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“Chelos VI is known for being a lover’s retreat, but we suspect that part of its ‘romantic’ atmosphere is actually the presence of particularly Force-sensitive flora or fauna that heightens feelings of connection, even between those who can’t normally feel the Force,” Leia said. “If it is, some of those organisms might be able to help us, and there’s also a strong possibility that the locals might have some valuable Force lore. Either way, we should send somebody, preferably one with Force-sensitivity, in to check it out.” She looked at Rey, who nodded her willingness.
“Now, it’s not a First Order controlled world, but it is not entirely isolated from it either,” Leia continued. “And the locals are a tight-knit community that welcomes the business of tourists but doesn’t otherwise engage with outsiders.”
“So I'll be a tourist,” Rey said. "Which means I should take a lover with me, at least officially.”
Leia grimaced apologetically, but nodded.
Rey looked around the briefing room. When her eyes met Finn’s, he shrugged, smiling. She grinned and turned back to Leia. “I think we can manage that.”
“Savoring your last bit of singleness for a while?” Rey asked, leaning on the doorway between the cockpit and the cabin.
Finn looked up from the holopad he was reading and gestured around. “Look at all this space,” he said, grinning. “Room to breathe, quiet to read in, space to kick back…” He stretched exaggeratedly.
Rey snorted. “We’ll be dropping out of hyperspace in twenty minutes,” she told him. “Shall I leave you to mourn?”
Finn stuck his tongue out at her. “Sure, mock me for my noble sacrifice of accompanying you…”
Rey rolled her eyes, but she was grinning. “Be up here for the approach,” she called over her shoulder as she returned to the cockpit.
The landing went without incident, and the shrewd woman who greeted them at the shipyard was happy to take their credits in return for the use of a cosy seaside suite built into a coastal cliff, and they were left to settle in.
Finn hummed thoughtfully as he set their luggage down in the sleeping quarters.
Rey walked in behind him and paused. “It’s not that different from base,” she said slowly, thinking about the bunks in the room they shared.
“I guess so.” Finn moved over to the large bed and picked up a small piece of something pink and very thin, one of many strewn across the coverlet.
“Are those petals?” Rey asked, peering over his shoulder.
“Looks like it,” Finn said.
“How odd,” Rey said. “They’d just get everywhere, wouldn’t they? Is it a superstitious thing?”
Finn sniffed. “They smell nice,” he observed.
Rey considered this. “Is it a romantic thing then?”
Finn shrugged. “Beats me. It wasn’t in the briefing.”
The tourism director had urged them to come to one of the common areas for dinner, and the sun was already beginning to set, so after a quick unpacking they made their way there. The room was large, but the tables were well-spaced out, and it was sparsely lit. When they sat down, Rey could still feel the several other people in the room, but the rest of her senses made it very easy to believe she and Finn were alone.
A waitdroid came up to display a menu and take their orders. Rey ordered some sort of dumpling soup and Finn a stir fry of local meat and vegetables, and the waitdroid poured them both a glass of something that was both bubbly and fruity.
“Your eyes are like a nebula on a clear night,” Finn said as the droid trundled away.
Rey bit her tongue to keep from laughing. Silly compliments had been in the briefing, but she still didn’t fully understand the logic of them. “Your skin is like seaglass,” she ventured, and reached a hand across the table. Finn took it in one of his and they stared at each other, both trying very hard to look earnest. They were still staring at each other when the waitdroid came back with their food.
“Your hair is like the leaves of a tressed fern,” Finn said, carefully holding her gaze and not looking at the newly arrived food, but his stomach betrayed him and let out a faint grumble.
“I wish that I didn’t have to stop looking at you for something so silly as eating,” Rey said, batting her eyelashes at him.
He squeezed her hand before letting it go. “It’d be terribly selfish of me to keep you from your dinner, as much as I wish the same,” he said, and it was with carefully controlled expressions but internal relief that they both tucked into their meal.
