Published January 12, 2025
Content Warning: This chapter may be triggering for those who have experienced or been impacted by the loss of a child, particularly during pregnancy or soon after birth.
"Loss"
"Blessed are those who mourn,for they will be comforted." ~ Matthew 5:4, New International Version
After becoming a mother, Rey did not leave Ahch-To as often as she used to. She did not want to be away from Trin for too long, or take Trin with her and leave Ben all alone on the island.
At this point, there was no real need for any of the Solos to leave. Their friends were happy to come to them. Doctor Kalonia visited a few times a year to give medical check-ups, while Chewbacca and the Ticos served as the family's couriers. Finn and Rose insisted on giving Trin the clothes that Paige had outgrown.
Life on Ahch-To was tranquil and uneventful by nature, but a child's presence added freshness to every experience, because it was their first time for everything. Trin was fascinated by things the adults in her life took for granted: water, soap bubbles, dirt, plants and animals. She laughed at the porgs' antics and cried at the sound of thunder. She thought R2-D2's high-pitched beeping sounds were hilarious, which seemed to annoy the old droid.
Trin's power in the Force became apparent before she was a year old. When she was in pain from teething, or putting up a fight at bedtime, her crying caused objects to fall off the shelves or the door to bang on its hinges. When she was learning how to crawl, and struggling to get to a toy on her playmat, she figured out how to lift it and draw it to herself with her mind. This caused some concern, as they had to motivate her to crawl and walk, not just use the Force as a shortcut to get what she wanted. They solved the problem by taking her outside when the weather was fair and coaxing her into crawling, and later walking, from one parent to the other.
When Trin started eating solids, food started to be a source of anxiety for the first time since Ben came to Ahch-To. On his own, he had gotten along well enough gathering food from the island, and he could have endured going without food for periods of time. But the addition of another adult and a growing child made the uncertainty and scarcity more frightening and less tolerable. He would not let them be deprived of any necessities. They could grow fruits and vegetables in the greenhouse, and catch fish throughout the year, but they needed more variety than that. Fortunately, they could supplement their diet with ration packs and gifts of food delivered by their friends.
Whenever Chewbacca took the Millennium Falcon to Ahch-To, he insisted that Ben and Rey take Trin aboard, even if just to look around. Ben keenly missed his father as he carried Trin through the corridors and set her on his lap in the pilot's seat. He could half remember and half imagine his father doing the same thing with him when he was an infant, and he wished Han were there now to show his granddaughter around his ship.
Since the Falcon was powered down, he let Trin touch some of the controls. He wondered if she would become a pilot someday. Perhaps he could teach her himself—but that would only be possible when someone brought a ship to the island, which would not allow her to practice regularly. She would probably have to learn off-world.
He did not want her life to be limited to the island, but he also balked at the idea of her going off into such a vast and dangerous galaxy. He wanted to keep her safe at home forever; at the same time he wanted to give her the entire universe.
Rose had another baby, a boy named Salem, about a year after Trin's birth. They did not wait long to visit the Solos. Trin, who had never met other human children before, giggled over the newborn and exchanged curious glances with Paige before finally offering one of her toys. Then the two girls crawled and toddled around the room, laughing and shrieking with the joy of having a playmate.
After Trin turned two, Ben and Rey started to discuss the possibility of having more children. They had both wished they had siblings growing up, and they could see the benefit of Trin having other children to play with, since they were so isolated from other families.
But even after they started trying, it took another year for them to conceive. Trin was now able to walk and talk, though often she simply made her feelings known through the Force.
After a test confirmed their suspicions, Rey and Ben sat down with Trin and said they had important news. Rey held her daughter's hand and said, "Trin, we're going to have another child. A baby."
"Baby?"
"Yeah, like baby Salem. This baby will be your little brother or sister."
"Can I play with them?"
Rey and Ben tried not to laugh. "Of course. We'll do everything together."
"When? How long?" Time was a concept that Trin was still learning.
"Well, it'll be here in about seven months, and it'll live here as long as it wants."
Trin seemed pleased, but they were not sure how much she understood. They brought it up again during a walk around the island, when they came across some new porg nests. Rey hefted Trin up onto her hip and pointed at a nest containing two mates and a few eggs.
