Finn opened his eyes.
No, not opened - they'd never been closed. He was seeing through them again, as if the world had been switched back on, like a light. He was looking at the ceiling of the bedroom, lying on his back, on the bed. He was naked.
He turned his head. Rey was lying on her side next to him, watching him, breathing deeply, covered in a thin sheen of perspiration.
"My FN..." she purred.
"What happened?" he remembered a kiss, and then... he was here. Nothing else.
He sat bolt upright and immediately regretted the impulse, wincing at a sharp pain in his back and a seething mess of hurt all trapped in his head. It was too early for a hangover. What had Solo done to him?
"What do you mean, what happened?" a look of concern on her face.
"We were sat on the bed, and the next thing I know, I wake up here."
"What?" she frowned in confusion, "You mean you weren't..." she gesticulated helplessly with one hand, "there for it?"
"No."
"So Ben was in control the entire time?"
"I guess." Finn groaned and attempted to rearrange his spine.
Of course. Solo had fucked both of them. He should have known. He had known. What exactly was unexpected in this turn of events? Nothing. He knew it was asking for trouble, and he'd walked right into it, willingly, for the most obvious of reasons. He slumped back down onto the bed and massaged his temples.
"Ben?" she sat up and scanned the room, "Ben!"
Stars he was tired, the Merenzane, the Andoan, the hour and the experience of having his mind and body taken over by an evil bastard, it was all catching up with him fast. He could deal with this later, in the morning. Actually, he'd had a really cool evening. The best in a while. A long while.
She was in the other room now, pacing and talking to Solo. She sounded angry.
Damn this bed was comfortable. It would be even more comfortable under the sheets. He slipped between them and hoped the headache would be gone in the morning. Tomorrow was a new day, after all.
Stirring from sleep, the suite in darkness, fingers in his hair and a soft whisper in his ear. "FN..."
Wetness on his cheek. He turned over, pulled up the sheets and fell back into dreams.
A trail of white petals led him through bland hotel corridors that twisted left and right endlessly, the dark figure ahead glimpsed only for the briefest of moments before she rounded the next corner, and the next, black train flowing behind her, white blooms in her wake. A sudden anxiety pulled him forward and increased his pace, fueled by an instinctive need to see the woman, to touch her, to hold her. His desire to reach the woman in black grew to desperation as he dashed headlong on slippery tiled floors, sliding around corners, crashing into walls, the pursuit growing ever more frantic with every fleeting, lost glance as she remained distant, beyond his grasp.
Another corner rounded, and before him a long, narrow corridor, at the opposite end a door closing on a shadow while white flakes drifted to the floor. He sprinted the length of the passage to reach the door, open it and step through.
The Falcon hummed around him, the soft clicks and beeps of its systems the only sound in the main cabin as it sped through the stars. Only a few paces in front of him was the woman, her back to him, face hidden, still and silent in a black gown, its trails and skirts filling the craft like a flood of night shot through with veins of casino gold.
He stepped towards her, and wordlessly she raised dark hair to expose the nape of her neck to his touch. The tip of his finger on a tiny black tab, slid downwards over her skin, smooth and cool save for the soft ridges of her spine and the feel of her body trembling as she sobbed. The dress fell away into drifting webs of darkness as he tried to hold her, wrap her in his arms to wipe away tears and tell her he would make things right, but he was left holding nothing but wisps that decayed and disappeared, slipping through his fingers. The blackness under his feet became a void and he was falling.
Light seeping into sleep. The sound of the waves crashing on rocks. Finn opened his eyes to see the glow of the dawn filtering in through golden drapes, filling the room with an amber warmth. A new day. New life.
He sat up, memories of the previous night struggling back into his consciousness. Dinner: Ewoks, delicious. Chilling here: Clone Clowns was hilarious. Spin the lightsaber: fun but potentially deadly, mental note to not repeat that. Rey's scars, her eyes. The missing sex, Solo somehow taking over his mind to shut him out. Rey confused and angry. Crashing out.
He should be angry as well, he supposed. He'd been taken advantage of, by Solo at least, by Rey perhaps, although it seemed Solo had lied to her. But he felt more disappointed than anything; in himself for falling for it, in her for going along with Solo's plans.
Why waste energy on anger? This was a time for positivity. He was moving on, starting a new chapter in his life, and last night's clusterfuck was a very timely reminder of exactly why this was the right thing to do. She was a mess he had to leave behind.
Maybe clusterfuck was a bit strong. It hadn't been a complete disaster; he'd been having a good time up to that point. A great time, really. When had they last spent an evening out like that? Must have been years.
He dressed quickly and walked to the window to watch the dawn, the sun yet to rise, the glow on the horizon reflected on the Sea of Cantonica spanning the vista before him. What better way to greet the day and a new start than to watch the sunrise over Cantonica?
Was there a coffee maker in this place? That would top it off nicely. His eyes dropped to the table beside him where he saw a sheet of paper and Rey's spidery scrawl on it.
Sorry for everything. Gone to play the slots.
