#it was talking about fridging girls & it included padme as an example

[lokigodofaces]

sometimes you've just gotta scroll past a post you disagree with

[optimisticsprinkles]

[CLEAN VERSION] Soul Searching, Ch.31

Sexual situations redacted.

If you’ve read the story until now, you’ll note that sexuality in the past has been referenced but not explicit. That’s the level I’m going for in the clean version, as well.

I’m including a brief non-explicit description when context is necessary.

Original version on AO3 here.

Many thanks to @reyloandotherfandoms for beta reading. :) You rock.

Chapter 31: Opening Remarks

Rey freshened up before she left her room. She ran a comb through her hair, touched up her lip tint, and fixed a smear of mascara from her earlier tears.

She didn’t try to pretend the cosmetic fixes weren’t for Ben, but her motives weren’t remotely altruistic. If he had a reaction to her anywhere close to the one she’d had to him, this afternoon would be torture for him.

She met her own eyes in the mirror and straightened her shoulders like a soldier going into battle.

Ben Solo wasn’t going to get out of this unscathed.

Ben kept touching the tip of his tongue to the wound on the inside of his lip where his teeth had cut into it.

Rey had one hell of a left hook. And a right hook. He’d always supposed she would take advantage of his old punching bag after he left — he knew how cathartic it could be — but he had not thought through the fact that a punching bag would make her better at punching.

Not that he’d expected Rey to punch him when she saw him. He had imagined hundreds of different scenarios, some good and some bad, but he was embarrassed now that he’d been hoping for a warmer reception. The kind that had her arms around his neck and her lips on his and her hands in his hair and his hands under her thighs as she wrapped her legs around his waist and ground herself against—

Shit.

Good thing he was sitting down, he supposed, then decided it was a very good thing when she exited the house and joined Chewie at the grill.

Was she taller? Or had she always been that tall? And had her legs always been that long? Or was it the dress? When she’d punched him, she’d been wearing that stupid billowy graduation robe, and it was a shock to his system to see her out of it and in some wispy thing that more than covered everything while leaving a huge amount of skin on display.

He was staring, he knew, his forearms on his knees as he watched her, but he couldn’t stop.

Lando sank into the chair beside him and gave a low laugh. “You have it bad, kid.”

Ben considered denying it, but there was no point. “Yeah.”

She wouldn’t look at him. She knew he was staring, she had to, because how else would she know where not to look?

He just wanted her to look at him. To look at him and walk over and take his hand and lead him inside and into a back room and shove him against a wall and—

Lando crossed his legs and leaned back, clearly not suffering the same affliction as Ben. “Why’d you take off, anyway, with a sweet girl like that waiting for you?”

“I don’t really feel like explaining myself,” Ben replied. When Lando only looked at him, waiting, Ben huffed an annoyed breath and said, “She was underage, and I didn’t want to be a creep.”

Lando lifted his beer to his lips with an elegant brown hand. “And how’s that working out for you?”

Ben snorted, knowing Lando didn’t expect a reply. They both regarded her, and Ben said, “I can look myself in the eye.” He felt Lando’s dark gaze on him but didn’t turn to look.

“I guess that’s something.”

It was everything.

Ben hadn’t done much in his life that he could point to and say, “I’m proud of that.” But goddamn, this was one of them.

Now if he could only get her to understand.

His mother had said when she picked him up at the airport that Rey didn’t have a boyfriend, but Ben wouldn’t have altered his course if she had. There was a reason that most developed countries had a no-fault divorce law for couples split up by a soulmate connection. The bond was too hard to resist. He’d read articles about couples with soulmates who’d stayed married because of children or religion, but most cases ended with one spouse leaving the other for their soulmate.

Ben had very clearly defined rules about age, but he had zero qualms about stealing from other men. Or, as was more likely in Rey’s case, boys. Ben would have pursued her with brutally efficient focus, and eventually she would have left whatever little prick had been keeping her company.

