Chapter 12: Something Different

"You were alone, left out in the cold
Clinging to the ruin of your broken home
Too lost and hurting to carry your load
We all need someone to hold."

-Someone to Stay, Vancouver Sleep Clinic

29 ABY

"I still don't see why you get to go sooner than me," Colt protested, helping Rey tighten the last straps on her overnight pack. "I was at the temple for ages before you even showed up."

Rey grimaced slightly, fiddling with the hilt of her quarterstaff, which she had rewrapped with fresh leather bindings just the day before. "I'm still convinced that Master Luke only agreed to this because Han and Leia were so insistent on my visiting them on Chandrila. Might as well minimize the number of off-planet excursions, I suppose."

"They could've come here, like they do every year," Colt disagreed. "Besides, you know he dislikes their visits. We're not even supposed to see family."

"They're not my family," Rey corrected, knowing that it was a poor argument. "They're Ben's family. They just like me to check in because—well—they brought me here."

Colt rolled his eyes in a way that told Rey he saw through her argument. "The real reason you're going is because Solo offered to take you. If I had to guess, Master Skywalker refused at first, and Solo laid on some bantha fodder about how Master Skywalker doesn't trust him and is prejudiced against him."

Rey blinked in surprise. Colt may have been socially inept at times, but at others his ability to read people was downright frightening. If Rey hadn't spent the past six years developing an acute awareness of Ben Solo's every thought, she would have thought it impossible.

Having heard Ben's conversation with Master Luke second-hand, she knew that Colt's analysis wasn't far from the truth.

"Perhaps," Rey said. "Or perhaps Master Luke thought that giving Ben some responsibility would be good for him. He is almost old enough to take the Trials."

"Maybe," Colt said. "I still think it's strange that you two are friends. He's dangerous, Rey."

"He wouldn't hurt a fly," Rey scoffed. "You're just jealous because he taught me makashi before you learned it."

"It was unfair!" Colt exclaimed, his fingers plucking at the front of his tunic in agitation. "You always know the lessons before we've had them. Maybe that's why Master Skywalker is letting you build your saber first."

It hadn't taken long after Rey's first incursion into Ben's mind before fragments of untaught knowledge had begun manifesting in her own, like a series of doors swinging open and admitting her to nearly a decade of experience that was not her own. It had startled Rey at first, the precision with which she knew how to wield a practice staff, the muscle-memory to execute a perfect parry, and the strange instinct for negotiation that was the sole inheritance of a politician's son. It feels like cheating, she had told Ben, in a fit of guilt.

Cheating? he had laughed. What's mine is yours, Rey. If there is anything I can do to make you stronger—more prepared for the world—I'll do it without hesitation.

Discussions of their strange connection were limited. It was a topic that defied explanation and strayed fearfully close to shattering the dictums by which the Jedi lived. There is no emotion, there is peace. There existed a balance between love and detachment that Rey struggled to achieve every day. She knew that the Jedi lived in isolation for a reason. Master Luke himself had told her that the self-actualization and brotherhood she would achieve among the Jedi would not replace the family she had lost. But as the years passed with Ben by her side, the lines between right and wrong had blurred, leaving her torn between her loyalty to Luke and the unbreakable bond she shared with his nephew.

There was an implicit understanding between Rey and Ben that what they had was not to be acknowledged, spoken of, or revealed to the others at the temple.

"You'll build your saber soon enough," Rey encouraged, changing the topic hastily. "I heard Serai and Kora talking about it last month."

Colt heaved a sigh. "I guess you're right. Sorry for being jealous. I just—part of me hoped that we would go together."

Rey softened, giving him a half-smile. "Me too," she said. "When I come back, we should visit the orchids. I haven't spent time with you in ages."

Colt murmured something under this breath that seemed to the contain the words Ben Solo and no time for the rest of us.

"Colt," Rey protested. "Please—you understand that it's—"

"Different," Colt said. "I get it. Something about the two of you is…different."

Rey felt a shard of fear crystallize in her chest. "Not—"

"I'm not going to say anything," Colt interjected. "You just need to be careful."

"I know," Rey breathed. "I can tell Master Luke hates it. When I first came to the temple he told me to stay away from Ben—I've no idea why, but clearly I disobeyed him. His lessons on attachment are getting more pointed every day and I'm sure—"

"Yes," Colt cut in again. "Master Skywalker is displeased with the pair of you. But that's not what I mean."

Rey cocked her head slightly. "What do you mean?"