Fuck.
Not his problem any more. He was out of this. Someone else can handle it.
Slot machines, though. Shit. He should get over there.
Compromise: he would go to check, but not quickly. He freshened up in the bathroom as the low whine of the evacuation alarms started, slung his tux jacket over his shoulder and left the suite at a leisurely pace.
The lift doors opened to show anxious faces, a flow of patrons away from the gaming floor and members of the Canto Bight Police Department headed in the opposite direction, hefting blasters and batons, talking urgently into communicators. Fear and confusion were in the eyes of public and police alike and the smell of burning was thick in the air. Finn's stomach rumbled. What he really wanted to do was find the breakfast buffet - he was sure it was somewhere on this level - but instead he grudgingly joined the security staff to push against the flow, towards the gaming rooms. Would they close the buffet? Probably. Just his luck. Could really use that coffee.
It took him a moment to recognize the strangled mass of twisted metal and splintered plastics that sat in the middle of a thoroughfare as a slot machine. It sat where it had landed, as if crushed and tossed by a huge and powerful hand. Slots were a decidedly bad idea if you had Dark Side issues.
He rounded the corner into the main gaming room and saw the rest of them. Dozens of machines reduced to burnt, shredded scraps, the smoking scars of Force Lightning twisting along the walls and ceiling. Casino security milled around, some holding extinguishers, ushering the public out of the area.
Finn surveyed the scene for a moment wondering where she would have headed. He strolled past the destruction, away from the main gaming rooms to a quieter space occupied only by the squat, hulking shapes of heavily armored police, a tape barring further progress and beyond that the balconies.
He ambled up to the barrier and was met by an armored officer who raised a hand to bring him to a halt. The stress on the man's face was visible even through his visor.
"Exit the casino immediately, Sir. It's not safe here." He indicated the path back where Finn had come from.
"I'm with her." Finn nodded towards the balconies. "I better see how she's doing. Talk her out of burning the casino down and throwing it into the sea. Maybe she's just hangry," he shrugged.
The policeman looked Finn up and down, then glanced nervously at the balconies. "Go on then," he said, shaking his head.
Finn ducked under the barrier and walked to the balcony where they had met the previous night. Rey stood there, in shorts, sandals, tank top and spectacularly disheveled hair, elbows on the balustrade, watching the sunrise with exhausted eyes. A handful of CBPD speeders and jetsticks buzzed back and forth at a suitably discreet distance.
Finn took up the spot next to her. "You've made quite a mess," he remarked casually.
"Yeah. I'm good at that." She sounded calm and resigned.
"Told you to stay away from those slots."
"Among other things. I should listen to you more."
"I'm sure they had it coming though."
"They did. Fucking machines."
"So why play them?"
"They have to come up all hearts someday, right? I should know better, but I always hope." she sighed. "And maybe I felt like doing something stupid and pointless and fucking things up even more."
Her eyes fell to the town below. "I'm sorry about last night."
"Don't be. I'm the idiot that walked right into it."
She looked at him. "Why?"
Finn's gaze remained fixed on the view. "You know why."
Rey stayed silent and looked out to the Sea of Cantonica where the rising sun played on the water, as if it had been shattered into a thousand glittering pieces that were being thrown this way and that at the mercy of the waves.
"I was scared he would leave if I didn't do it," she said eventually, "I thought I could fix everything and get you both to stay. I don't know, I didn't think really, just hoped. Stupid."
"Why do you want to keep him around so badly?"
"Because he stayed. Nobody else did." Rey hesitated, adrift in memories for a moment. "I was lost after Exegol, really lost. I needed someone, and he was there."
"I didn't know," Finn felt a sting of shame as he recalled those days and hints of coded cries for help, "All that stuff with Poe, it seemed important at the time."
"I tried to hide it," she said "I thought he was the only one that could help me. He knows what it's like to fight the Dark Side. And we're bound together by the Force. I believed that was important, a good thing, at the time."
"And now I'm leaving you again," he shouldn't feel bitter about it, but there it was.
"Yes. Do what you said you would. Go out there. Be all you can be."
"Rey..." he reached out to take her hand, and they faced each other, almost, but not quite touching.
"Go. I don't deserve you," she whispered.
He pressed his lips to her forehead, to stop time, to take them someplace that wasn't here and now, even if it was just for a handful of seconds that slipped quickly through his fingers before he stepped away.
"See you around, Rey."
"Not if I see you first, FN," a broken half-smile on her lips.
Finn started to turn and hesitated. "You need to get out of this. The Council, they know it's killing you. They'll let you fall to the Dark Side and then they'll cut you off, or worse."
She tried to smile again, "I'll be fine. I'm Rey Skywalker. Go."
He turned and walked, past the police who asked questions that he barely heard and didn't answer, back into the gaming rooms to merge with the stream of confused, anxious aliens that would take him far away from here. He felt numb and distant, disconnected from the man that was leaving. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Step after step. Don't look back. You're really doing this. Do not look back.