No, the only person in the way of a life with Rey was… Rey herself.

And she was a challenge he was sure he could surmount.

Unlike the one in his pants.

When it occurred to Rey to be surprised that Luke and Ben were in the same place without violence or drama, she cornered Luke in the kitchen and asked him about it.

Luke nodded and turned the soda he’d been getting from the fridge over in his hands, the mechanical one making tapping noises where it touched the aluminum. “We’ve been talking. We have a ways to go, but we can be in the same room now.”

“Oh,” she said, stunned. She wasn’t sure if she was more surprised that it had happened or that no one had mentioned it to her. Perhaps they hadn’t thought it was any of her business. Thinking about it, they were probably right. It wasn’t any of her business. Except that it had to do with Ben, and he was her business. She tried to wrestle the conflicting emotions into order and found herself left with the aching sense of being left out. “I’m… I’m glad.”

Luke leaned against the counter, his blue eyes on her, and Rey blushed, wondering if he’d read her thoughts on her face.

Instead of comment on her internal battles, he merely said, “I went to see him. We came back on the same flight.”

Of course they had. It made sense now that she thought about it, considering the timing of Ben’s return. Of course they’d traveled back together. A troubling thought occurred to her, and she asked, “You didn’t tell him to come back, did you?”

Luke’s brows rose. “No, of course not. He already had a ticket booked for two days from now. I persuaded him to change it to today.”

Rey frowned. “Oh.”

Luke waited for her to continue, but she didn’t, and he let the moment pass. “I took him to see my father.”

Rey’s eyes widened. “The…”

“The crazy genocidal war criminal. Yes.” Luke examined her expression and glanced out the windows. Rey looked as well, only able to catch the edge of the grill and the people around it.

Luke switched gears. “I talk to my father about my mother sometimes when I visit. Padme. He likes to tell stories about her more now that he’s getting older. He wants someone to keep her memory alive.” He turned his soda in his hands without seeming to realize it, and a small sad smile played across his face. “The Organas told us about her, and everything my father says supports their stories.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “We were robbed when she died. The world was robbed.”

Rey saw the grief lining his face for a mother he’d never even met and felt a peculiar kind of kinship. “What was she like?”

Luke considered his words. “Think of… of the strength of conviction it would take to be a genocidal maniac. The force of personality it would take to see that level of destruction through. To command fear and respect enough to have your commands followed without question.” He looked at Rey, and his blue eyes burned bright. “Now imagine that same level of conviction, that same ability to command, channeled not for destruction but for peace. That was my mother. Her people loved her. They respected her. She was a powerful leader.”

Luke set his soda down but continued to toy with it. After a while, he said, “I told Ben this while we were in Holland, but I think it’s pertinent here.

“A lot of people think a soulmate is your perfect romantic match, but they’re wrong. It’s much deeper than that. A soulmate is the other half of your soul. And I think… when souls get shared across two people, sometimes you’re exactly the same. But most of the time, you’ll be symmetrical in all but a few key points. I think my parents were that way. The same, but my father got all the darkness and my mother all the light. Or maybe they were the same but my father’s environment nurtured the wrong things in him. I don’t know.

“Leia and I are a good example of soulmates who got different qualities. Our strengths are the other’s weaknesses. Together, we complement each other.”

Rey nodded, remembering that Ben had said something similar long ago about his mother and his uncle, before he even knew they were soulmates. “Yin and Yang.”

Luke nodded. ���I see a lot of Ben in you. A lot. But you’ve got some strengths that he doesn’t. And he has some you don’t. Weaknesses, too.” He tapped the side of his soda with his mechanical hand. “And I don’t want to be an interfering old man,” he said with a wry look that she thought meant he already considered himself to have interfered, “but once the two of you work out this rift between you… you’re going to be one hell of a team.”

He left her, then, and Rey mulled his words over for a long time before going back out to the busy patio.