"You see those porgs? That's a mommy and daddy, and those eggs are going to hatch into their babies. Humans have babies too, but we don't lay eggs like that. Human babies grow inside their mother's belly, until they're ready to come out. That's what's happening to me."
Trin looked at her incredulously. "You're going to have a baby in you?"
"I already do." Rey pointed to her stomach. "The baby is very small now, but it's going to get bigger, and my belly is going to stretch and get really big and round until the baby is ready to come out."
"How does it come out?"
Ben tried to keep a straight face as Rey answered. "The same way you get things out on the potty."
"Ewww!" Trin had only recently been potty-trained, and could not reconcile the prospect of a baby's arrival with the idea of something so unsanitary.
Ben took Trin into his arms. "Don't worry, we'll clean it up, and then I'm sure it'll look incredibly cute. Just like you!" He planted a wet kiss on her cheek, which made her break into giggles.
One day, they checked on the nest and saw that the eggs had hatched. Rey pointed. "See those porglets? They're brothers and sisters. Just like how Paige and Salem are brother and sister. You're going to be a big sister, and this baby is your little brother or sister."
That was when Trin finally touched Rey's stomach, pressed a kiss there, and said, "Hi, baby. It's me, Big Sister. See you soon!"
Everything went normally until the fifth month. Ben woke sometime after midnight, startled by feelings that belonged to Rey, not to him. He sensed that she was in the bathroom, and in great distress.
He moved quietly but quickly, not wanting to wake Trin on the other side of the room. He leaned against the door and called to Rey's mind. Rey?
He heard, as well as felt, Rey lean against the door. She whispered to him, "Please don't overreact. I don't want to scare Trin."
"What. Is. Wrong."
"I don't know for sure … I think … I might be miscarrying."
The bottom of Ben's stomach seemed to drop. "What's happening?"
Rey babbled a little, "There's blood coming out—for hours now—I don't know if it's mine, or the baby's—"
"Okay, just—stay calm. I'll call the doctor."
"Please don't wake Trin!"
"Okay. I'll be right back."
He had to roll R2-D2 outside manually before powering up the droid and making the call. Doctor Kalonia promised to come as quickly as she could. Even so, she was much calmer than Ben thought was warranted.
"Miscarriage is fairly common for human females," she said with sympathy. "If that is what's happening, it may take hours for everything to pass. I'll come and help, and if things look serious, we can take her off-world for treatment."
"Thank you." The words came automatically—they were always thanking the doctor for the care she gave them—but inside, Ben felt numb.
When they were expecting Trin, they had been full of anxiety about the baby's wellbeing. But somehow, this time, they had not given much thought to the possibility that the pregnancy might not go well. Perhaps because so many good things had happened in their lives lately, they expected good things to continue.
Ben went back to the bathroom, tapped lightly on the door, and slipped inside. Rey was sitting on the toilet, clutching her sides, tears silently streaming down her cheeks. Ben knelt beside her and rubbed her back, feeling helpless and useless.
"You can go back to sleep," Rey said, seeing him doze against the wall.
He shook his head. "I'm not leaving you."
"You'll have to when Trin wakes up."
Fortunately, Kalonia arrived in just a few hours, while Trin was still asleep. When Ben stepped outside to guide them, he was startled to see that her pilot was not Chewbacca or Lando, but a young man who was a stranger to him.
"Who's this?" he demanded, holding up his solar lantern.
"Joph Seastriker," Kalonia replied. "He was your mother's pilot before he joined the Resistance. He knows Rey too. He can be trusted, and he was the only one I could get to bring me at such short notice."
Joph put his hand over his heart as though swearing an oath. "I'm happy to help Rey and any of General Organa's family."
Ben grunted. "I'll have to take your word for it." He would have liked to have a say in who had knowledge of his family's location, but he supposed it could not be helped now.
He led Kalonia and a medical droid up to the hut village.
"Do you know if this ever happened to your mother?" Kalonia asked.
He shook his head. "I truly have no idea. If it did, she didn't share it with me." It was strange to think that he might, in fact, have had siblings without knowing it. But would he not have felt them through the Force?
He hovered by the doorway while Kalonia talked to Rey, until Trin started to stir in her bed. Rey shooed him away to attend to the girl. "This could take hours. You don't have to wait around with me. Keep Trin busy. I don't want to upset her."
