For the second time, Ben was there when she woke up. She almost regretted it though, because whatever problem he had with his adenoids meant that he snored loudly enough to wake most of the ship.
He looked much younger asleep, and she caught glimpses of the boy he had been in the softened lines of his face. What had it been like for him, she wondered, born into a family recognised across the galaxy, with the weight of all that expectation buckling his shoulders? No one had ever expected anything of her. If Snoke was right, and her power matched that of the man grinding respiratory gears next to her, then she was glad to be the daughter of filthy junk traders. She had no one to disappoint except herself.
The snoring abruptly ceased. His eyelids popped open, but he didn't move, just lay looking at her. 'Thank you,' he said, and she wasn't sure if he was grateful for her presence beside him, for leaving the Resistance to be with him, or simply for being.
She smiled. Ben flung back the sheet, rolled out of bed and she watched him walk naked across the room, picking up his clothes as he went.
'There's a military council meeting tonight. You're invited and all your friends.' He sounded a little awkward.
'Should we go and get breakfast first?' It was an innocent enough question, but his awkwardness grew visibly.
'I don't really…People would.' He sighed. 'You mean, are we going to start doing things together—apart from …' He waved a hand between them, 'this?' He pulled a face. 'I'm not the romantic type. Sorry.'
'I wasn't asking you on a picnic, or to bring me flowers or anything.'
He said nothing, just continued to look uneasily at her.
'So,' she said after an inelegant moment of continued silence, 'you just want us to do sex and training, is that it?'
He grinned at her, and it was the first time she'd seen him grin. 'Sex and training - now there's an idea.'
He left the bedroom, headed for her office, and she followed him, because she was curious to see how he was going to manage to get back into his own room without putting on his trousers and because she was really enjoying the sight of his naked backside. He pushed a button on her desk, and, because it was that sort of desk, a secret panel opened in the wall. He went through it and into his room. The wall slammed shut behind him, telling her definitively that, as far as he was concerned, their conversation was over.
Shaking her head, she turned back to the wardrobe and found that someone had taken the opportunity offered by her absence to throw her old clothes away. If he'd still been in her room, she would have smacked him. Haight was no longer on board and at short notice, she was going to have to choose one of the combinations in front of her.
She paused, considering. She had a whole day to fill, Ben had made it clear he wouldn't be spending any of it with her, and she had no one else left at a social level she could ask. She wasn't a prisoner anymore, and what she'd said to Finn was accurate, even if she hadn't used enough emphasis. She was Supreme Leader of the First Order, and she could damn well do what she liked.
She padded over to her desk, and, because it was that sort of desk, managed to pull up a breakdown of every planet in the vicinity, complete with assessments of defensive capabilities, population densities, natural resources and an indication of whether the First Order could conquer it or not. She pinpointed a continent that looked like it might offer what she wanted, with a temperate climate and plenty of coastline, and then she threw on a pair of shorts and a vest from the wardrobe, slung on a belted robe over the top and searched fruitlessly in the bottom for sandals.
All her life she'd dreamed of an island, but when she'd actually visited Ahch-To, it hadn't lived up to all her expectations. What was the point of growing up on a beach, after all, if you couldn't swim in the sea?
She checked out the command shuttle from the hangar bay with a smile on her face, filed a detailed flight plan so that anyone who might be inclined to worry would be reassured she wasn't off to join any form of rebellion and flew away. She found herself grinning all the way into the upper atmosphere, just at the renewed feeling of freedom, of finally being able to do exactly what she wanted without anyone around to disapprove.
She dropped the robe on the sand, left her boots on top and luxuriated in the feeling of warmth on her skin. She had been too long in the shadows. This was what she craved. This heat and this light and sand that knew its place and didn't spend the whole time trying to scour her eyes.
She tiptoed down to the sea cautiously, poking a toe in first, and finding it warm, transparent, the little ripples teasing at her skin, laughing as they kissed the shore and ran away. She splashed in with growing confidence, wetting her ankles, daring to go in up to her knees. Running along the shore, kicking at the waves, she leaped over the bigger ones, ploughed through the smaller, span in a circle and fell down, giggling.
'What do you think you're doing?'
She snapped back into awareness, sat up to find a black swathed apparition, booted, gloved and cloaked, flanked by a glittering black fighter, still ticking as its engines cooled, cluttering up her private beach.
'Having fun.' She was a trifle defensive. She had every right to be here if she wanted to.
'I don't do 'fun.''
There really was no humour in him whatsoever, she thought, but she wasn't going to let that spoil her day. 'I didn't invite you. In fact, you're not supposed to be here at all,' she replied, tartly.
'Neither are you.' He folded his arms.
'I'm the Supreme Leader of the First Order,' she replied. 'And I can do whatever I like.' She was becoming quite fond of that line, she decided, it was worth repeating more often.
