Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The upward drift of Rey’s consciousness woke him. The shift of Rey’s weight out of their shared bed oriented Ben to where, when, and who he was. The uneven shuffle of Rey’s feet on the synthesized flooring, and her through-teeth hiss of pain, spiked Ben’s adrenaline like the sound of a weapon.

He opened his eyes to the near-dark of their quarters in the new Resistance base, and sat up. “Rey. What’s wrong?” His voice croaked low in his throat with sleep.

Rey was already smiling, her voice soothing. “Sorry! Nothing. Just going to volunteer with the water drops.” 

Ben breathed again. “You weren’t assigned to that.”

“Yeah, but they need all the help they can get. Not like they’ll turn me down.” Her mouth moved to his, small, soft lips reassuring and warm.

“Your ankles are hurting you,” he said after they kissed. “The medi-droids told you to avoid heavy work for a couple of weeks.”

Rey made a noncommittal noise. “Since you’re awake, mind if I turn on the light?”

“Sure,” Ben said. “I mean—I don’t mind.”

He blinked heavily in the cool-white, almost clinical flood of light. He resisted the urge to turn away or cover up with a sheet. Ben still wasn’t used to being seen. Inside and out. But what he was, was pain-free. Even after he should have died. Ben watched Rey limp to the plumbing pipe soldered to the wall. It served as their shared clothes hanger.

“They should have prioritized you for a bacta tank when your injuries were fresh,” he said, anger rising. Now it was too late for an easy fix. “After everything you did for them—”

Halfway through dressing, Rey flashed an annoyed glance at him, brows furrowed. It gave him a strange nostalgia for old times. “I’m not better than anyone else,” she said, and his stomach sank.

Rey looked away, and stomped harder than necessary on her heels while tugging up her trousers, to prove a point. “I’ll live. I’ve been through much worse.” Rey’s eyes went wide and her gaze darted back to his, remorseful this time. “Ben. I didn’t mean…”

Ben gave her a small smile, and shrugged. “If you did,” he said, “it’d be true.”

“Well…” Rey finished dressing and moved closer again, eyes warm and lips quirking up. She touched her nose to his. “Doesn’t mean you need to mother-hen like C-3PO to make up for it.”

“I’m not a tip-yip and neither is the droid,” he said.

Rey laughed against his mouth. He grinned too.

“You’re forgiven,” Rey said, and his chest ached. “So stop worrying. Will you be okay without me today?”

She couldn’t shield him forever by proudly and stubbornly holding his hand through the whispers and glances. It was only a matter of time. “Of course.”

She kissed him again.

“You’re good at distracting me,” Ben finally said a few moments later, when he could bring himself to think, outside of the seemingly endless pool inside their Force bond that showed him everything Rey was, vibrant and curious and brave and compassionate and eager and wanting him and trusting him, despite everything. “But I still think that—”

“Lots to be done!” Rey said, already halfway out the door. “Love you! Bye!”

***

“General…” Ben began, posture stiff and face rigid. It was still… difficult. And even that was an improvement. It wasn’t so long ago that it felt impossible.

His mother quirked her eyebrow at him at the title. Her lips were pursed in that way that made him feel like he was five years old and that she was trying not to laugh at him. But her gaze was painfully soft. Ben didn’t know how she could stand to look at him.

He still didn’t know how to talk to her like family, but Ben fell back to what he knew. He gave his military report on the General’s damaged top asset. 

Leia listened, then sighed. Her lips made a spasm of amusement. “What am I gonna do, Ben? Order Rey not to walk for two weeks?”

He blinked. “Yes?” It started with determination but lacked the certainty that would make it a statement.

Leia did laugh now. “Ha. No. I never give an order I’m not prepared to back up with consequences, and I’m not throwing her in the brig. The last thing I need is a prison break and a coup on my hands. Why don’t you take this as an opportunity to get to know Rey’s friends? See if the team can figure out a way to help her take it easy.” She gave a wicked smile. “Or at least commiserate on the fact that it’s hopeless and that you never will.”

“All right,” he said quietly. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Before he could turn away, his mother was touching the side of his face. “It’s good to have you home, honey,” Leia said. She was telling the truth.

He waited for a second half to the statement. Something like: Too bad your father couldn’t be with us too. It never came. She just smiled at him.

Thick tears rose to the base of his throat. Ben pressed his lips together and nodded.

***

“Where’s Rey?” Finn asked nervously in the doorway. Finn kept a friendly expression on his face, but like any soldier, his eyes took measure of his escape routes and Ben’s intentions. 