Ben reluctantly walked out and closed the door slowly. "If you need me—"
"You'll know."
Taking care of Trin was easy—he could do it on autopilot—but he could not match her level of enthusiasm for anything. She was sensitive to her parents' emotions, and their pain and anxiety seemed to rub off on her, making her moody and irritable.
The weather was relatively mild, so Ben took her outside for most of the day. She was excited to see an unfamiliar ship on the island. Though she was shy with strangers, she quickly warmed up to Joph Seastriker, who happily showed her the ship's interior. He even let her sit in the pilot's seat and pretend to fly the ship.
"Cute kid," Seastriker said to Ben. "I can see the general in her."
Ben had grown up meeting many people who knew his mother, but they had mostly been older folks—veterans from the Rebellion, colleagues from the Senate. Seastriker, however, looked around his own age, maybe even younger. "Did you know her well?"
"I worked with her for a while when she was a senator. Helped with some secret espionage missions."
"And you knew Rey?"
"We met, yeah. She was kind of a legend, and she usually didn't need a pilot. I don't know if she'd remember me, but I was there the day she left to come here." Seastriker nodded at Trin, who was pretending to fly the ship. "Seems like you've had a happy life here."
"We have … until now."
When they returned to the hut in the afternoon, Kalonia came out of the bathroom and gestured for Ben to talk to her.
"Rey is fine," she reported in a low voice. "She just wanted me to tell you that the baby came out—fully intact."
Ben gulped, bracing himself. "Is it—alive?"
She shook her head. "No. I'm sorry."
He let out his breath, leaning against the wall and pressing a hand to his eyes. Kalonia put her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, Ben."
"Why—what—what caused it?"
"I don't know. Sometimes it happens for no apparent reason. Rey appears healthy otherwise." She paused. "Would you like to see them?"
How in the world was he supposed to answer that? He didn't know if he wanted to see—what was there to see, at this point in a pregnancy? A half-formed body? A clump of dead tissue?
"You don't have to, Ben. I just didn't want you to miss the chance, if you want to. For some parents, it gives them closure."
He did not want to see it, but he did not want to someday regret passing up the opportunity.
He glanced at Trin, who was drawing on the table. "Will you stay with Trin while I go in?"
"Of course."
His footsteps were heavy as he approached the bathroom. He slipped inside quietly and closed the door behind him.
Rey was sitting on a towel in the corner, cradling something in her hands. It was a sterile white cloth, loosely wrapped around a pinkish form. Rey's breathing was a little shaky, and her face was damp with tears and sweat, but she was calm. She looked up at Ben when he entered. "Ben. Come see."
The tiny bathroom had never felt so long as he crossed the space. He averted his gaze from the toilet, waste container, wash basin, and bandages on the floor. He knelt down next to Rey, and she held the cloth out so he could see.
The fetus—the baby—what was it called at this point?—was less than five inches long. Its sex was undistinguishable, but its shape was undeniably human. They could see its closed eyes, nose, mouth, even its fingers and toes.
Ben let out his breath. He had expected to be horrified, but instead he was awed. "It's … so tiny …"
"It's perfect," Rey whispered. She held the cloth out to him, and he took it without hesitation.
The baby looked even smaller in Ben's large hand. He held it even more gently than he had cradled Trin when she was born—but this time there was no fluttering pulse of life from the infant. Nevertheless, he held it up to his heart, letting it rest there for a moment between his chest and his hand.
This was not how he had wanted things to be when he held this child for the first time. He had not expected the first time also being the last time.
Ben had already begun to mourn the loss of everything he had envisioned for this baby; but only now did he see what had been lost: a person with a soul, a life they had created. He shuddered, and the tears he had been holding back for the last twelve hours finally fell from his eyes. Rey reached over and squeezed his arm, which seemed wrong—he should have been the one comforting her at this moment.
Ben handed the cloth back to Rey, who set it on the floor in front of them. For a moment they both stared at the baby's form. Then Rey said, "I want to bury it. Maybe in the rock garden—we can mark a spot."
He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's—a good idea."
After a pause, Rey wondered aloud, "How are we going to tell Trin? She was so excited."
But Ben knew it was a little more complicated than that. "She was excited because we were excited, and she could tell that we wanted her to be excited too. If we're okay with it, she'll be okay with it. She may not even remember this. The baby was just a concept to her, not a real presence."