'You are the Supreme Leader of the First Order,' he acknowledged that with a nod. 'And that means you can do almost nothing you like. Which includes,' his lip curled. 'Paddling.'
She looked him up and down, trying to imagine him paddling, in his full Kylo Ren get up, including the mask, and ended up snorting with laughter in a most unladylike manner.
He glowered at her.
'Anyway, I'm not just paddling, I'm training.'
He took the opportunity to look her up and down, quite pointedly. 'On a beach. Without a weapon. In completely unsuitable clothing?'
He was forever commenting on her clothes. She'd never bothered much about her appearance before she'd stepped onto The Reaper, but he always seemed to notice what she was wearing and let her know whether he approved of it or not. She glanced downwards. The vest and shorts were wet and sticking to her, but were perfectly serviceable. She couldn't see the problem.
'Yes, training. See?' She stood quickly, took the opportunity to touch her toes, stretch out her back and marked the fact that his face turned a slightly darker shade of pink. 'I wanted to practise that thing you showed me, where you attack from the air, and I thought it might hurt less if I fell in the sea rather than in the training bay. This sort of thing.'
She went into a cartwheel, attempted to come out of it with a hands-free flip, trying to get the Force to propel her higher into the air, and ended up crashing flat on her back with a tremendous splash.
He looked hesitant for a second, but he really couldn't resist telling people what to do – he liked to think of it as training, but she knew him well enough now to recognise a personality trait when she saw one. He unclipped his cloak, flung it on the sand, followed by his gloves, although he still looked hot and uncomfortable.
'Your balance is off again.'
'No, it's not.' She turned into a graceful handstand, separated her legs at the apex just to demonstrate her control. 'See?'
His face went a fetching shade of crimson, and it was only at that point that she remembered someone had disposed of all her underwear. His intense interest in her dress, or state of undress, suddenly made a lot more sense.
Jogging towards him slowly, she widened her eyes, all innocence and interest. 'If I'm doing it wrong, come in here and show me how to do it better.' She put her hands on her hips, pushing her shoulders back. She was more than aware of how the wet, cooled fabric of her vest had made her nipples pebble against it. She was also aware that he was aware.
He shifted position, pulled at the collar of his tunic. 'I'm not paddling, not for you or anyone. Try again, but you need to lift yourself with the Force at the top of your spring.'
'I think we know lifting is not my forte.' She attempted a handspring, went to turn it into a flying leap and ended up sprawled in the waves again.
He came much further forward, only a few paces from where the waves were breaking, exactly where she'd set her trap.
'I'll try again.'
She backed up in the water, ran forward into a deliberately mismanaged cartwheel and succeeded in showering him in an enormous wave, more than a little helped by a perfectly judged push with the Force.
He looked down at himself with his mouth open, dark hair plastered against his head, clothes dripping. 'Did you…do that on purpose?'
She kept her face straight, although it was extremely difficult. 'Of course not, I'm just terrible at lifting.'
She managed not to laugh for at least a couple of seconds, until a piece of seaweed dropped from his hair onto his shoulder and she couldn't hold it in. His expression darkened, like the ocean on a stormy day and she decided he'd probably killed people for less, taking off down the beach just to be on the safe side. Abruptly the sunlight grew dim and she looked back to see him standing with a hand extended, most of the sea bent by his will into a wave roughly the same height as the command shuttle and she pelted away as fast as she could run, calling out in her mind. 'Jakku isn't known for its water, Ben. I can't actually swim.'
The force of the wave crashed down on top of her like she'd accidentally run into a wall, and then she was caught by the undertow, bowled over with her head bumping against shingle and her mouth full of water. She couldn't breathe, started to panic, and then a hand grasped her upper arm and she was yanked upright and out of the water.
She pushed her hair off her face, spluttering. 'Will you ever stop overreacting?' she complained. 'I only splashed you, and here you are trying to drown me.'
He gave her a disgusted look, and she realised that she was waist deep in the sea and, judging by the way his clothes were now sticking to him, the splash had turned into a thorough soaking.
'I don't do paddling,' he snapped at her, wading towards the shore. 'And I don't do 'fun'. And I don't do romantic trips to the beach either. I thought I made that clear.'
'This isn't a romantic trip.' She grinned at his retreating back. 'This is exactly what you asked for - training and sex. That was the training bit, in case you missed it.'
He stopped so quickly they almost collided. She stepped around him, striding back to the beach. It was the work of a few minutes to find some sticks in the dunes, wedge them into the sand, and then tie her wet clothes to the top to dry in the warm breeze.
She returned to where he stood, watching and dripping in equal measure. 'Did you bring a change of clothes?'
A matted lock of hair hit him in the face as he shook his head. 'I left in a hurry.'
With mock concern, she stepped close against him, stretched out confident fingers and undid his belt. He batted her hand away.