Colt's vibrant green eyes peered out at her from beneath his sandy-blonde fringe, meeting her gaze with an intensity that surprised her.

"Rey," he said gently, almost beseechingly. "You know what I mean."

Rey frowned. "I don't understand."

The boy sighed, looking away, as if she had failed some sort of test. "I know you care for him Rey," he said softly. "And he cares for you. But he's also Ben Organa-Solo. The son of war heroes and Prince of Alderaan. There is great responsibility on his shoulders, and the weight of great power. He's ten years your senior, and one day soon he's going to leave this place and take his rightful place as a Jedi Knight, defending the New Republic. His going is inevitable, and I only want you to be ready for it."

"Nine and a half years," Rey said, trying to hide the sudden vice grip that had materialized around her throat, choking down on her words.

"What?" Colt asked, baffled.

"He's nine and a half years older than me," she responded. "Not ten."

Colt managed to avoid rolling his eyes, but Rey could tell it was a close thing. "That's beside the point," he told her gently. "What I'm saying is—Rey—you can't let your relationship with him overshadow everything else that you are, or losing him will ruin you."

"That's not true!" Rey protested, feeling the first sting of tears behind her eyelids. "He's not going anywhere!"

Colt looked at her sadly. "There is no passion," he said, in a tone that carried warning. "There is serenity."

"Stop it!" Rey snapped. "You can't tell me who to care for! You and I are friends—is that off-limits now too?"

A lopsided smile took over Colt's face. "We both know it's not the same," he told her softly.

"Explain to me how," Rey demanded, settling her hands on her hips.

"Well, it's simple," Colt told her, refusing to meet her gaze once more. He thumbed a loose thread at the edge of his pocket. She could almost sense him digging up the right words, slotting them into sentences that would reveal enough but not too much.

When they came, they struck her like a fist to the solar plexus.

"You don't look at me like I hold the galaxy in my hands."

She met Ben on the landing pad, where he stood stiffly at his uncle's side. Rey strained to catch the last words of their conversation as she strode nearer, her quarterstaff hanging loosely in the grip of one hand and her pack slung over the opposite shoulder.

"—expect you back in a week," Luke was saying. "That will give you plenty of time on Ilum and still allow you to spend a few days on Chandrila with Han and Leia. No detours—I don't care if either of you cooks up some hair-brained scheme to go blundering across the galaxy in search of the last remaining Jedi toothpick—I want you back here in seven days' time and in one piece."

Ben grunted in an undertone that made it clear how ridiculous he thought Luke was being.

"Don't give me that," the Jedi master responded, voice rising slightly. "The last time I let the pair of you out of my sight you decided it would be fun to stop by Dagobah to see what Master Yoda's old hovel looked like. If it happens again, you won't be leaving this moon for a decade."

Sensing an impending argument, Rey slid neatly between the two men, a brilliant smile on her face. "Good morning!" she chirped, swiveling to look up at Ben. She had grown nearly four inches in the past year, but even now, at the age of fourteen, she was forced to crane her neck upwards to catch sight of the amused smirk tugging at his lips. "Ready to go?"

Master Luke clicked his tongue, as if he knew exactly what Rey was up to, but acquiesced. "Very well," he said. "Rey, I've given you all the advice you need. When you get there, you'll know what to do. May the Force be with you." He cast a suspicious glance between the duo, as if already regretting his decision to grant them even the slightest free rein.

"And with you, Master," Rey responded, inclining her head politely.

The gray-haired Jedi grumbled something unintelligible and turned to walk back towards the temple.

Ben muttered something darkly in response before turning back to complete the last few pre-ignition checks on his X-wing.

"Cheer up," Rey said bumping his shoulder gently as she helped him detach the fuel cables from the fighter. "Just think—you won't have to see Master Luke for a whole week."

Her argument with Colt had left her feeling oddly queasy—a feeling that she tried to hide as Ben swiveled his head downwards to look at her. His going is inevitable.

"Almost makes up for the number of hours I've had to spend planning with him over the past three days," he groused.

Rey grinned, sensing the lack of venom in his words. "You know how grateful I am, right?" she said gently. "To you. For doing this for me."

Ben let out a bark of laughter and returned to fiddling with a control panel. "Don't lay it on too thick, kid," he teased, breaking the gravity of the moment.

"I'm serious!" Rey protested, giving his shoulder a gentle shove. "I'm trying to thank you and you're turning it into a joke!"