Somehow, when the food was ready, Rey found herself maneuvered into sitting at the patio table between Luke and Leia, far closer to Ben than she would have preferred. He was across from his mother, between his dad and Chewie, while Lando lounged in his silk suit on Luke’s other side. Rey mostly talked to Luke so she wouldn’t have to look in Ben’s direction, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t noticed him or that she didn’t feel it in every cell of her body when he looked at her.

Leia turned to him and asked, “So, Ben, how have you kept yourself busy this last year?”

He hesitated, then said, “I wrote a book.”

Rey’s head came up despite herself, and she saw he’d surprised everyone else as well. His eyes flicked to hers before pink flared across his cheeks and he glanced back down.

The others spoke up, ranging from incredulous to curious.

“You wrote a book?”

“What about?”

“Do we get to read it?”

Ben started breaking a ruffled potato chip into crisp clean pieces, the gesture exposing his nervousness. “Ah, no. Nobody gets to read it because it’s complete shit. But… I liked writing it. It was fun. I think it’s something I want to keep doing.”

“You always did like to read,” Leia said warmly.

Han sat back and gestured with his beer. “So that’s what you’ve been up to on your little vacation.”

Ben frowned at Han and set the chip down. “Could you not?”

Han spread his hands and smiled. “Come on, kid. You can’t take a little ribbing?”

“That’s…” Ben shook his head, frustration radiating off of him. “You need to learn when to keep your mouth shut.”

Anger snapped in Han’s eyes. “Maybe I should never say anything at all, would that make you feel better?”

Ben glowered at Han as the latter pushed his chair back and left the table.

Leia sighed and started to push her own chair back.

“No,” said Ben, stopping her and getting up. He wiped chip grease onto his napkin and dropped it by his plate. “It’s unfair to make you clean up our shit.” He shrugged and pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose, looking tired suddenly. “I need to talk to him, anyway.”

Leia frowned, concern clear on her face. “You know your father jokes when he’s uncomfortable.”

Ben stiffened. “He called it a fucking vacation.”

“Wasn’t it?” Rey asked, eyes on her soda’s condensation as she trailed a finger through it.

The table went quiet, and she knew he’d turned his head to look at her. She didn’t look up, too proud and too scared of what she’d see in his eyes. Her neck felt strained, almost brittle, like it could snap at the slightest touch.

It was not lost on her, and probably not on any of the rest of them, that this was the first time she’d spoken to him since he got home.

When he replied, his voice was deep and gravely with something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “No.”

Ben found his dad in the garage, sitting in the Falcon with a fresh beer.

Ben stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned on the van. “You can’t keep doing that.”

Han scowled. “It was a joke. You’re too sensitive.”

Ben shook his head, fighting down a flare of frustration and trying to remember all the things he’d covered with Dr. Statura. He’d made plans for this conversation, but fuck if he could remember any of them. “It wasn’t a joke, and you know it. You can’t keep doing things this way — poking and prodding and then pretending to be surprised when I get offended.”

His dad took a deep swig of beer and climbed out of the van. Ben stepped back to give him room, and Han stood there and crossed his arms and waited. When Ben said nothing, Han jerked one shoulder up. “What do you want me to say, kid? You want me to apologize?” From the way his dad said that last word, it was clear he had no intention of apologizing. At all. “Talk about my feelings? Yell at you?”

“Yes,” said Ben. “All of the above would be good, but just talking to me about why you’re angry instead of…” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Look. You and I have never understood each other. The only things we have in common are flying and a truly astounding level of stubbornness, and we both know it drives mom up the wall.”

His dad tilted his head in agreement.

“I just… the way we’ve handled things up to now hasn’t worked. And, no, I don’t know how to magically fix things or what exactly will work, but… I’m so tired of fighting.”

“Says the kid who ran away.”

Ben gestured. “See? That is what I’m talking about. All you’re doing is trying to piss me off. Why don’t you just tell me why you’re mad?”