Rey was silent, then said, "I want to show her."
Ben turned to her in shock. "What? Rey, do you want to traumatize her?"
"Of course not, but I want her to know, to remember—"
"Absolutely not! We'll—we'll tell her that we were wrong, or that we got our dates mixed up, so if we have another baby—even years from now—"
"It won't be this one, Ben. Do you understand? We might have other children, but none of them will be this one." The storm that Rey had been holding back finally burst out, full of tears, anger, and thunder. Ben was silenced, and could only hold her as she wept and clung to him.
When she had calmed somewhat, Rey wiped her eyes and said flatly, "I'm not going to pretend it never existed." She groaned, running a hand through her disheveled hair. "Ugh—I can't even say him or her, just it."
"How about they?" Ben suggested. "That's neutral."
"That's not enough. I want to give them a name."
"… Okay. What name?"
They both thought about it for a moment, recalling names they had talked about. Then Rey decided: "Jordan. That sounds good for either a boy or a girl. Jordan Solo."
At the sound of that name, phantom images flashed through Ben's mind: a little boy sorting rocks in the garden; a little girl trailing after Trin. Those scenarios were still possible, but they would not be with this baby, this unique individual. No future child would be quite like it, no matter how similar.
"We can ask Trin if she wants to see the baby," Ben said at last. "But we shouldn't force her if she doesn't want to. I'll go and talk to her."
"Okay."
Ben kissed Rey's forehead and got to his feet. At the door, he made the mistake of casting a glance back at Rey. She was burying her face in her hands. Even in all their past adventures, Ben had never seen her so close to despair.
In the main room, Kalonia was sitting on the floor, listening as Trin showed off her drawing. When Ben came out, the doctor stood and returned to the bathroom, pausing to squeeze his shoulder as she passed him.
He crouched down on the floor to address his daughter. "Trin, I need to tell you something."
"What?" She looked at him with such innocent curiosity, untainted by experience.
Somehow, it felt wrong for him to be the one to explain the concept of death to her. Death had been an ever-present part of his life when he worked for the First Order. He had tried to avoid the thought of it since then, and he wished he could protect his family from it forever. But it had to be faced.
"Trin … something went wrong with the baby. It came out of Mommy too early, before it was supposed to."
Trin's eyes widened. "The baby came?" she gasped.
"Yes, but it hadn't finished growing. It was too small, so it wasn't able to live outside of Mommy's tummy."
Trin cocked her head and glanced around. "Is Doctor gonna help it get better?"
"No. Doctor Kalonia is helping Mommy get better. The baby is not alive anymore. It died. Do you understand what that means?"
"Um …"
"It means that they can't move or grow anymore. They can't see or hear anything. Their spirit, their life-force, is gone."
He could see Trin trying to wrap her mind around this enormous, paradigm-shifting reality. "Where is the baby now?"
"It's in the bathroom. We're going to bury it in the rock garden, so it'll always be nearby."
"Can I see the baby?"
Ben was startled. He had not even needed to ask. Maybe Trin did not truly understand. Maybe, to her, it was no different than seeing a newly hatched porg or milking the thala sirens, vaguely gross but somehow fascinating.
Against his better judgment, Ben nodded. "Yes, if you want, you can see it before we bury it."
They waited until Rey had cleaned up a bit. Kalonia helped her walk out and sit on the bed. Trin climbed up and immediately hugged her mother, who held her tightly and assured her that she was okay.
Kalonia went back and brought the baby to Ben, who crouched down to show Trin.
"That's it?" Trin said, her voice high with incredulity.
"Yes, Trin," Rey said.
She made a sound that might have signified either disgust or appreciation, or both. "Did I look like that before I was born?"
"Yes, you did."
"Is it a boy or a girl?"
"Um, we don't really know," Ben said.
"What's its name?"
"We want to call it Jordan," Rey answered.
Trin looked up hopefully at her parents. "Can I hold Jordan? I'll be gentle."
Rey nodded, and settled Trin in her lap so she could help her cradle the baby. Trin held her little arms out to accept the cloth from Ben. As she held her sibling, they caught a glimpse of the big sister she would have been.