Ben looked down at her, the corners of his eyes relaxing in a way that—to Rey, and Rey alone—signified gratitude and affection. "I know," he said gently. "It's the least I could do, for my only friend."

Rey huffed angrily. "You know I don't have to be your only friend," she responded. "If you would just try to get to know the others—"

"Rey, we've talked about this," Ben cut in. "They don't trust me, and I don't trust them. They're too subservient to Skywalker, and they never think for themselves."

"I listen to Skywalker," Rey argued, feeling a sudden stab of guilt as she recalled Colt's admonishment. There is no passion, there is serenity. "You don't have a problem with that, do you?"

Ben closed the panel he had been working on and shouldered his own pack. "You aren't too far gone to question things," he told her. "And you don't take everything at face value. It makes you a great deal more bearable."

"Ben," Rey said, reaching out to touch his arm before rethinking and jerking her hand back to her side. You don't look at me like I hold the galaxy in my hands. She flushed furiously and turned her face away to hide the expression. "You know that if you explained your past to Luke, he would understand you better. Maybe then the two of you would stop fighting all the time."

"You know how I feel about it," Ben said, stepping away from her. "About my history with him. I trust you. Isn't that enough?"

Rey sighed. "I suppose."

"And I suppose you'll never stop trying to push the subject," he said, ascending the ladder into the cockpit of the X-wing. "You wouldn't be you, if you did."

Rey hummed in agreement, trying to tame the whirlwind of her thoughts as she climbed into the seat behind him. The X-wing was a new model, with ample space for a copilot.

"Igniting sublight engines," Ben said through the head piece. "Helmets on."

Rey slid the bulky cap over her ears and flicked a switch to close the cockpit shield. "Ready when you are," she responded, her hands moving nimbly over the controls, preparing for flight just as Ben had taught her. Her fingers hovered for a moment over the auxiliary fan gauge. Not until we're in the air, she thought instinctively, drawing away.

She was sure she had never seen the instrument before in her life.

The craft lifted effortlessly from the landing strip under Ben's control, banking and spiraling upwards until it crested the canopy of the dense jungle. For a moment they skimmed over the greenery, rolling and dipping inches above the foliage below, just as Rey liked.

She imagined Ben skimming these same treetops in single-person craft. Ben Organa-Solo, Prince of Alderaan. Flying away to where she couldn't follow. Through the tears stinging her eyes, the shape of his imagined X-wing morphed into the bulky craft that had carried her parents away from Jakku.

Then, with a flick of his wrist, Ben sent them hurtling into the upper atmosphere.

From space, Ilum was a pale gray orb—a small dwarf planet, cloaked in a hazy blanket of cloud cover.

"That's it?" Rey asked. "It's just a—a rock! Are you sure this place was sacred to the Jedi?"

Ben's chuckle filled the cockpit, warming the chilly airspace. "Pretty sure, kid," he said. "It might not look like much, but this planet has been exploited by Force-users of all types for over a thousand years."

"Exploited?" Rey questioned. "What were they exploiting?"

"Kyber crystals," Ben explained. "The planet's core is made of them. A kyber crystal is the central component of a Jedi's lightsaber—it allows a Jedi to focus and concentrate the Force into a form that can be used as a weapon. In the time of the Old Republic, it was traditional for young Jedi to visit the temple on Ilum to gather the crystals necessary to construct their own blades."

"'Exploit' is such a harsh word though," Rey said, as they drew nearer. "Does taking the crystals cause the planet harm?"

"Not if they're taken sparingly," Ben conceded. "That's one thing the Jedi got right—because each crystal is specifically attuned to an individual, they never mined the planet intensely. Finding your own crystal is part of the Jedi path. Kyber is Force-sensitive—it regrows over time, and the Jedi were few enough to never deplete Ilum's supply."

"But…?" Rey trailed off.

"But the Empire was not so sparing," Ben said, and Rey detected an edge of steel in his tone. The X-wing banked, cutting a wide arc around the planet.

Rey watched, awestruck, as a shadowy line came into view. The line extended and thickened, transforming into a deep channel that scored Ilum's surface. Something in the region of her heart clenched as she took in the damage—a single smooth scar that bisected the face of the planet in a perfect ring. Even from space she could see the unnaturally smooth edges of the cut, the massive cliffs of stone that descended into a seemingly bottomless trench.

"They did this?" she asked, feeling as if the air had been punched out of her lungs. Something in Rey's chest said sacred, home, Force, and the sight before her caused her stomach to tighten with nausea.

