "She'll know you'll have talked me into it, you know. She's not stupid."

"Yeah, probably, but if I ask, she'll just say no, but even if she knows it's really coming from me, she'll still probably say yes to you."

Finn cocked an eyebrow at him. "You think so? What is it you want to ask? You want me to just check on her general well being? I'm sure she's fine, you know."

"I was hoping you could get her to come visit. We could get drinks at the cantina. Just the four of us."

"Four? Which four? Who are we leaving out, Rose or Ben?"

"Well, I guess I imagined it would just be you and Rose, and me and Rey…"

"You would want her to just leave him out there? Is that what you want me to suggest?"

Poe flopped down on one of the couches in the common area. With frustration evident in his voice, he said, "Dammit, Finn, no, you probably shouldn't suggest that. Don't make a suggestion either way, and we'll just see what she does…"

Finn nodded. "Okay, I agree to your plan."

Poe blinked. "Really, just like that?"

"Yeah, I want to see her too. At least this way I know she'll blame you for me asking." He smiled angelically.

Poe stood back up and clapped his friend on both shoulders. "Finn, buddy, I knew I could count on you," he said, grinning widely.

"Uh huh, sure. Okay, I'll watch the communicator tonight, and I'll buzz her when it looks like she's settled in back at her place."

"You know which location is her house?" Poe asked, a little surprised. He thought he was the only one studying the signal well enough to have figured that out.

Finn spoke with some shame in his voice, "Yeah, I figured it out… I've been checking on her at night, and she always rests in the same spot."

"If you ever see her northwest of there, that's his place," Poe offered.

Finn chuckled. "I'm sure you think you're being helpful by saying that, but really, you're just betraying your obsession." Poe averted his eyes, embarrassed, but Finn didn't needle him further. "Anyway, that's good to know, I guess. I'll check in after dinner and see if she looks like she's done for the day. I'll let you know in the morning how it went."

"I'm in meetings all morning, but I'll send BB-8 to the hangar to look for you, and you can tell him. He'll catch me up," said Poe, sounding hopeful. He could hardly wait until morning to hear from Finn.

Rey and Ben had spent most of their time together training and helping each other make repairs to their cottages. Mornings had, for the most part, been spent separately. He had taught her how to use the Force to find edible food, and she found that the routine of gathering and preparing actual food provided a solid foundation to her day. She had also become adept at thought projection—though she still preferred face to face conversation.

This morning, they'd had breakfast together, enjoying eggs that Rey had discovered with her new abilities. Afterwards, Rey had helped Ben put a few finishing touches on his cottage. Their plan was to spend the rest of the afternoon sparring. Ben had fashioned wooden training sabers for each of them to use, and they were currently attempting to be the first to land a blow of any sort on the other.

Ben's movements were fluid, and his attacks were forceful, but Rey was faster and more agile. She hoped he would tire from being the aggressor, and she would be able to strike him once his stamina had begun to wane.

"If you're trying to tire me out, that's not going to go very well for you," he warned her. He then struck fiercely overhead, and she rolled deftly to her left to avoid the blow.

"I'm the one doing all the moving," she teased.

"Though I hope you realize you can't beat an enemy with defense alone. You need to be more aggressive." Another swing, this time horizontally across her front, which she blocked with her saber, staggering back from the strength of the blow. "When you fought me on Starkiller, you were much more threatening than this."

"When I fought you on Starkiller, I wanted to kill you," she reminded him.

"Your hatred of me made you powerful. Once you connected those emotions to your Force sensitivity, you were driving me back. Use that."

But I don't hate you anymore, she projected.

"You had drawn on the dark side to defeat me in that battle. You don't need to hate me, but there is tremendous destructive power to be found in the darkness, and you shouldn't be afraid to use it," he argued. He swiped at her legs, and she jumped up and onto a huge boulder to avoid it, then leapt from there over the top of him to strike from above. He blocked her attack, but was at least momentarily on the defensive. "Good!" he encouraged her; he decided to meet her improvement with greater effort of his own. She came at him again with a series of quick strikes on either side of him, all of which he blocked, but with more and more difficulty. This time, he used the Force to pull her saber right out of her hand, then chopped at her arm with his own, catching her fingers before she could pull away.