Ben took a deep breath and let it out. “She’s fine. Except she’s not—her ankles are still hurting, and she’s not resting like she should. I know I don’t… deserve your trust. Or your forgiveness. But I’m worried about her. You were her friend when—you’ve known her longer. I hoped…”

Finn’s gaze softened a little more at each word. “Yeah, of course. Come on in. We can make a plan.”

Poe wasn’t there in Finn’s quarters, but had left clear evidence of his presence. Not just through the Force, but through a visual impression: coat draped over a chair, spare badge tangled in an old caf mug, spare boots jumbled in a corner, sentimental replica parts from an old RZ-1 A-wing interceptor on the shelf. A handwritten love letter glued to the wall on what appeared to be Finn’s side of the bed, as if positioned there so that no matter which way Finn turned in his sleep, he would either open his eyes to the letter or to Poe himself. 

Ben mostly avoided reading what it said. He didn’t want to intrude.

“She already said no to a hoverchair since we’re still short on supplies,” Finn mused, friendly now. “And she really goes nuts if she sits still. You’d think with Jedi training… but anyway, if we can keep her busy somehow, without—”

“I’m sorry,” Ben said abruptly, not looking at Finn. Ben spoke to the empty places on the shelf that lacked any childhood relic from Finn. “I’m… sorry.” He didn’t say what for, and didn’t need to. He knew it was pathetic, but driven by urgency, he added a third time, voice cracking, “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Hey,” Finn said, quiet. “I get it.” A solid hand patted Ben’s upper back, no longer afraid. “We all have to start somewhere, okay?”

***

Ben found Poe in a tech storage room with an inventory datapad. 

“You’re not welcome here,” Poe said in a flat tone, turning away from Ben after a slight glance. Showing his back was a bluff, the pretense of fearlessness. Stupid move from a reckless pilot. “What do you want?”

Ben resisted the urge to argue that Poe didn’t own the room or the base, and that it wasn’t Poe’s decision. Ben’s voice came out harsher than he intended. “Rey isn’t cooperating with medical advice. She’s going to hurt herself.”

“Well,” Poe said, in an artificially carefree voice, “Rey’s known for doing exactly what she wants no matter who likes it or not. So, Supreme Leader.” He finally turned and Ben could see hate in his eyes. The false-friendly tone vanished. “Maybe you should stop trying to control her.”

“I’m not—” Ben began, jaw locked. He tried again. “My intention is not—”

Poe laughed. “Seriously, man. Why don’t you drop the concerned boyfriend act? We both know what you are. I’m not as forgetful as some of the people around here. Not where genocide’s concerned.”

Ben swallowed against the flushing tide of shame and despair and anger swelling up his throat. His jaw twitched under his clenched teeth.

Poe’s voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “Yeah. You still have it in you, don’t you?”

Voice tight and low, Ben said, “Interesting, coming from someone with your choice of partner.”

“Finn is nothing like you,” Poe said, flushing with anger too. Poe lunged closer as he spoke. Ben felt nothing, and didn’t flinch. 

“He was brainwashed from birth,” Poe said, “and you made a choice. He had nobody, and he still did the right thing. You had a loving family.” Poe gave an empty grin. “And you killed most of them.”

Ben closed his eyes. He tasted metal first, then he realized his tongue was bleeding. “You seem to like putting yourself in danger,” Kylo gritted out. 

It sounded more like a threat than he wanted it to. Or maybe it sounded less like a threat than he really wanted it to. He couldn’t tell what he wanted.

“Yeah.” Poe’s voice sounded so sure.

Ben opened his eyes. There was a grin on Poe’s face and a mean and manic glint in his eyes. 

“Go ahead,” Poe said, nodding. “Do your worst. I won’t call for help. And when they find out that I’m dead, at least they’ll understand what you are before you hurt anybody else. Nothing new about sacrifice for the Resistance.”

Ben breathed out and felt his shoulders sink down. “You don’t have to worry about me anymore,” he said, dully. “But I get it.”

“Hey babe,” Finn’s voice called out, “did you hear from—” Finn rounded the corner cheerfully, only to halt. 

Ben shook his head and stormed away. He caught fragments of the start of Finn and Poe’s argument. 

“He’s like me,” Finn said.

“Baby, no,” Poe said, his voice so gentle and tender. “No, he’s not.”

“He is. He’s exactly like me. Listen…”

***

Rey, limping worse than that morning, climbed onto Ben’s lap. She was in pain, but she had so much hope for him in her smile. “How’d things go while I was gone?”

