August 21, 1945

Pacific Ocean

Blame Dameron.

Blame Poe with that manic gleam he got in his eye after at least three whiskies, the Poe who would not be denied and came up with crazy schemes that somehow always became reality.

"We have to!" He slammed his fist down on the table where they were playing cards, hard enough to rattle the glasses. "The First Order will-"

"-always find its way home," they interrupted in chorus and finished for him.

"Alright, alright," Cowboy drawled, adjusting the cards he held fanned in his hand. He pursed his lips around his smoke to inhale, then let the smoke seep out his nose without ever touching the cigarette. "I'm with ya. My missus won't like it, but I reckon I don't like me too well anyway, so screw her."

It was Cowboy's wife who had sent the first photos, she of the glorious pert ass and tits covered only by her apron. She had been painted lovingly on the nose of one of their bombers and dubbed Ol' Bess.

In truth, Bess was neither old nor cranky to hear Cowboy tell it: she was a fast-talking, hard-riding, fireball of a young woman who had set her sights on Cowboy when she was 15 and he was 18, working in the oil fields west of her daddy's ranch.

A slight pause ruled the table while they gauged if Cowboy was joking before Scavenger ventured, "I'll screw her if you won't."

Cowboy shot him a glare that had them looking between the two men like a heated tennis match until a smile began to curl the corners of his eyes.

"Dream on!" Cowboy threw down aces and they all groaned at their defeat. "That's the one thing she does like about me!"

They were in a celebratory mood of sorts: Japan had finally surrendered following two bomb drops that had leveled entire cities. Their side of the war finally caught up with Europe, and while they hadn't gotten the order yet, they knew their time together was limited. Already they were back aboard the Finalizer, gathering units and equipment from bases scattered all over the South Pacific.

Of course Dameron would know exactly which seaman moonlighted as a tattooist, a man who kept taking infuriating pauses to prissily tap the ash from the cigarette he clamped between his lips into an empty tin can, as if that mattered when he was exacting a slow, murderous torture on them.

Ben was sweating beneath his undershirt, though whether from the interminable heat below deck, the drink, or straight nerves as he watched Poe grimace his way through the ordeal, he wasn't sure. Rivulets of sweat ran down Dameron's temples from beneath his thick, black hair, and he alternated between biting on his lips and blowing lungful of breath out as the man hunched over him, etching the symbol onto his chest. The blood raised by the needle was wiped away, the damp rag growing red with the evidence of the man's suffering, but the pattern emerged with more clarity with every swipe.

First, the outline: a hexagon rendered as a simple line. Next, a circle inside it. Ben didn't say anything when he noticed the circle on Poe's chest looked a bit lopsided.

The excruciating part was the diagonal points jutting into the center of the circle. Gold Leader had drawn it in the edge of his notebook in a briefing before Corregidor, and Poe had taken a shine to it.

"Compass," Gold Leader shrugged. There were far more directionals than the eight on a standard nav unit, evidence of his boredom as they'd listened to the brass repeat the same information over and over again. He'd almost filled the circle until no more space was left inside its boundary.

The seaman drew the outline of each of the points, then filled each with ink. Poe had to take a break, get up and walk around to endure the continuous pain. He looked as though he regretted his suggestion now.

Ben took another slug of whiskey before stripping from his damp shirt and lying down to submit to the torture himself. He crooked his elbow behind his head and found a point to stare at overhead. His eyes couldn't quite focus after the amount of drink they'd had and he began to feel slightly seasick with the way his eyes wanted to track away from where he tried to look.

The first few minutes weren't that bad. The pain was superficial, like the time he got stung on the leg by a couple wasps in the woods as a boy. He closed his eyes and pictured his mother's face in the study. He was at least as drunk now as he'd been that night. He felt a perverse thrill at the thought of her seeing this tattoo; there was no way she would approve. People in her world didn't do these things to themselves.

His father… Han would understand. Probably so would Uncle Luke.

"You doing okay, kid?" The seaman paused to wipe his chest and Ben nodded without opening his eyes. "Alright, I don't want you passing out on me, you hear?"

"I'm alright," Ben confirmed. The pain was mounting and growing, a hot ember that spread out from the immediate area where the man was scratching at him up to his shoulder, his solar plexus, and down the side of his ribs. What had felt like a sting was beginning to feel raw, like an open wound. He had never had a major injury.