"Hey! That's cheating!" she protested, shaking the sting from her fingers.

"Are you serious?" He threw her saber back to her and came at her again. "You have to defend yourself from any sort of attack!" he yelled, lunging forward. She tried to block, but he had frozen her sword arm. With her other arm, she pushed out at him with the Force, redirecting his saber across her body so that he stabbed impotently into the air at her side.

"Better!" he praised. "Don't stop now!" And he whirled around to strike a second time. She blocked, and pushed out again, sending him backwards into the boulder, striking it harder than she'd meant him to.

"Oops! Sorry! Are you okay?" She approached with her hand held out reassuringly.

He responded by casting a rock in her direction, which would have nailed her in the shoulder if she hadn't recovered from the shock of his attack as quickly as she did. "Hey! I was trying to see if you were okay!"

"This is a battle! Don't let up until you know it's settled!" He was coming at her again, swinging his saber while simultaneously flinging smaller rocks and branches at her from various directions, many of which made contact.

She was being beaten, and in utterly humiliating fashion. A rock struck her above her left eye, and she was momentarily blinded by the force of it. Then a branch caught her on her hip, and she was stumbling and struggling to see. Furiously, she flung her arms back in a torrent of Force that sent it all careening away from her and back in his direction. Ben was knocked completely off his feet.

Finally, the attack relented to the point that she could get a moment to think. She touched her palm to her forehead and found that she was bleeding. The blood was trickling into her eye, blurring her vision. Hardly able to see, she struggled to locate Ben.

Ben was supine on the ground about twenty feet from where she thought he had been. She ran over to him and knelt on the ground beside him. He wasn't moving.

She placed her hands on his chest and nudged him. "Ben," she urged firmly, but there was no response. "Ben," she called out more forcefully, giving him a more vigorous shake. As she shook him, his left hand came upon hers to stop her jostling him, and his eyes cracked open.

"That… was impressive. But you need to worry less about hurting your enemies," he chastised her.

She sat back on her heels, letting out a frustrated sigh. "I'm just trying to avoid killing my teacher!"

His hand was still on hers, and he was looking at her. Suddenly, his eyes popped open, and he sat up on his elbows. "You're bleeding," he said, moving his hand to her cheek to wipe away some blood that had trickled down.

"Well, yes, you hit me with a rock. Several rocks, actually, it was very irritating."

"Come with me," he said, standing up. He took her by her elbow and led her back toward his cottage. Once they were inside, he sat her down in a chair, and searched his kitchen for a rag. Finding one, he moistened it with a little water from his canteen, and used it to wipe away the blood that was already covering her face, threatening to stain her clothing. Once he had cleaned the blood away, he set the rag down and examined her forehead.

"That's going to scar," he said, frowning as he looked her over.

"Well, I guess that's only fair," she said, gesturing to the line she'd carved into his face two years ago.

He ignored her comment, appearing lost in thought. "Let me try something," he said, and he pulled the other chair from around the table and positioned it in front of her, sitting down. The blood had begun to run down her face again, and he took the rag to carefully wipe it away.

"I've never tried this before, so if it doesn't work, well…" he paused, abandoning his thought with a sigh. "Anyway, I'm not entirely sure how to do this."

He moved his right hand up to her eye, and touched her lightly on her temple with his fingers, thumb brushing her cheekbone. On impulse, she cast her eyes downward.

Confused by what he was trying to do, she looked back in his direction. His eyes moved from the wound and back to her eyes several times. It was apparent that he was getting frustrated. "Hey, it's okay," she said. "I'm not upset at you, and I don't care if I have a little scar." She placed her hand on his knee reassuringly. "It's not a big deal."