“Fine,” Ben said.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Rey took a step, and fell straight down to the floor. A sob escaped her mouth. Ben rushed and dropped to the floor at Rey’s side to find her face wet with tears, and her lips pressed so tight that they were white. She glared at her own legs.

“Rey…” he said, shaking his head. When Ben touched her face, he felt the searing, snapping burn in the back of his own ankle. 

Ben scooped her off the floor and carried her to the bed. Rey was in bad enough condition that she only let out a sob of frustration and a half-hearted swat at his bicep. No real protest.

He set her down gently, and kneeled at her feet on the cot.

“The war’s over,” Ben said, low. He stroked the tips of his fingers against her ankle, leaned down, and sighed out Force healing for the worst of the injury. 

Rey kicked him in the head with her other foot. “Stop it. You need your life energy.” 

He snorted at the strike, and kissed her ankle. “Will you let yourself get some rest?”

“Maybe,” Rey said from up at the head of the bed. “Come up here and cuddle me.”

He did. 

“It doesn’t feel like it’s over,” she mumbled, doodling with a finger on his chest and arms. Still restless. “When is anything really over?”

“You should take whatever chance you have to forget that for a while,” Ben said. But not me. I should never forget. Too dangerous.

He didn’t say it. But he was just as bad at hiding his feelings from Rey as Rey was from him. 

“You first,” she said. “You deserve it too, even though you think you don’t.”

***

The day after that, Ben watched as Rey avoided eye contact, got dressed, and wrapped her ankles viciously tight. The swelling bulged up over the bandages.

Chin up with dignity, Rey walked stiffly out of the room. She smiled and dismissed the worried beeps and cries of BB-8 waiting outside the door.

***

“Look, man,” Poe said. He sighed and ran a hand through his curls. “I’m sorry.”

Ben frowned and glanced at Finn behind Poe’s shoulder. Finn was beaming. 

“I got some more context,” Poe added, “And I’m willing to give you a chance. Sorry.”

“My fault,” Ben mumbled, hoarse. “You’re not the one who caused any harm.”

“Eh,” Poe said, shrugging, as though he wasn’t sure if that was true. 

***

Despite their best efforts to make it seem like a gathering for Ben’s benefit, Rey was suspicious when Ben, Poe, and Finn sat down beside her, with apparent purpose, around the rec hall table. 

Ben found himself impressed by Poe’s manipulation abilities when he turned her wariness to indignation instead. 

“I hate to break it to you,” Poe announced to Rey, “but your pilot skills suck.”

Ben, who had just taken a small sip of his drink, tried not to choke. 

Finn covered his face with his hands, and said, “That’s not—”

 “Excuse me?!” Rey said, jaw agape, her voice jumping an octave. “I’ll have you know that I—”

“In comparison!” Poe reassured, and gave her his most charming grin. “Only in comparison. What I mean is, you’re impressive for an amateur—” Rey made another offended noise. “But there’s a lot to learn.”

Ben leaned toward Rey. “We acquired some simulations. State of the art. Experimental flight patterns, new tech, things almost nobody’s touched before.”

“I’m not even trained in it yet,” Poe added. “We’ve got hand-only controls and verbal commands. We’ve got eye movement response and 360 degree seated rotation. You ever want to just become an X-wing? There’s even a top secret experimental program. Custom-build progressive compatibility with Force-sensitive pilots.”

“We were thinking it’d be useful if we all focused on the sims right now,” Finn chimed in. “Even the Force ones, for all of us. I need to practice my powers. I’d love it if you and Ben helped me out. And everybody says the Force is in everything, so maybe Poe can figure it out too.”

“Or I’ll just spend some training time learning how to cope with envy,” Poe said, winking at Rey. 

“We never know when any one of us might need to fly something new,” Finn said.

“In any conditions,” Poe concurred. “The environments they’ve programmed in these babies are crazy. And it’s all co-op, with radio comms. We can all fly together.”

“The General agrees that this is the most useful thing we could be doing right now,” Ben added, smiling at Rey.

“Uh huh,” Rey said, looking between each of them. Ben felt her trying to contain how excited she was about the idea. “And just how long is this training program, exactly?”

“All day, every day, for two weeks, starting today,” Poe said at once, satisfied.

“Maybe three,” Finn corrected. “Might be three weeks if we need to.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “You must all think you’re very clever.”

“Yes,” Ben said, and Rey laughed.

“Yeah, okay,” she said. “It sounds useful… and it sounds like fun. Thanks.”

Poe grinned at Ben in the shared victory.

Ben smiled back.