"You in there, Teach?"

Ben opened his eyes to see Dameron staring at him, upside down. A drop of sweat rolled off Poe's cheek and landed on his neck. Poe held a damp rag to his own bare chest to absorb the remaining blood that leached from his skin.

"I'm good," he replied, trying not to grimace as the sensation made him think of an iron being pressed to damp clothes, the steam escaping from under the corners of the tool. The man straightened up from him and stood to stretch his arms and back. Ben raised his head and for a split second, he thought it was over.

The seaman wiped his brow and sat heavily back down on his stool. Ben let his head rest back and swore silently at letting Dameron talk them into this.

He wondered what Rey might say about this. His debauched letter of February had gone unanswered, as had the subsequent ones. He wondered how he would find her, once they made it back home. There were times when he considered simply returning to Indiana, to the life he had known, and leaving her to forge ahead without him.

It seemed the ultimate act of cowardice and yet… It had been so long since she had written. Who was to say she might not have done the same? Their time together had been so brief, it was like a fever dream. Were it not for her photos, he might have believed he had dreamt her: a beautiful girl who loved him without knowing him, one who had opened her heart and made him promises and taken him into her bed without certainty of his return. She could live happily in his memory that way if he never saw her again.

Ben gritted his teeth as the pain on his chest began to edge towards being slashed with a razor blade repeatedly in the same spot.

"Take it easy, kid," the seaman placed a hand on his forearm. "You're almost there."

September 2, 1945

The line wound down the hallway and out onto the ramp up the side of the building by the time he located the telegraph office at the tiny base where they'd stopped to refuel and pick up another few battalions headed back stateside.

A heavy-set woman sat sweating through her dress at the machine when he reached the counter. Her thick black hair was woven back in a bun on the nape of her neck, and streaks of grey showed at her temples.

"Card." She held out her hand for his slip without looking at him.

He placed it in her hand. It had been an hourlong wait and he had agonized over every word. In the end, he had elected simplicity.

"This all? Family?"

Ben shook his head. "Just my wife."

She made no further comment as she began typing his message. The strokes of the keys were hypnotic.

USS Finalizer en route to Honolulu.

ETA September 22 in San Francisco USA.

I love you.

BS.

"You sure that's it?" She finally looked up at him, her fingers hovering over the keyboard.

He hesitated. "Should there be more?"

"It's whatever you want, son," she said, somewhat more gently. "Just making sure."

He nodded and tried to ignore the impatient looks from the men immediately behind him in line as he considered. Some of them held three or even four cards for her to transcribe.

"No, that'll do it." He forced himself to smile at the woman. "Thanks."

"Next," she called, looking over her shoulder past him to the next man.

September 22, 1945

San Francisco

The edge of the fog bank lay well off the shoreline, but a brisk breeze off the ocean still whipped them as they stood above deck looking for land.

A cheer went up from the men on deck when they spotted the Golden Gate Bridge, opened less than ten years earlier to mark the mouth of the bay. Its orange paint appeared brighter and brighter until suddenly, they were sailing under it once more.

Docking took an eternity, especially after they spotted the crowd gathered to meet them at Fort Mason. Ben descended the gangway one half-step at a time, his duffle bag slung over his shoulder.

All around him men were finding their families. Some had brought three generations to the dock, squashing a babe in arms between them as they hugged grandparents and cried tears of relief on their spouse's shoulder. Others dropped their bags unceremoniously to twine around their sweethearts. Ben marveled at the size of the crowd, but the longer he walked in circles, the higher the tide of disappointment rose in him. He didn't spot her anywhere.

A twin feeling swelled to meet his anxiety, one of resentment that was quickly replaced with resolve. If he could not find her, he knew what he had to do. He couldn't run away forever.

Foolishly, he knew he might be looking for a different version of Rey than the one he'd left behind. Might she her hair be longer, or shorter? Would she have grown more rounded from the slender, practically boyish girl he'd known? He paused for a moment to hitch his belongings higher on his shoulder and the thought dawned that perhaps, he should be looking for two people.

Rey, and…

He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. Their child would be two by now, a small person who could walk and talk for itself.

Ben shook his head at himself. It didn't make sense. Her photos showed no signs of her being pregnant, and they had been taken well past the point at which a woman could hide such a thing. Especially not given the state of her clothing.