He watched his dad examine him through narrowed eyes, could see the wheels in his head turning. His dad was loud and brash and proud. They’d never just talked, they were both shit at communication, but Ben had to try. He was tired of fighting, but it wasn’t just that.

He wanted a better relationship with his father.

“I had to watch that girl cry,” Han said abruptly. “And it didn’t make sense to me, why she had to hurt while you ran off and enjoyed yourself.”

Ben flinched. “I wasn’t ‘enjoying myself.’”

His dad shrugged, and Ben was suddenly angry.

“I was alone. You talk like I was snapping selfies on some fucking beach, but I felt like I was drowning out there, surrounded by strangers and unfamiliar places, and I just wanted to come home and be with her, but I couldn’t, and the only thing that kept me from hating myself was the thought that I was doing the right thing.”

“You hurt her,” his dad started, but Ben cut him off.

“I know that! You think I don’t know that? You think it wasn’t all I could think about for months? That it didn’t keep me up at night? I know I hurt her.” His jaw shifted, and he pressed his lips together to hide their trembling. “I know I should have handled it better. I’ve had a year to consider every single fucking place I went wrong.”

His dad took a swig of beer, his frown more solemn than angry now. “Why did you even have to leave? Why couldn’t you have stayed and worked it out?”

Ben sighed and looked at the workbench standing nearby, the tools in a haphazard order that somehow made sense to his dad. “I wrote all of this down somewhere to help me explain it, but I have no idea where that is, so I’m just going to wing it.” He thought about all his reasons and found the one that would make the most sense to Han Solo. Then he took a deep breath and said, “I didn’t want to be a sexual predator like Snoke.” He held up a hand when Han frowned and opened his mouth. “I know I wouldn’t have been exactly like him, but I assume you can understand my not wanting to be even tangentially associated.” He let out a nervous huff, speaking quickly to shut down the other potential arguments. “Also, yes, eighteen was and is a non-negotiable hard limit, and no, I couldn’t have kept my hands off her for a year, and yes, this is the most embarrassing conversation I’ve ever had in my life.”

Han didn’t speak for a moment. “I dunno, The Talk was pretty bad.”

Ben snorted, recalling his dad’s fumbling, flustered attempt to teach him about sex. “No, this is worse. Trust me.”

The Talk hadn’t forced Ben to admit that he desperately wanted to fuck the girl Han thought of like a daughter.

Ben sighed. “What it boils down to is that I had to choose between a year of torture away from her or the prospect of comparing myself to a monster for the rest of my life.”

His dad picked at the label on his beer. For a long time, he didn’t say anything. “Do you know why I hate talking about Snoke?”

Ben stared at him, thrown. He shook his head. “Because he was a creepy serial killer child molester?”

Han didn’t smile, just kept picking at his beer. “Because it reminds me that I couldn’t protect you. That if I’d put my foot down and kept you at home like I wanted to, it wouldn’t’ve happened.”

Ben looked at his father, at the lines on his face and the grey in his hair, and for the first time in his life he saw how old he really was. “It wasn’t your fault, Dad.”

Han nodded, lips twisting like he was holding onto his stoicism by a thread. “Yeah, well,” he said gruffly. They stood there for a long while, both pretending they weren’t fighting off tears, until Han shifted his weight. “We should probably get back.”

“Okay.” They walked inside together, and Ben glanced at his dad as they approached the patio door. “Listen, I’m trying this new ‘don’t bottle everything up until you explode’ thing, so I’m reserving the right to call you out on being a dick. Fair warning.”

Han snorted. “Sure, fine. So long as I get to call you out when you’re being a dick.”

Ben grinned. “I can live with that.”

Rey was still baffled by how Ben could have talked Han around in the space of fifteen minutes. Lunch had wound down and Leia had sent Han inside to fetch Rey’s graduation gifts. Rey fidgeted as they waited, still not used to accepting presents. The whole process made her uncomfortable.