She pursed her lips. 'You can't go back looking like that.' She knocked his hand away in turn, yanking off the belt and throwing it behind her, starting on the bottom buttons of his tunic. 'What will everyone think? It's very important to create the right impression.' She had an idea of the exact sort of impression she wanted to create.
He let her get on with undressing him, but he didn't look very pleased about it. 'Yesterday you'd never done this before, and today you're stripping me on a beach?'
'I learn quickly.' She grinned, the memory of the previous evening washing around her mind. 'It also happens that I have a very good teacher.' She jerked the fabric open and couldn't resist running a couple of possessive, and sea wrinkled hands across his chest. 'I don't know who taught you, or how recently, but only I get to take your clothes off from now on, alright?' Tugging the material off his shoulders, she caught it with a heavy slap before it hit the sand.
He shrugged, and she watched the interplay of muscle and bone that went into achieving that action with careful attention. 'You don't have much competition.'
She propped up the jacket on a couple of sticks, turned to find him hopping as he struggled to remove boots that had been tight fitting before they'd been doused in sea water, and were now moulded to him like a second skin. She helped him haul one off, and then the other, setting them aside and then moved, in a matter of fact manner, to the waistband of his trousers.
He flicked her hand away. 'I can do that myself.'
'Obviously.' She shoved her fingers between the fabric and his stomach before he anticipated the action, yanked him towards her and favoured him with her most direct stare. 'But wouldn't you rather I did it for you?'
She took a moment to remember the part of the previous evening where she'd had him in her mouth and noted the flush rising on his cheeks, the way he kept swallowing. He raised no further objection and she dropped to her knees in front of him, pulling down the dark material until it puddled, quite literally, around his ankles.
She felt it then, the power of the dark side, more strongly than it had ever manifested itself before. She bent forward, closed her lips around him and knew what it was to have complete control over another person, total mastery of their thoughts and emotions. His eyes flickered shut, chin dropping into his chest, and he groaned as she moved her mouth, gasped with every pass of her tongue, shuddered when she fisted her hand around him and pulled. Here was power that she wanted, power that had a purpose and a point, and as he surged into her mouth, calling her name loudly enough to echo back from the sand dunes she thought that this might be enough to change her allegiance.
She dropped back onto her heels when he was finished, but found it hard to meet his gaze, the black intensity within it, the restless swirl of deep emotion. He had once indicated out loud that he loved her, but now he had no need to say it, she could feel it curling around her. This was where she belonged.
She broke the moment. 'Aren't you going to teach me to swim?'
Rey waded out as far as she felt comfortable with, then let him guide her further, his perfunctory efforts to get her to move her arms and legs in the appropriate manner distracted by the more detailed attention he gave to caressing her breasts, and shocking her with the feel of warm fingertips surrounded by cool water pressing her open.
In the end she gave up on the swimming, locking her legs around his waist while he held her up, losing herself in his eyes and revelling in the tight feel of him between her legs.
The sun had begun to sink behind the horizon by the time it was over, its rays dancing a final farewell across the wings of the TIE fighter, a breeze picking up across the dunes. On the beach atop his cloak, they lay together. Ben slept on her stomach, having finally finished tonguing her through a last, lazy orgasm and then closed his eyes, satiated and at peace.
She smoothed her fingers through his hair absently, trying to undo the worst of the damage and considered that she'd finally blunted the needle of Leia's words. The older woman's advice had fallen on fertile ground, and Rey knew that she would be stupid not to cultivate it, at least for a while. It was possible that Ben's mother was right. Maybe he wasn't capable of change, but Rey had spent the day proving to her own satisfaction that when the two of them were on their own, there was nothing about him that she couldn't handle. And nothing about him not to love. Of course, there had been little in the way of conversation besides 'harder', 'faster' and 'more to the right' but she could work on that. As long as he didn't scuttle back under the beetle black carapace of Kylo Ren the minute they went back to the First Order, everything would turn out fine.
She shuffled out from beneath his sprawled limbs, trying not to disturb him and slipped on her clothes. His eyelids flickered, and he gave her that soft, shy smile as he woke.
'We'd better get back to the ship,' she said. 'The council meeting was hours ago.'
He snapped upright immediately, throwing on his uniform. 'You go back first. I'll follow, and then no one will suspect we've been together.'
'Of course.' She decided not to tell him, as she followed him through the full honour guard that Hux had obviously insisted on laying on, that his lips had been kissed into bruised red pillows, there was sunburn on his nose, a smear of sand marking his cheek, a bite on his neck where she'd got carried away, and his hair was sticking out in a dishevelled mess because she'd run her fingers through it so many times. Added to which, he hadn't been able to get his boots back on.
No one who looked at him, and there were thousands who were currently doing that, could be in any doubt whatsoever that he'd spent most of the day having sex with her on a beach, which was exactly the impression she'd been trying to create.