He started forwards again, retracing the circle he'd already made, dodging smaller people and children and even a few dogs on leashes panting at their masters' ankles. Being taller was normally an advantage, but now that he kept bumping into shorter individuals and apologizing, and he found him shrinking in on himself, trying to make himself as small as possible to thread through the crowd.

He was just turning away from apologizing to an elderly woman who spoke little English that he'd smashed into when he stopped in his tracks.

A woman stood directly ahead of him with her back turned. She wore a knee-length navy dress, very similar to the one Ben recalled Rey wearing when she'd seen him off. The woman raised her hand and shielded her eyes from the sun, and the angle of her elbow looked just like Rey's as she'd done so on the boardwalk by the ocean. She stood with one leg crossed over the other, twisting a bit side-to-side.

Ben stood still, so still. It was her.

She was alone, and just as lithe as he remembered. His heart pounded and he felt frozen. If she didn't turn, didn't walk back to him, he had a chance to slip away in the crowd and she might not ever find him.

Someone bumped him from behind and it jolted him out of his thoughts of desertion.

"Rey?!" He called her name.

The woman turned, and her expression went from a slight scowl to surprise to recognition in an instant.

"Ben!" Her voice was high-pitched with excitement and she sprinted towards him. He didn't have time to put down his bag before she leapt up at him, and he caught her one-armed around the waist, crushing her to him as her arms threaded around his neck. His bag hit the pavement with a soft thump and he squeezed her to him with both arms. She was fairly tall, but he held her up so that they were nearly eye-level with one another, her toes scraping the ground and bumping his shins.

The look in her eye matched the one he remembered from the beach and she babbled, "Oh my God, you're home, I missed you so bad-"

Words failed him and he captured her lips, silencing her torrent but opening his mouth as if it could be delivered directly to him by her tongue that immediately met his, warm and eager and so deliciously alive. His misgivings went quiet and he could feel her heart pounding through her ribs against his own. Heat was already licking down his lower belly just from the sensation of her lips on his, and he stuffed down the obscene thought of pulling her into an alleyway and hiking up her dress when a familiar voice interrupted them.

"Hey Skywalker!" It was Poe. "You gonna introduce me to your lady?"

He broke their kiss and placed Rey down once again. Before he could answer, Dameron had thrust forward his hand in greeting.

"Poe Dameron- Ben's told me a lot about you. It's a pleasure."

Rey looked at him as though waiting for permission before slowly offering her hand in return. "Reynata Solo," she pronounced his name cautiously, and Ben wondered if she'd been using her maiden name while he was gone. "Welcome home." A swell of possessive pride rippled through him to hear her use his name instead.

She had the decency to blush when Poe pressed his lips to the back of her hand and murmured a compliment to Ben. It was unbearable to watch Poe flirt with her in front of him.

Ben cleared his throat and rasped, "Alright, cut it out, you old smoothie. Are you waiting for someone?"

"I'm meeting my someone elsewhere," Dameron said mysteriously. "In fact, I should probably head out that way. Keep in touch, you hear?"

They exchanged pleasantries and watched as Dameron set out alone from the dock, up the hill towards the city. Rey brushed her fingers on his forearm and Ben turned back to her to draw her close to him once more. "It's so good to see you, Rey. I thought about you constantly."

Her eyes flicked downwards, as if she were embarrassed by his naked sentiment. She didn't need to know what kinds of things he'd thought about her.

"Are you ready to get home?" She asked like he might want to linger here in limbo forever. He wanted no such thing, not after two years of wondering if he'd ever see a home of any kind again.

"So ready," he confirmed. "I can't wait to meet your roommates."

"C'mon then," she replied, throwing his flight jacket over her shoulder and tugging him with one hand threaded through his.

They set off towards the city, hand in hand. The clock on the Ferry Building struck 12:30, and he was home.

~The Sky's a Blackboard~

A/N: Hello, lovelies! Thanks again for reading, and I hope you enjoyed TSAB! Comments/feedback are life. I originally planned this as a lengthier fic (ca 30K words), but tbqh, the lukewarm readership this got coupled with RL stuff kinda took the wind out of my sails to write it.

The title of this fic is taken from the jazz standard Teach Me Tonight. While it wasn't written until the early 1950's, the lyrics are toooo Reylo to be believed.