Han returned pulling a giant rolling suitcase in a lovely shade of olive green, and Rey smiled. She liked practical gifts the best, and Leia seemed to know that.

“For college,” Leia said cheerfully as Rey got up to look at it. “You’ll need luggage when you go. Here, unzip it and there are more bags inside. They stack.”

Rey did as Leia bade, laying the large suitcase flat to find a medium-size version tucked inside. She unzipped that to find a matching green duffel bag folded neatly within.

“Here, lift that out and take a better look at it.”

Rey stopped mid-lift when she saw the long box hidden beneath the duffel bag. Her gaze snapped up to Leia’s, who looked particularly gleeful. “Leia…”

“No arguments,” Leia said because she knew Rey’s difficulty accepting expensive gifts.

Rey had never had her own computer before. She’d been using the one in Leia’s home office for schoolwork and email, but this was… “It’s too much.”

“It’s not top-of-the-line, and that is the only concession I was willing to make. You need a laptop for school, and that one is very reliable.”

Rey felt like crying, but she got up and hugged Leia, then Han. “Thank you, guys.”

“I wanted to get you a fuel-injection system,” Han complained.

Rey grinned at him. “Christmas.”

The uncles gave her money. Luke put his in a thoughtful card, but Chewie just handed her a check. Altogether, she got seven hundred dollars, and the amount made her head swim.

An awkward silence fell as everyone but Rey glanced at Ben.

“IOU,” he said, spreading his empty hands.

Rey put the suitcases back together and zipped them up. “I’m going to put these things in my room.”

Leia kissed Rey’s cheek. “Congratulations, sweetheart. We’re so proud of you.”

It almost made her forget how badly the day had gone.

Rey was washing dishes in the kitchen after lunch when Ben came up and asked if he could dry.

Without looking away from her work, she said, “It’s a free country,” then set her sponge down and started to walk away.

He heaved a sigh. “Rey.”

She turned on her heel and met his eye. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I not old enough to make my own decisions yet? Is that what this is?” She gestured at the dishwater.

He scowled. “That’s not—” He spread his arms helplessly. “All I said was your name.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s the way you said it.”

He rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes with a growl. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Rey turned to leave again, but Ben’s warm fingers closed gently around her wrist. She stared at the point where he touched her, her face and body flaring with warmth, and forced her expression into a glare before meeting his eye again.

And promptly forgot what she was going to say.

“I’m sorry,” he said gently, thumb rubbing across the sensitive skin on the underside of her wrist. “I should have done things differently.”

Rey drew a breath into her too-tight lungs and tugged her arm away with more force than was strictly necessary. “Don’t do that.”

He glanced at her wrist and ducked his head. “Sorry.”

“Not that,” she snapped. “Although, yes, that too. I mean the…” She gestured vaguely at his face, which now just looked confused. “The puppy dog eyes.” She folded her arms irritably and looked away. “Don’t do that.”

He blinked, then laughed softly. She glared at him again, and he raised his hands. “Okay, sorry. Sorry. I didn’t realize that was a thing. But I will try not to do the thing I wasn’t aware I was doing. For you.”

She was pretty sure he was laughing at her, but she just rolled her eyes and said, “See that you don’t.”

She retreated to her room and locked the door behind her, then climbed into her bed and guiltily shimmied out of her underwear.

[Rey again does what she set out to do.]

Holy fuck, she thought. If she was going to have to retreat to take care of herself every time she interacted with him… she was screwed.

And not even literally.

Rey made sure her laptop was charging before she guiltily exited her room. The sound of running water from Ben’s old room pinpointed his location, so she wandered toward the kitchen and saw the other men out back shutting down the grill.

She found Leia in the laundry room with a large black duffel bag.

“You're doing his laundry?” Rey observed, leaning against the door jamb and resisting the urge to imagine Ben naked and wet.

Rey shivered, glad Leia was digging through the bag instead of looking her way.

“I offered,” Leia said simply. Then she glanced up at Rey and smirked. “Unless you want to do it.”