"To build their Death Stars," Ben said, his voice clipped. "After the Clone Wars ended, the Empire set up a base on Ilum to slaughter any remaining Jedi that sought asylum there. They also began mining kyber for their superweapon."

"Will it…grow back?" Rey asked.

Ben shook his head ruefully. "Maybe. It would take millennia, though. You and I will be long gone by then."

You and I, Rey repeated to herself, as Ben banked the craft skillfully away from the trench and entered the landing sequences.

"We're not going into the trench?" Rey asked, snapping out of her reverie.

"No," Ben responded. "When Skywalker first came here after the Battle of Endor, he explored the old Empire mining sites. It's a toxic wasteland down there, and what kyber is left has been pulverized. No, we're headed for what's left of the Jedi temple."

"What's left?" Rey asked.

Her only answer was the silence of the cockpit.

Rey had initially assumed that the gray haze surrounding Ilum was the result of cloud cover. As they drew nearer, she realized she had been wrong.

Ilum's clear blue sky was unbroken by clouds, and its surface was a tumble of stone and—something else.

"Is that water?" she asked Ben. "It's so…white?"

Ben's laughter washed over her, warm and rich and soothing. She wished desperately that he had been facing her. She could almost imagine the way his lips would turn up with a laugh that warm—the way his eyes would crinkle at the corners, his cheeks lift, his countenance lighten.

Almost, but not quite.

"It's snow, Rey," he told her once his amusement had subsided.

"Oh," Rey said, still vaguely confused. She had heard of this phenomenon, of course, in stories from the other padawans. Master Luke had once even shared the tale of how he had nearly frozen to death on the ice-planet Hoth. But Rey herself had never experienced the frigid softness of snow.

A door creaked open softly in her mind and Rey felt Ben's pull as she stepped through, blinded by the brilliant light all around her.

"Ben! Benny!" a voice said from somewhere behind her. "Come put your gloves on, dear!"

Rey-Ben spun around, their lanky legs almost tangling together in thick layer of white coating the ground. Snowflakes were falling quickly, catching on their arms and the front of their jacket, making icy impact with their cheeks and nose.

"Stop calling me that, mom!" they called, their voice still young and unbroken by puberty. "I don't need gloves!"

"Don't be silly, your hands will freeze!" the voice repeated, and Senator Organa came into view, bearing a pair of bright red mittens that she extended imperiously to the child before her.

Rey-Ben made a disgruntled noise in the back of their throat and snatched the gloves irritably before spinning around to take in the snowscape surrounding them. Drifts covered every inch of the ground, cushioning sharp angles and casting a strange, muted silence. They extended a single bare palm to catch a falling flake, and watched it melt on the pale, smooth skin of their palm.

Rey had a strange and sudden urge to run the hand through their hair, to see if it was really as soft as it looked, and immediately shoved the thought away, realizing that Ben could likely sense everything she was thinking while she shared the memory with him.

She blinked once, twice, and withdrew from the connection. Stupid girl, she told herself. Colt was right—you're way out of line. He would be disgusted if he knew how much time you spend thinking about him. He would realize you've got no shot at becoming a Jedi.

She tried to remember when Ben had stopped feeling like another person and had started feeling like part of herself.

She couldn't.

Still slightly disoriented by the suddenness of the vision, and desperate to forget her conversation with Colt, she poured out a stream of questions. "Where was that? How old were you? Does Senator Organa still call you Benny?"

Rey felt, rather than saw, Ben's grimace of discontent. "No, she does not," he asserted. "She kicked the habit after I turned into a dangerous criminal and left home. The memory is from Chandrila—it's where I was born and raised. Most of the time, anyways—when Han wasn't taking me on harebrained adventures that were far too dangerous for a child. I was twelve, in the memory. Chandrila has a very mild climate, and that was the first time it had snowed that I could remember."

"Hmmm," Rey responded, still recalling the paleness of Ben's small palms and the length of his arms—similar to her own. He must have grown quickly, she thought. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Ben said with surprising tenderness.

He brought the X-wing down in the midst of a dark cluster of pines. "Got your coat, kid?" he asked. "It's going to be cold out there."

Rey shivered in anticipation, fastening the clasps of her out layer more tightly and drawing the fur-lined hood up to shield her face. Life on Jakku and Yavin 4 had not introduced her to the concept of cold. She knew the feeling—had experienced it in Ben's memories, or in the rush of the cool river where she and the other younglings spent some of their free time swimming. But she had never felt the bone-deep iciness that Master Luke had described to her when he spoke of Hoth, had never felt her eyelashes freeze together or her teeth chatter uncontrollably.