Trin traced her sibling's facial features with her finger. Then, she blew them away by leaning over and planting a tiny kiss on her sibling's tiny head. "Bye, Jordan. Force be with you." She had heard her parents and aunts and uncles say that to each other when they said goodbye.
The dam broke. Rey wept as she held Trin tight, and Ben encircled his arms around his little family, united in love and grief.
Doctor Kalonia stayed with them for another day and night to make sure Rey expelled everything and was recovering well. As far as the doctor could tell, Rey should be fine, and they could have more children in the future. There was nothing for Rey to do in the meantime but rest and adjust to being not-pregnant again.
Rey only went outside once, to bury Jordan. They made a new little garden at the edge of the hut village. Ben dug the hole alone and gathered rocks to arrange in a mound. When they went out together, Trin carried the container that held Jordan. She was solemn, but she did not seem particularly sad, perhaps because her parents were trying to appear cheerful around her.
Joph Seastriker had the sense to make himself scarce as the family grieved, but he still came by the house and offered his condolences and tears. He was from Gatalenta, where crying was considered proof of a caring heart. Rey remembered him, hugged him and thanked him for bringing Doctor Kalonia.
"You have a beautiful family," he told them, "and it's horrible that this happened."
When the visitors left, Rey continued to rest. She had not spent so much time in bed since their honeymoon. She slept most of the time. When she woke, she lay in bed listlessly, hugging one of the pillows or pulling a blanket around her like a shell.
Ben went through each day like a ghost, quietly taking care of Trin, doing both his chores and Rey's, trying not to leave her for too long. Even when she was sleeping, he wanted to be there for her, though he was not sure his presence made much difference to her.
He felt utterly unequipped for a situation like this. When he joined her in bed at the end of the day, he asked forlornly, "What can I do?"
Rey clenched a fistful of bedsheets. "Hold me. And if I don't fall asleep quickly, I want you to put me to sleep. And if I wake up too soon, put me to sleep again."
This request disturbed Ben, which was ironic considering he had considered using such tactics in the past. Rey was not asking for this in order to stay somewhere; she wanted to escape from the present, from the sorrow and disappointment. But it was the one thing he could do to alleviate her pain, and she deserved a reprieve after everything she had been through.
"Alright," he said finally.
"Thank you."
He gathered her into his arms, set her on his lap, and started to rub his hands over her. She started to weep, resting her head on his shoulder. He held her tighter then, and kissed her face and hair. But he drew back in shock when he heard what she was thinking.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Ben took her by the shoulders, trembling so much that he almost shook her. "You have nothing to be sorry for. This isn't anything you did; it's something that happened to you." Rey nodded, but he could not be certain that she believed it. "It is not your fault," he insisted.
"I know."
He cradled her head in his hand, and kissed her lips; then he slipped his over hand over her forehead; at once she became limp, falling deeply asleep.
Rey's self-blame, while entirely unwarranted, poked at thoughts that had been lingering in the back of Ben's mind.
Was it his fault, somehow? Had he not provided Rey with enough food, vitamins, or time to rest? Would this have happened if she lived on a civilized planet with abundant and diverse resources?
Or was there something bigger on—some whim of the gods, or some plan of the Force—concerning him? Was this a punishment for him, for his past misdeeds?
The more Ben thought about it, the angrier he was about the injustice of it.
It made sense for him to be punished for having taken so many lives and destroyed so many families. But his wife and children did not deserve to suffer for his crimes. Rey deserved every good thing, including healthy children who lived long lives. And his child was completely innocent—its only fault was that it shared blood with Kylo Ren and Darth Vader and Sheev Palpatine.
At least once each day, Ben could feel his negative emotions swirling and rising, and tried to tamp them down. The last thing their family needed now was for him to spiral into the Dark Side again.
It had been ages since he lashed out in a fit of rage. But he now realized that this had not been due to any change in his nature, but simply a lack of anything to trigger an outburst. Since coming to the island, his life had experienced so little stress that he had never felt a need to give vent to it.
He was able to distract himself when Rey or Trin needed him. But when Trin took her nap during the day, Ben found himself alone with his thoughts, and they were intolerable. Casting a glance at Rey and Trin sleeping in the large bed, he stepped outdoors and strode out of the village.