Rey grimaced, and Leia laughed.

“Didn't think so.”

They chatted for a bit, and Rey pretended that she wasn’t filing away that Ben wore boxers in a narrow range of dark colors.

Maybe she’d get some fluorescent pink ones and sneak them into his bag just to mess with him. Or maybe something stupid, like smiley faces or a Union Jack or kittens.

It amused her to consider, but then she realized she was thinking about his exasperation when he found them and maybe him wearing them for her, and she needed to shut that line of thought down.

No buying Ben underwear, she told herself sternly.

So when a knock came at the front door, Rey went to get it to distract herself.

“Finn!” she cried, throwing her arms around him. Perfect. She really needed someone on her side right now. The rest of Ben’s family were too happy to have him back. Rey didn’t begrudge them their happiness, but she’d felt a little bit alone because of it.

“I can’t stay long,” he said, hugging her back. “Mom dropped me off while she runs to the store to grab a pie or something for the Ticos.” He let her go and shrugged, following her inside. “She doesn’t want to show up empty-handed.”

“I like your mom,” Rey said as they passed through the house and headed out to the back patio where the men were still drinking. “Have I said that before?”

“Once or twice,” he replied with an easy grin. Rey didn’t miss that his eyes had been scanning their surroundings as they walked through the house. He nodded at Han and the uncles, but Rey led him past them.

“He’s in the shower, I think,” she said softly when they got to a bench swing Leia had purchased after Rey kept taking friends into the back yard. They sat and began to lazily rock, too far away to be heard if they kept their voices down.

“How’s that going?”

She decided to deliberately misunderstand. “His shower? How would I know?”

Finn smiled, but his steady gaze pried a sigh out of her.

“It’s tough.” She wasn’t about to tell Finn she’d masturbated twice already. She was open with him, but that wasn’t the kind of thing they discussed. Ever. “It’s like… I want him to be this huge unrepentant jackass so I can hate him, but he’s not.”

“Yeah?”

She slouched and glowered at a bush. “He tried to apologize.”

“That bastard.”

Rey snorted.

They swung together in silence for a while before Finn stirred and said, “I’m going to have my phone on silent while I’m at Rose’s because her aunts and uncles and grandparents are there and I need to make a good impression, but if something happens or you need to get out of here for a while or something, Rose and I can put together a rescue party. Okay?”

Rey smiled up at him. “I do have a car, you know.”

His brow furrowed. “Oh. Yeah. Right. Well, if you need to talk or something.”

She appreciated it, she really did, but she wasn’t about to distract him from getting in good with the entire Tico clan. “Thank you. I probably won’t, but thank you for offering.”

“Tomorrow,” he insisted. “Call me and let me know how things are.” He made a face and added, “But wait until after eleven. You get up stupid early.”

Rey laughed.

When Finn’s mom finally texted him she was back, they walked together to the front door.

Ben was in the living room playing a game on his phone, one elbow on the arm of the couch and chin propped in his hand. He’d changed from his suit into jeans and a white tee that looked good with his dark hair. He only moved his eyes to look at them but took his chin out of his hand to wave casually at Finn.

Finn nodded stiffly back, then glanced at Rey, and they continued to the front door where he turned and whispered, “Did you want me to be ruder? I wasn’t sure there. Like, if you want me to flip him off or something, I can do that, but I need instructions.”

Rey smiled and shook her head. “Just be you. You’re perfect.” She wrapped her arms around Finn’s waist, and he wrapped his around her back. She grinned against his shirt and tie. “And hey, have fun being picked apart and your every move examined by Rose’s entire family tree.”

“I hate you,” he laughed as he let go and started down the path to his mom’s car.

“You love me!”

He turned to walk backwards and shrugged. “Yeah, I do.”

Ben made himself stay seated as Rey and Finn went to the door. He could hear them laughing, but he knew she wouldn’t appreciate him being a lurking weirdo. Plus, his dad and uncles were coming in from the back yard to gather around the TV and would notice if Ben hovered by the wall and tried to eavesdrop.