At her touch, he seemed to settle, somehow. His face had relaxed, and he looked less frustrated and fretful. He was… at peace. He glanced at her hand on his knee, then back to her eyes, becoming fixated on them. She watched him stare into her until a trickle of blood forced her to blink it away. The spell broken, he took a breath, shut his eyes slowly, and combed his fingers into her hair just above her eye. His palm moved over the injury, paying no mind to the blood he was smearing as he slid across her skin. His shoulders rose and fell for a few seconds as he breathed calmly and evenly.

Rey imagined what the two of them must look like, and a flush of embarrassment warmed her face. After a moment, however, she realized the rising heat was more than simple embarrassment. She winced as the skin above her eye began to feel like it was burning.

The burning sensation intensified, but abated before she could feel any alarm. The nerves grew cooler. His frustration subsiding, she watched him visibly relax and open his eyes. Pulling his hand from her face, he looked her over thoroughly, grabbing the rag and gently wiping at her forehead to clear away the remaining blood. At this, a pleased smile spread across his lips as he took in the sight of her.

She moved her hand to her forehead to feel what he was looking at, and was amazed to discover that the wound was gone. She pressed him with her gaze. "How did you do that?"

He laughed, shrugging. The light, he projected, looking at her, taking her in.

Balance, she projected back at him. "You are stronger," she met his gaze approvingly. He looked down at his hands as he cleaned off the last of her blood.

After the day's training concluded, they again shared a meal, and Rey left while there was still some evening light to see her way home. On the walk back, she thought a lot about the different abilities that Ben had added to his repertoire in the short time he'd been on Dendrokaan. All his strength and ferocity from before remained, but he was more deliberate and less chaotic in his execution. He could do things he said he had never been able to do before, and he had succeeded in teaching her several of them. How to initiate a Force vision was still a mystery to her, and he couldn't explain his ability to heal, beyond attributing it to his renewed access to the light, but by and large he had been very generous with his knowledge.

She spent the walk home contemplating how access to the light could be related to his newfound skills—was there a connection between healing and his ability to initiate visions? If accessing the light was all it took, she should have mastered it before he did. Was it that he was more balanced? She pondered whether her own abilities would improve if she were to lean more into the dark aspect of the Force, or if the key to those particular skills was something else entirely.

Having reached her cottage, she pushed aside the canvas sheet she had fashioned into a door and stepped inside, then secured the sheet back into place. She ignited her lantern and opened her wardrobe, looking for the robe she had finished making yesterday. In the few days since setting out, she had made robes for Ben and herself, a couple of shirts for him, and a change of pants. She wasn't entirely certain of his measurements, so everything she had made for him was slightly larger than she'd assumed was necessary, and fitted with places where he could adjust the tension.

She tossed the robe on her bed, and began shedding layers of clothing until she was down to her breast wraps and her underpants. She bent over to collect her robe to wear, and as she reached for it, felt a familiar weight fill the air. She paused for a moment, arm still outstretched, confirming in her mind what she already suspected, then quickly grabbed her robe, slipped it on, and turned around. Ben was there, red-faced and guilty looking. She tried to be nonchalant.

"Is something wrong?" she asked him.

He cleared his throat. "No, I just meant to give you this," he said, and held out her hatchet to her.

She stepped forward and looked at him coolly. "You could have just given it to me tomorrow."

"That's what I told myself yesterday, but I forgot. Take it."

She picked it out of his large hands. "I have something for you, too," she said, and walked back over to her wardrobe. Reaching inside, she brought out the neatly folded pile of handmade clothing she'd accumulated for him, and held it out to him.

"What's this?" he asked, placing one hand below and the other on top of the pile, his fingers brushing against hers.

"I made you some new clothes. There's a black shirt in there, but other than that I hope you're okay with some lighter colors. It's all the fabric I could find."

He was taken aback. "That's fine, thank you. I appreciate it."

"It's no problem. Thank you for what you did for me before, with my wound. You'll have to show me how to do that. And this," she said, referring to his presence in her cottage.