He walked nearly the whole perimeter of the island, ignoring the cold bite of the wind and sea spray. When he went downhill, he broke into a run, and when he reached the level ground, he kept running.
He stopped to catch his breath at a sheer rock wall. He did not want to stay here—but he did not want to go back to that hut where someone was missing and the person he loved most was drowning in pain that he could not assuage.
Grief was not new to either Ben or Rey. They had lost many people they loved. But they had thought that such losses were over for them. And somehow, grief for a child was different, even more cruel and unjust.
Everything that Ben had been holding in came out then. He screamed, he raged, he cursed. He pounded his fists on the ground, then lifted a boulder with the Force and threw it against the rock wall. He did this again and again, until the biggest rocks on the island had been pulverized into tiny shards.
As hard as he tried to find it, there was no amount of force equal to the enormity of what he and Rey were feeling. When he had spent his strength, he collapsed to his knees, shuddering and sobbing.
He cried for Rey, for Jordan, and for the inevitability of pain and suffering. There was no escape from it, he saw now. He had known it all along, deep down, but their courtship and marriage had been so idyllic that he had allowed himself to believe their lives could only continue to be happy. Trin's healthy birth had lulled them into a false sense of security about their children's future, and they had not thought to be prepared for anything to go wrong. Had this been hubris? How could they have been so foolishly confident that all would be well?
How long he knelt there, wallowing in guilt, grief, anger, and longing, he could not tell. He was finally pulled out of it by a tiny voice, a short distance behind him.
"Daddy?"
Ben turned and blanched. He had been so consumed by his own emotions, he had not sensed Trin's arrival. She was coming up over the crest of the hill, where she had been crouching in the grass. How long had she been watching him? Gods, if she had been too close to the rocks—
He scrambled to his feet as she skidded down the hill toward him. "Trin. I—you shouldn't be here. Your mom—"
"Mom's asleep, and you're upset."
"I—" There was no denying it, not after what she had seen.
She looked at him with concern—much more than he had ever seen her express before. "Are you mad?"
Ben sighed and knelt in front of her, meeting her eye level. "Yes. Yes, Trin. I'm furious about what happened to Jordan. But I'm not mad at anyone. Do you understand?"
"You're sad, too."
"Yes. I'm … sadder than I've ever been." Which was truly saying something, given his past.
Trin nodded. "You're sad because Jordan's gone."
"Yes."
"Babies make you happy, don't they?"
Ben almost smiled at that hypothesis. He gently qualified it: "My babies make me happy."
"Well, I'm here," Trin said, bright and matter-of-fact.
Ben stared at her, dumbfounded by the simple truth of her words.
She was right. He still had a beautiful, healthy, extraordinary child. And he was not going to neglect the child he had while mourning the child he lost.
He scooped Trin into his arms and held her close; she immediately wrapped her little arms around his neck, locking her hands behind him.
"Yes—yes, you are," he choked. "And I'm so happy you're here." He rocked back and forth on his heels, more to soothe himself than to soothe her. When they finally loosened their hold on each other, he kissed her cheek and forehead. "I love you so much."
"I love you too, Daddy."
He picked her up and carried her back to the hut. When they came inside, they were both startled to see Rey out of bed, stoking the fire and sorting foodstuffs.
"Mommy!" As soon as Ben set her down, Trin scampered over to hug Rey. "Do you feel better?"
Rey smiled ruefully. "Right now I feel hungry. Want to help me with dinner?"
"Yeah!"
"Go wash your hands first."
Ben came up hesitantly, and Rey met his eyes. "Hey," she said.
"Hey." He bent down to kiss her. "Have you been up long?"
"Just a little while." She gave him a pointed look. "I heard you outside earlier."
He cringed. "I'm sorry. I didn't want you to see me like that."
"I've seen worse," she said, and he grimaced at the truthfulness of her words. "I was actually kind of—I don't know—relieved, I guess. I was wondering if your emotions would break out in a way you couldn't control."
"I didn't lose control." Ben only realized it as he said it, but it was true. He had been deliberate in his destruction. Maybe that was some progress from his past tantrums.
That night, after putting Trin to bed, Ben finally told Rey everything he had been keeping to himself.
"It's just … I might deserve to have this happen, but you don't."