The X-wing cockpit slowly slid open, and Rey was met with a buffet of wind so frigid that she almost crouched in her seat and begged Ben to take her home.

"Come on," he said. "The ship will be protected from any storms by the trees, but we have a bit of a walk to get to the temple."

Shaking with cold already, Rey scrambled out of her seat and lowered herself to the ground, her fingers moving clumsily as she struggled to keep hold of her quarterstaff. The snow was soft underfoot, and she immediately sank several inches. Goose bumps erupted along her shins, where the drifts pressed against the thin fabric of her pants. There was no snow falling, but the stark whiteness was nonetheless disorienting—and almost blindingly bright.

"Got everything?" Ben queried, his voice muffled by the thick hood surrounding his own face. "Alright, this way."

He moved confidently into the forest, shortening his strides so that Rey could place her feet in the prints that he cut in the knee-deep snow. She was suddenly grateful that he had warned her to layer up before their departure.

The trees were dark and towering, with an ominous, pointed feel that the trees on Yavin 4 lacked. Ben's black shadow wove through the trunks before her, his weapon swinging from his hip as he plowed through the snow.

Rey blinked once and imagined the darkness around them lit by the glow of lightsabers, blue and flickering red. She blinked again and the image was gone.

By the time they reached the edge of the trees and the wind hit them in full force, Rey was trembling with cold.

"Not much further," Ben assured her, glancing back to check her progress. "Rey?"

She glanced up, teeth chattering. "Y-y-yes?"

Ben made an irritated sound in the back of his throat and stomped back through the snow towards her, taking her free hand in his own. "You're freezing," he said. "Where are your gloves?"

"Don't h-h-have any," Rey wheezed. "I'll b-b-be fine."

Ben snorted disbelievingly, stripping off his own gloves and reaching for her quarterstaff. "Give me that," he said, tucking it under his arm and drawing both her hands towards him.

His hands enveloped hers, nearly twice their size. Their warmth nearly caused her to sigh in relief as he rubbed gently, bringing feeling back to her fingertips. Leaning forward he breathed air into his cupped palms. The rush of hot hair sent tingles running up Rey's wrists all the way to her elbows. She swore she felt the feather-light brush of his mouth against her thumb.

Ben drew away abruptly, extending his gloves to her. "Put these on," he said, tugging at the zipper of his own coat. "Quick, before your hands get cold."

As Rey struggled to fasten the too-large gloves around her wrists, Ben peeled off his outer layer and wrapped it briskly around her.

"B-but you'll be cold!" Rey protested, catching sight of the thick dark tunic that was now his only layer against the storm.

"Not as cold as you," he said teasingly, zipping the jacket up to her chin and pulling the second hood up over the one she was already wearing. "Now let's walk fast—before your toes freeze."

He turned and plunged into the snow, leaving Rey feeling slightly dazed. Stop, she told herself. Stop, you silly child.

Shaking her head to clear the fog, she scrambled after him, slightly hindered by the knee-length coat she had acquired.

They walked for what seemed a small eternity, but in reality, couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes, skirting a rock outcropping that grew taller and taller as they paralleled it. Soon they were walking in the shadow of a mighty cliff.

"Nearly there," Ben said, his breath a puff of white.

They crested a snowy hillock and came to a stop, turning to face a seemingly indifferent stretch of the rock face. The stone was covered in a massive layer of ice, great sheets that warped the sun's pale light and spun it towards them in glittering webs. Silence gathered around them.

"It looks just like all the other cliffs," Rey said, exhaling in a sharp puff and pressing her hands—still chilly even with the added protection of Ben's gloves—into her armpits.

"Rey," Ben admonished. "Stop looking with your eyes, and start looking with your heart."

Blushing and chastised, Rey closed her eyes and reached out into the Force.

Before her was a wall of ice, sure enough, but beyond that—a swell of power, a thrum of energy that set her spine tingling and the fine hairs of her arms standing on end.

"Woah," she breathed.

Ben lowered a hand onto her shoulder. "The Jedi temple," he told her. "Most sacred of places. This place is in your blood."

"It feels…wrong," Rey said softly, taking a step forward and letting Ben's hand drop away. "Like it's…broken."