It was late by the time they made it back to their suite, holding hands as they left the dining area. They paused outside their suite, looking up. The sky was clear, with a smattering of bright stars and other astral objects. Finn let go of Rey’s hand to slip an arm around her, and she leaned into him, putting her head on his shoulder as she took in the view.
“I hope that nebula isn’t the one my eyes remind you of,” she murmured in his ear, nodding at an eerie bright red one.
Finn choked and pulled her against his chest so that he could stifle his laughter in her hair, and Rey put her arms around him to complete the look. After a few moments, his shaking stilled, and Rey pushed back, smiling up at him. “Bedtime?” she asked sweetly, taking his hand again.
Finn brought her hand to his lips and kissed it before letting her tug him inside.
The bed was large enough to not be terribly awkward, and it wasn’t like they hadn’t slept that closely before, on the occasional mission that required camping or the times they’d dozed off beside each other in one of the lounges at base. They changed into the sleepwear Leia had procured for them (Rey still thought hers looked ridiculous) and climbed into bed, before Rey called “lights off” softly, and the glowpanels extinguished themselves.
They woke to gentle sunlight the next morning. Finn looked over at Rey, who appeared to still be asleep, though he had trouble telling the difference between her being entirely unconscious and being in one of her semi-aware Jedi trances. He eased out of bed and wandered into the kitchen, which he’d noticed the night before had come stocked.
There was cured meat and fresh fruit and some sort of grain that looked like it’d make a good porridge, and he set to work assembling a decent breakfast.
Rey joined him, yawning, as he was just taking the frying pan off the heat. “Morning,” she said, bumping his shoulder affectionately.
“Meat’s done, and the porridge will be soon,” he said, giving the pot another stir.
“I knew there was a reason I chose you to come with me,” Rey said sleepily, reaching for the bacon before Finn could intervene.
She winced as it burned her, but she ate it anyway, her eyes closed, and Finn watched with exasperated amusement as the burn on her fingers faded before his eyes.
“You could have just waited a few minutes, you know,” he admonished.
She opened her eyes and grinned at him. “But I was hungry.”
Finn huffed and turned back to the porridge.
When they’d both eaten, they set about to exploring the area around the cove. There were the markets they’d walked through the day before, from the landing site, and a wide expanse of beach at the water’s edge. More likely to hold what they were looking for, though, was the forest not far away with several trails running through it, and they made their way to investigate, holding hands again for good measure.
They’d been walking for perhaps an hour, stopping every so often to admire the foliage, whisper in each other’s ears for show, and reach out with the Force, when they found the tree. Its trunk was a warm gray, its leaves so pale they were almost white, and large blooms of pale yellow streaked with pink adorned its branches.
“This is it,” Rey breathed, running her hand carefully over the trunk. She closed her eyes for a moment and then nodded. “There are more of them, scattered throughout the forest,” she said quietly, “but the signature is the same. It must be a feature of the species.”
“Shall we sit?” Finn asked.
Rey opened her eyes, her face still looking enraptured, and nodded. She sat down at the base of the tree, leaning on it, one hand behind her touching its bark. Finn sat next to her and reached for her other hand, and put his own other hand on top of one of the roots protruding from the ground.
They sat like that for a long time, Rey’s breathing deep and even as she communed with the tree, and Finn’s matching hers. He could feel the power in the tree too, even if it wasn’t as strongly as Rey probably could, and it seemed to fill him, with peace and a feeling of connection, to Rey and to the world around them. A few other couples wandered by, and Finn felt connected to them, too, as they looked fondly at the couple holding hands under the tree and then back to each other before continuing on their way.
Eventually Rey shifted and opened her eyes. She tugged on Finn’s hand and he scooted closer, leaning into her so that the sides of their faces touched. “We need to bring one of these trees back, even if it’s just a seedling,” Rey whispered in his ear.
Finn nodded, and, hearing another couple approaching, reached up to brush a strand of hair behind Rey’s ear. “Does it have seeds we can take?”
“We can’t take them without the approval of the village,” Rey said. “They’re linked-- I don’t fully understand how, but they’ll know if we do, and they’re very protective of them.”