"Ben, this has nothing to do with who we are or what we've done. Doctor Kalonia said it's common—for our species it can be as often as one in four times. So don't blame yourself. I don't blame you, or me. And if you're sad or angry, you don't have to hide that. You don't have to be strong for me."
"Yes I do—"
"You can be strong with me. And I think a strong man shouldn't be ashamed to show how he feels."
Ben was surprised by how much of a relief it was to hear that.
That was their lowest day. After that, Rey got out of bed each day—she gave Ben permission to pull her out if she could not bring herself to do it on her own.
They gradually began to be intimate again. Ben's touch was tinged with sorrow now, as much as it had been tinged with joy during her pregnancies. With whispered requests and assents, he stroked and kissed more of her, as though she were a wounded child and he wanted to heal her with love. But there was nothing childish about these gestures: he was honoring her body, her experience, and all she had made and lost. Every kiss was a promise: This will heal.
Healing did come, like a scab forming over a wound, or sutures coming off after surgery. The wound was still there, the scar was still sensitive, but strength and energy slowly returned.
Trin helped a great deal, without being conscious of it. She insisted on stopping by Jordan's grave each day to say hello. But she would not allow them to linger there; her mind was full of what she wanted to do now, and she pulled her parents along with her. She made them smile even when they were sad, and eventually she got them to laugh again, surprising even them.
Finn and Rose came with food, listening ears, and words of comfort. Trin wanted to show them the grave, the same way she showed her rock arrangements and the porgs' nests. Finn accompanied Ben on a walk, and did not comment on the rocky wreckage they passed by.
Rey spent one day entirely by herself, on the beach of their private cove. She spent hours sitting in the sand and watching the waves, beautiful and repetitive, both forceful and gentle, smoothing the rough sand, filling whatever was empty.
Ben worried about her being absent so long, but reasoned that he would have felt any significant turn in her emotions or her overall wellbeing.
He sensed when her anger reached its height, and felt the island shake as she took her feelings out on her surroundings.
When Rey came back that night, she took Ben's face in her hands and kissed him. It had been weeks since she initiated contact, and even then they had not kissed like this—passionately, greedily.
When she pulled away, she looked into his wondering eyes and said, "I'm ready, if you are."
Ben regarded her with uncharacteristic reservation. "Are you sure?"
She nodded. "When I was at the beach, I felt the Force all around me, and inside me. I haven't felt that connected since losing Jordan. It was like losing myself and finding myself at the same time. The only other time I feel that is with you." She touched her forehead to his, and he heard her silent pleas: Soothe me. Fill me. Lull me to sleep.
He took his hands in her own, kissed them, and murmured against them, "I'll do my best."
"That's all I ask."
They came together slowly, stretching out each gesture. Even through the haze of his own pleasure, Ben focused on her wishes rather than his own, trying to make the experience what she wanted. His kisses, his touch, his breath, everything was tender, rhythmic, relaxing. Rey's sighs were finally filled with contentment again instead of sorrow.
Ben sensed the general bend of her thoughts: she was, indeed, losing herself in him, but also finding herself in him. He began to feel the same way, as she finally kissed him back and opened herself up to him. He could not fill the hole that the baby had left in her heart, but he could still fill the space that he had come to occupy.
For both of them, it felt like coming home.
"Thank you," Rey mumbled sleepily, resting her head on his chest. "Not just for this … for everything …" She trailed off, her eyes closed. A moment later, she was sleeping more peacefully than she had in many weeks.
Ben reckoned that he felt more grateful than she did.
Author's Notes
The name Salem means "peace" (it comes from the same root as "shalom" and "salaam").
Joph Seastriker is a character in Bloodline by Claudia Gray. Doctor Harter Kalonia appears in a scene where he is present, so they already know each other in canon, and I figured Rey might have met him during her time with the Resistance.
The name Jordan comes from the Hebrew meaning "to go down." I thought that made sense for this baby's fate.
I feel bad that after you readers have waited so long for an update, it's such a sad one. I promise there will be more happy times in the future, but also angst and grief.
I have not experienced miscarriage or infant loss myself, but I know several people who have. To write this chapter, I researched stages of pregnancy and miscarriage at different gestational ages. The description of Jordan is meant to be that of a baby at 18 or 19 weeks' gestation. I have tried to be accurate to the best of my knowledge; if I have made any errors, I apologize and welcome correction.