"Yes," he whispered, eyes narrowed against the snow that was beginning to come down in thick flurries. "The temple was sacked, by the Empire, the architecture desecrated, and the entrance to the kyber caves destroyed. We should get inside—this storm is only going to get worse."

"How?" Rey asked. "There's something beyond the ice but it must be meters thick, at least."

"You're a Jedi, aren't you?" Ben asked. "How do you suggest we get through?"

"With the Force?" It was a question rather than a statement.

"Brilliant," Ben responded dryly. "Your first test. Together, shall we?"

He reached out; his long, pale fingers silhouetted against an even paler sky. Rey felt a twist in the Force, and heard the grating and shearing of ice.

Quickly following suit, she plunged into the fabric of the universe.

Ben was a shimmering beacon at the center of a great vortex of power. Seamlessly, effortlessly, she slipped into the field surrounding him, allowing their energy to merge as they pulled at the great sheets of ice obscuring the temple. The rightness of their connection hummed through Rey's core.

With a shattering roar of immense proportions, the ice sheared away, crumbling in a great avalanche of glasslike shards and snowy powder so vast that for a moment the very sky was obscured.

"Whoever taught you to do that was powerful indeed," Ben quipped, stepping forward into the settling clouds of ice.

"Glad to see you're still as humble as ever," Rey muttered, trailing after him, only to freeze in place as the bare cliff face came into view.

A massive stone gate towered towards the sky above, its surface carved with elaborate runes the likes of which Rey had never seen. It tapered to two winged points near the summit of the cliff, dizzyingly high. At its base was an opening like a mouth full of teeth, a dark hole into the unknowable depths of the earth.

"I open at the dawn," Ben translated, pointing to an inscription just over the entrance. "It's in an ancient script, from before the time of the Old Republic."

"Show off," Rey murmured without heat, still gazing in awe at the towering monolith before them.

"Come," Ben ordered, beckoning her towards the temple. "We should get out of the wind."

With careful footsteps Rey followed. The cliff seemed to rise up to meet them, swallowing their two small figures in its great shadow. Rey suddenly felt microscopic—an ant treading among the remnants of a lost civilization. The Force in this place echoed and hummed with a thousand lost voices—millennia of prosperity followed by decades of unspeakable horrors. And beneath it all, the whisper of silent multitudes, beckoning her forward.

Her feet stopped.

"Ben," she whispered, her voice thin.

"What?" he asked, stopping a few meters ahead.

"You said that each crystal is attuned to a Jedi," she continued, haltingly. There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no passion, there is serenity. "What if there isn't one here for me? What if I'm not meant to be a Jedi?"

"Rey." Ben's voice was a lifeline of empathy, an ocean of calm. He took a step towards her, his fingers curling around her bicep. "If there's anyone in this galaxy who will feel the call of the kyber, it's you. You have nothing to fear but the fears you bring with you."

Rey felt sick with guilt. He would know soon enough that she was a fraud. Desperate to change the topic, she blurted, "You mentioned a test. Are there more?"

"There will always be more," he answered, not pityingly, but gently. "Such is the way of the Jedi."

Rey took in a deep, fortifying breath, and squared her shoulders. Colt was wrong, she told herself. This is Ben. Not your parents. He won't leave. He couldn't. Needing him isn't a weakness.

She failed once more to shake the fine tendril of dread that had been creeping its way deeper into her chest all day.

"Okay. I'm ready."

And together they walked into the darkness.

A/N: Oh my GOD I'm so sorry. I feel like I've been saying this a lot lately because my updates are so sporadic! Inspiration for this story has been coming in fits and starts, and this chapter in particular fought with me a bit because I wasn't sure how much time I wanted to skip and what exactly the focus should be. But it's here now, thank goodness (thank you again to kittystargen3 for the beta). I even managed to finish in time to get it out on Star Wars day! (at least in my timezone!) May the fourth be with you all, haha :)

A couple other notes: so Rey is catching the feels, huh ;) so cute. Don't worry, Ben is not a creep who is attracted to fourteen year old girls. He's a little clueless and is probably going to panic when he realizes what's up. I'm even terrible enough that I look forward to writing THAT scene.

The song at the beginning of this chapter is one of my all time reylo favorites. I feel like it describes Rey (but also *them*) so perfectly. It would make my day if you listened to it (sorry if it's not your style!) and told me what you think. I had hoped to use it for a more emotionally charged chapter, but I just felt that it fit with Rey's mental state here.

I hope that you've all been well! Thanks so much for your lovely reviews and continued support. You guys are the best.

-Aspen