And his dad would definitely yell something like, “Whatcha doing there, kid?”

Ben had been more than a little distressed by the fact that he’d come back from showering and changing to find her in the back yard with Finn, but he’d left them alone (after staring at them far too long through the kitchen windows and receiving a knowing smirk from Uncle Lando).

When Rey returned from seeing Finn out, adorably barefoot and more relaxed than he’d seen her since they’d gotten home, she leaned over the back of Han’s chair where his dad sat and draped her arms over him in a pseudo-hug. Ben’s old man patted her arms.

“We were thinking about a movie,” Han said. “Gotta pick something quick, or Leia’ll make us watch something artsy.”

“Can’t have that,” drawled Rey, and Ben wondered if she knew she was presenting her ass to him or if she’d be pissed if she noticed him looking.

He tried to stop, he really did. It was just… Rey. And Rey’s ass. And the strong urge to stand and flip her skirt up and palm it right where his dad and uncles couldn’t see.

Damnit. He shifted in his seat, glad that everyone was focused on the TV and that he’d taken care of himself in the shower. He hadn’t wanted to spend the whole day trying to hide an erection, and now at least he wouldn’t spring to attention quite as fast.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t affected.

He tried to focus on the others instead of Rey, to mixed success. She kept shifting her hips, and fuck if it didn’t look intentional. But he’d never thought she was a tease, and he knew from experience (just that morning, in fact) that she was more likely to attack her problems head-on than with oblique sexual torture.

But then again, he’d been away for a year. Things could have changed. She could be into both now.

Ben decided to stop overthinking it and just enjoy the view.

Rey retreated to her room before the movie to dig her phone out of her purse and plug it in.

She saw a few text notifications and unlocked her phone to see that Lusica had sent a You go girl! right after Rey had punched Ben, but everything after that was about how well and truly bored Lusica was of her family.

Rey ignored the first text and snorted as she read over the rest. She sent, Better there than here.

Lusica’s reply was almost instant. Like hell. I’d MUCH rather be there watching you and Benny boy dance around each other.

Rey smiled despite herself. Lusica had taken full advantage of being able to call him Ben after he left, citing the fact that he wasn’t a teacher anymore.

Because Rey could tell Lusica things she couldn’t tell Finn, she admitted, I want to jump his bones.

No judgment here. Climb that man like a tree.

Rey laughed and flopped back onto her bed, typing quickly. I’m still mad at him.

Angry sex is supposed to be the best.

Rey rolled her eyes at that, certain nothing would happen anytime soon. He still had some apologizing to do. We’ll see.

Your call. But let me know how big his dick is, please.

Rey smiled. Slut.

A NUN would want to know what that man’s dick looks like.

Rey rolled her eyes and blushed. Whatever. We’re about to watch a movie, I should get back.

I neeeeed this, Rey.

Rey laughed. I’m going now.

I need it!

She turned her screen off and plugged her phone in, then turned to find Ben in the open doorway, those damn eyes of his far too vulnerable.

“Can we please talk?” he asked quietly, gaze flickering to her phone and back.

Rey stood and faced him, crossing her arms. She let him wonder for a moment, let him get his hopes up, then said, “No.” And ducked around him to head to the living room.

Or tried to. He placed an arm in her way, his eyes still pleading with her. “Rey…”

She glared up at him and tried to ignore the fact that her bed was right there reminding her of what she’d done in it not just today but over the entire year he’d been gone. “No. You’ve made every decision so far without me. You can damn well wait until I’m ready to talk.”

He dropped both his arm and his eyes. “Okay.”

She breezed past him with her head held high, wishing he wouldn’t be quite so compliant so she’d have an excuse to yell at him. She glanced back with narrowed eyes when she got to the entrance of the living room and wished she hadn’t.

Goddamn puppy dog eyes.