"I really don't know what to tell you about that," he said, shaking his head slightly.

She paused to regard him for a moment. "You know, I can tell that you're holding something back from me. You know more than you're telling."

He held his hands up defensively and looked away. "Not really, I swear. I'm not certain of anything." He took a step back.

"But you don't even want to tell me what you think. If you'd just tell me—" she started, but was interrupted by the sound of her comlink beeping at her. Grumbling in frustration, she rifled through her pants pocket and pulled out the offending communicator. The crease in her forehead subsided a little as she looked at it. "It's Finn," she said.

"Well, I was about to go anyway. Thank you for the clothing. I'll see you tomorrow."

She sat down on her bed, and looked up at him. "Yes, good night. See you tomorrow." And just as suddenly as he'd arrived, Ben was gone.

Rey sighed, and looked back at the communicator in her hand. She pressed the button to open the call, and greeted him without betraying any of the annoyance she still felt at Ben's lack of transparency. "Hi Finn, how are you?"

"Rey! I was afraid for a second you wouldn't answer. How's it going?" he said, enthusiastically as ever.

"Fine. Really well, actually. Ben is a surprisingly good teacher, it turns out."

"That's great. So when can you abandon this life of solitude and return to your friends?"

She could tell this was one of those "kidding, not kidding," sort of questions, and she couldn't help an aggrieved sigh. "Finn…"

"I know, I know, sorry, you know we just miss you. The last time he took you away from me I flew into a planet-sized weapon of mass destruction at lightspeed just to get you back."

She smiled at the memory. "And I appreciate it."

"Anyway, we were hoping you could take an evening off and come have drinks with us in the cantina. You don't have to come back for good, but just visit for a couple hours. Tomorrow night, maybe?"

She thought about this. It had been almost a week since she'd seen her friends, and though she'd been too busy to really stop and even think about how much she missed them, sitting here now, talking to Finn, it began to sink in. "Was this your idea?"

"Oh, of course it was!"

She could tell it wasn't. "Uh huh. So is Poe going to be mad if I bring Ben along?"

"That's cold, Rey," he said with a chuckle. "But I'm sure you know he wouldn't be thrilled."

"You know, Ben really has changed a lot. He's actually pretty funny, and he can be kind. There's more to him than just moodiness and rancor. It would be good for you all to see that side of him."

"I have no comment. So what do you say? Will you come out tomorrow? I can pick you up in a speeder."

She gave it another moment of consideration before answering. "Yes. I'll try to convince Ben to join us, but at the very least, I'll come. I'm sure he'll be annoyed, but too bad," she shrugged, even though he couldn't see her.

"Terrific! Poe will be pleased. Rose will, too. She doesn't say it, but I think she liked having another tough lady around for her to commiserate with…"

Rey smiled. "I look forward to seeing everyone. See you tomorrow. After dinner?"

"Yeah, after dinner. I'll pick you up at your place, then we can go get Ben, if he's coming. Do we have a plan?"

"We have a plan." She held the communicator in her lap, rubbing her thumb over the green light. "Good night, Finn."

"Good night, girl. Sleep well."

"You too." Then she heard the click of Finn turning off his communicator, and the green light turned to red. She pressed the button to close off her end of the channel and set the comlink on her folded up pants. She leaned back into the wall against her bed and sighed, thinking about how she could convince Ben to come out for drinks with her and her friends. He is going to hate this idea, she thought.

It was a problem she would deal with tomorrow. For tonight, she wanted to rest her weary body and just sleep. She shifted on her bedroll and slipped under the covers. Reaching out with the Force to the table across the room, she deactivated her lantern and stared up into the darkness. Her hand slipped up to her forehead, and she touched the spot where she'd been struck, the place his hand had lingered, searing a brand into her memory. There was definitely more to his sudden advancement in the Force than he was letting on. He had been so willing to share so much else with her—why he was reluctant to share these other things, she wished she knew. She would be patient, but she resolved to get to the bottom of it. First things first, she had to get through tomorrow.