Finn nodded and squeezed her hand, thinking. “This has been a special day, hasn’t it?” he asked. “A special spot. One we should make sure we have something to remember it by.”
Rey hummed. “You think that will be a good enough reason for wanting it? That we had a…a cozy romantic time here?”
Finn smiled at her. “I think it will be a good enough reason if it’s where we become betrothed.”
“Madam Director,” Finn began. He still wasn’t very good at bluffing, so he was glad that he was expected to be nervous for his current task.
She looked up at him and smiled. “How is everything?” she asked.
“It’s been wonderful,” Finn said, offering a smile back. “I was hoping you might be able to help me with something, though.” He took a breath. “Our…where we’re from, it’s customary to honor significant memories with plants. My father took seeds from a tree he and my mother first picnicked under and grew them into saplings as a betrothal gift, for example, and I thought…well, Rey and I had a really love time on the trails yesterday, under one of the trees with the broad yellow and pink flowers, and I was hoping…I was hoping they might be pottable, and I could present one as a gift, and for us to have as we start…”
“Oh, how lovely!” The director said, beaming at him, though there was still a shrewdness in her eyes. “Those trees are very valuable, of course…”
“Of course,” Finn said. “But I was hoping we might be able to reach an agreement…”
“Oh I’m sure we can.” The director smiled, and Finn breathed a sigh of relief.
The director insisted that all betrothals were, at least in part, the business of the whole resort. “You might inspire someone else to take that step! And it’s lovely for morale, and many will give you gifts. It really is a good thing for everyone to let us celebrate this special event with you.”
In the face of her exuberance, Finn conceded the point. He and Rey would be left alone for him to stage his proposal and the presentation of the potted sapling in the forest, but as soon as they returned to the village they would be swept up into the party. Rey wrinkled her nose when he relayed this but resigned herself to it.
They headed into the forest hand in hand. The director had promised to prepare the seedling and leave it by the tree they had stopped at, so that Rey wouldn’t suspect anything as they made their way there. They reached the spot and Rey let out a little gasp of delight, genuine, Finn thought, and let go of his hand to kneel and cup both of hers around the delicate stem. She looked back up at Finn, eyes shining with triumph.
Finn grinned back down at her, proud of them both. “I realized something when we sat here the other day,” he said softly. They had decided to go through with a proper betrothal scene, just in case anyone did end up coming by, though they hadn’t rehearsed the specifics. “I realized that there is no one I would rather sit under trees with than you, and that I want to sit under trees with you for the rest of my days.”
Rey’s eyes twinkled with laughter, but she smiled sweetly at him. “I want to sit under trees with you for the rest of my days too,” she said. “I want our love to grow as this tree does, and to work together to make our love into something that is just as beautiful.”
“Rey,” Finn asked, taking both of her hands in his, “will you marry me?”
She beamed at him. “Yes,” she said.
The celebration that the village threw was extensive, but luckily after a round of toasts and a few dances, it became more of a general party than one for them in particular, and no one much minded that Finn and Rey had settled into a corner, holding hands and staring at each other fondly, as they both enjoyed the excuse to be out of the surge of people’s attentions.
They slept late the next day but then began to ready their departure (eager to tell their families the good news, they told the director). They waited until their ship reached orbit before Finn let out a long breath. “That was weird, right? I mean you don’t…”
“So weird,” Rey agreed.
“Because there’s no one I’d rather have with me most of the time, but all that…”
“I know,” Rey said, nodding vehemently. “This would have been so much weirder with anyone else, so I’m glad it was you, and I love being…us, normally, but all of that…” she gestured vaguely at the planet below.
“Good,” Finn sighed, collapsing into the co-pilot seat. “I love being us, too: partners, and friends, and just…”
“And that’s all we need,” Rey said.
“Exactly.” Finn grinned over at her. “To partnership,” he said, as Rey dialed in the jump to hyperspace.
She grinned back as the stars in the viewport elongated into streaks. “To partnership,” she agreed.