Chapter 12

"There's no way he picked the clothes out," Rey said. "I sincerely doubt he even checked through them himself."

The others had come to her room and were searching through the pile of clothing gifted Rey for any surprises. It was their first time taking a good look at the collection, since their shuttle ship left too soon after Rey discovered the gift for them to do more than bag the clothing on their way out. However, while the collection included several combat outfits, there was also an inordinate amount of low-cut dresses and a bag full of lacy silk underthings as well.

Poe sighed, methodically feeling the seams of each item for hidden objects. "I wish we had a scanner. He could have bugged these, left tracers-"

"What would you do if he had left a tracer on me?" Rey asked.

"Destroy it and immediately leave," Finn injected.

"Which he could then immediately replace and track us again if he wanted to," Rey said, repeating a conversation they had had a half dozen times over already, which she decided was sufficient justification not to warn them that Ben was already on his way thanks to the tracer in his mask. "I understand you want to avoid him, but it's impossible without also avoiding me. He and I are linked. That's the whole reason we left the Resistance."

"We can still try!" Finn protested.

Poe narrowed his eyes at her but said nothing. Rey suspected he knew that she wasn't telling them everything.

"I've never touched such pretty things in my life," Rose said, holding up a particularly elaborate violet gown with silver flowers embroidered into the chest panel. Rey smiled at Rose's adoration and made a point of noting which ones Rose liked best. Rey had no use for anything she could not comfortably fight in, but that did not mean Rose could not enjoy them.

"How did he know your size?" Finn asked, staring red-faced at the black, lacy bra he was holding up.

Rose yanked the bra from him. "I don't think he did, unless Rey's hiding a lot more than she's showing," Rose said.

Rey blushed. "I'm not. The combat clothes fit. I tried them on earlier, but everything that required exact measurements was too big on me."

"That's smart of him. You can always get clothes too large tailored down to fit a smaller frame, but it's next to impossible to tailor a garment that's too small to fit a larger frame," Poe said.

"Can I try this on?" Rose asked, gazing at a blue gown.

"Of course," Rey said, smiling at her newest friend. Rose bit her lip in delight and slipped out of the room with the dress as both men stared in wonder. The concept of having close friends at all was still somewhat foreign to Rey, but she found that she was greatly enjoying having a friend who was only interested in Rey and not Rey the woman or Rey the Jedi.

"We can bring these with you to a tailor once we're done inspecting them," Poe said. "Even if he didn't know what he was getting you, refusing to wear any of the clothes is too much like rejecting the man who gave them."

"I said the combat clothes fit. He can see me in them," Rey said.

Poe chuckled, and Finn glanced between the clothes and Rey like he was at war with whether he wanted to see her in them or keep anything of Ben's away from her. Rey sighed and wished for Rose to return. At this point, even having Ben show up would be an improvement, though she knew they would likely attack him on sight. She wasn't sure what to make of the fact that she trusted Ben to hold himself back from hurting her friends, but she didn't trust her friends enough to even ask them to hold themselves back ahead of time.

There was a knock on the door, and they turned to see Rose enter with the blue gown on. It fit her perfectly and looked gorgeous on her, and so it was only a moment later Rey saw the look of distress on Rose's face and the tall, dark figure standing behind her.

"Ben!" Rey said in delight, then turned in fright at her companions, who both were struggling with their throats. Rose stumbled to Rey's side inside the room. "Ben!" Rey said again, this time with a strong warning. "You promised!"

"I promised not to kill them. I wanted to make things clear before they had a chance to disclose my identity to everyone within five blocks of this seedy place. I am here undercover to assist Rey, and if you do anything to jeopardize her safety, including announcing my true identity, I will make sure you regret it. Are we understood?"

The men nodded. Ben released them and came into the room, shutting the door behind him while Poe and Finn gasped for breath. He stared at the pile of clothing on the floor and raised an eyebrow at Rey.

"They were checking them for tracers," Rey explained.

A gleam appeared in his eye as he studied Rey and her companions. "You did not tell them of the one in my helmet?" he responded.

"Rey?" Finn asked, his expression and voice full of hurt. "You knew?"

Rey crossed her arms. "I told you he could find us no matter what, and something came up where we needed to spend time together in person."

"You knew he was coming!" Finn said, fury outlining his every word and feature. Poe sighed, as if he expected this, and Rose looked between Rey and Finn in bewilderment.

"If we can't call you by the name we know, what should we call you?" Poe asked, slowly pulling himself to his feet and putting his hands on his hips.

Ben gazed at Rey for a moment before looking at Poe. "Ben will do. I recognize you. You were the one I interrogated for information on Skywalker's map back on Jakku."

"Name's Poe Dameron. I'm the current general of the Resistance, and though you may not remember it, I knew you when you were younger as well. You are only three years my junior, after all. My condolences on your mother. She was an amazing woman and an inspiration to us all," Poe said and offered his hand to Ben.

"Poe!" Finn cried in protest, but Poe kept his eyes on Ben. After a moment, Ben took the offered hand, shaking it firmly, and Rey thanked the stars that Poe had decided to join them on this journey instead of leaving things to just Finn and Rose.

"Thank you, General Dameron," Ben said.

Poe chuckled nervously. "Just Poe is fine. We all know you know Rey. Have you met Finn and Rose, my friends and associates?"

"Hello, FN-2187," Ben said, turning to face his former stormtrooper with a distinctly sour expression.

"Hi Ben, annihilated any innocent villages lately, Ben?" Finn responded, standing up and baring his teeth with each repetition of Ben's name as he stalked closer to Ben.

"Finn!" Rey said, standing up to dart between him and Ben. "Stop it!"

"But he's a murderer, Rey!"

"Finn, stand down," Poe said, putting a hand on Finn's shoulder to gently push him away from where Ben stood silently with a displeased face. "None of us are innocents here, Finn. We've been at war. I'm not excusing what he's done, but the only way forward without more bloodshed is to make peace with the past."

"No, I'm not going to stand around and pretend to be friends with that monster! I said I would come, not that I would be part of this madness. I'm out," Finn said, and left the room, slamming the door behind him. Rose bit her lip and followed shortly, muttering apologies as she passed the others.

Rey trembled in frustration, clenching her fists against the flood of emotions threatening to break through her in the form of tears.

Poe sighed and scratched the back of his head. "Sorry about that, Rey, Ben. I'll go talk to them. Why don't you two… catch up or whatever," he said and left the room, leaving Rey and Ben alone.

Ben reached out to touch Rey's shoulder, but she flinched and shrugged away before he could make contact. "How could you?" she hissed, spinning to glare at him. "Are you trying to sabotage me? His name is Finn, so call him Finn!"

"He's FN-2187, a defector from the First Order," Ben reminded her.

"And you're a defector from the Resistance who took on a new name on leaving as well. Look, I know you're not happy about it, but he was never going to be the stormtrooper you want."

Ben stepped closer to her, leering down at her so closely that she felt his warmth reach her own in the chilly room. "And I will never be the jedi you want," he said.

Rey closed her eyes in frustration and leaned her forehead against his chest. "I don't want you to be a jedi. Honestly, you would make an awful jedi. I just want you to be my friend."

Ben tentatively brought his arms around Rey, and when she didn't cast him off this time, pulled her tight against his chest and sighed. "Do you really think that calling him by his new name will make any difference?"

"I think it's worth trying," Rey said, wrapping her arms around him. He nuzzled the top of her head with his own, and they stayed like that a bit.

"This is our first time embracing," he said, and Rey looked up at him, confused. "In person, I mean. Every other time was through our bond. I can't read your emotions through the bond, and I always wondered what they were like in these moments."

Rey blushed. She had not even considered that he could sense her feelings through the force now. "What do you feel?" she asked, afraid to hear the answer, for she was not used to examining her own emotions and did not know what he would find.

"Safe," he said. He stroked her hair and brought the hand down the side of her face, lifting her chin so he could look into her eyes. "I'm sorry. I will call him Finn."

"Thank you," she said, gazing up at him. After a minute, she blushed again. "I'm not used to having you in person, at least not without fighting."

He smirked at that and removed his arms from her, stepping back from her embrace. "We'll figure it out. What brought you to Coruscant?"

"My lightsaber. I need a new one. I thought there might be some texts in the library for how to construct one," she said.

He leaned his head to one side, studying her. "Technically, it was my lightsaber, but it doesn't matter. You do realize I have at least a half dozen lightsabers available for use at any time that I would have happily shared with you."

"I want to build my own. It's considered a rite of passage for force users, isn't it?" Rey asked. It occurred to her then that he might be able to save her the trip to the libraries. He had offered to teach her several times now, and she did need more knowledge of the Jedi.

"It is. Traditionally, the trickiest part is collecting the kyber crystal for the energy beam. The empire had depleted many of the known natural stores of kyber crystals when building the death stars, and those were destroyed by the Rebellion. The First Order has a small stockpile of them collected from scavenging the lightsabers of jedi who fell in battle. Alternatively, we could seek one of the known caves to see what has been missed or grown since the Empire came. Ilum, the most popular source, was not completely destroyed. You may have better luck than me."

Rey gave him a funny look, and Ben pulled his lightsaber free of where it had been hiding inside his jacket, which she now realized was a normal black, leather jacket over a long-sleeve black shirt and black slacks. He was not wearing any of his usual armor. He kept his lightsaber off and pointed at its crystal, which had a notable crack in it.

"This is why the cross guards are necessary-they're actually vents for the unstable energy. Still, it is my lightsaber that I made with a crystal I found, and it has served me better than any other I have used."

Rey nodded. "We'll go to Ilum then," she said. "Thank you for helping me, Ben," she said. "Finn and Rose will come around in time, I'm sure." He gazed at her quietly, neither supporting nor denying her faith in her friends. She glanced down, not sure what to say, and saw the clothes still scattered on the floor. "By the way, we were wondering if you picked the clothes out yourself or had someone else do it for you?"

Ben looked at her sharply. "Someone else. I trusted the First Order tailor would be far more sensible of current fashions for a young woman than myself, though I did request that he include combat gear for someone your height. Why do you ask?"

Rey bit her lip to suppress her grin and held up one of the gaudier, more revealing items of lacy pink lingerie. Ben's jaw dropped in complete shock, and Rey fell apart laughing.


Got the chapter done early tonight! There will probably be no update tomorrow since I have plans with friends in the evening, which is when I usually write. I hope you enjoy this, and please review whether you love it or hate it or slightly like it but there's this one thing really bugging you that you should really tell me about so I can improve my writing. :)