Frustrated, she swept away and threw herself irritably into one of the single-occupant chairs because she didn’t put it past him to try and sit with her.

And there was no way she was going to let that happen.

Rey went for another soda during intermission, and she stopped on her way back when she heard Leia’s voice coming from the laundry room.

“…think it would be best.”

“No, it’s fine,” said Ben, accompanied by the sound of the dryer opening. “I get it. And I think you’re right, she’d probably be more comfortable if I weren’t here.”

Rey flattened herself against the wall and fought rising panic. If he wasn’t here? What did that mean? She didn’t want him to leave; she’d been pissy, sure, but she didn’t fucking want him to leave.

“Thank you, sweetie,” said Leia. “I know it’s inconvenient. Another time, you’d be welcome to stay overnight, but given the circumstances…”

Overnight. Rey latched onto the word. Leia wanted him to leave for the night.

To her surprise, she found she didn’t like that idea, either.

The sound of clothes being moved over. “Really, mom, I don’t mind. She deserves to feel comfortable in her own home.”

Silence, and the sound of a dial turning.

“It’s your home, too, Ben,” Leia said softly.

“I know,” he said, just as soft. “But I don’t live here anymore. She does.”

“I just don’t want you to feel unwelcome.”

A low laugh. “Mom, it’s fine. Seriously. It’s not like you’re telling me I can’t come back, I just can’t spend the night. That’s reasonable.”

No, it wasn’t. Rey fought the heavy thumping of her heart, the sick worry that settled into her stomach. She didn’t want him to go, not for the night and not ever.

The dryer door clanged closed and a moment later it rumbled to life. Rey edged closer to the door, unable to help herself.

“It’s just that she’s been through a lot.”

“Yeah,” he murmured on a sigh. “Yeah. I know.” Silence, then, “I’m glad that you’ve been there for her. You and dad. It means… it means a lot.”

Someone sniffled, and Leia’s voice came out thick. “We should have been there for you, too. When you were younger. I should have—”

Shushing noises, and Rey started to back away, but Ben’s voice made her stop.

“You were there for her. That means more to me than anything. I don’t think I could have survived this past year if I didn’t know she had you watching out for her.”

“We love her,” said Leia.

His reply was too quiet to hear over the dryer.

As Rey retreated to the living room with her soda, she couldn’t help feeling like she’d missed something important.

The fact that Ben wasn’t spending the night continued to bother Rey all through the movie. She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter, but it seemed that her responsible inner voice had decided to take a nap ever since she saw him at graduation. She’d been running on pure emotion and instinct ever since.

It was exhausting.

Luke sat on the sofa with Leia and Ben, and Han had his usual chair. Chewie had pulled another chair around for himself — the one Ben used to sit in and do his grading before he left, the one she still thought of as Ben’s chair.

Lando had begged off, saying he had some work to do for Monday. He’d congratulated Rey and bowed over her hand with a smile, then did the same with Leia’s (with far more flourish), and bade them all goodbye.

Luke fell asleep soon after they started the movie back up. Rey glanced back when she heard a slight snore and saw him with his arms crossed and his chin slumped onto his chest.

Leia caught her eye and smiled, laughter twinkling in her eyes.

Rey smiled back, trying not to notice that Ben’s eyes were on her, and turned back to the movie.

She didn’t want him to go.

For a moment she wished everyone else would just leave so she could crawl into his lap. Not to kiss him but just… to be close to him. Just for a minute.

She really wanted that.

Rey shifted in her seat, frustrated by the fact that she was now imagining what he might do if she crawled into his lap. Her skirt covered most of her thighs and fluttered around her knees, so her skin touched the leather of the chair in several places. She worried about leaving a damp spot when she stood up and shifted again.

I am not going to sneak off to my room again, she told herself sternly when the urge popped up. I have some self-control.

She ignored the multiple examples just that day of her lack of self-control and curled up in the chair, settling her popcorn against her stomach, her head on the arm. She focused on the movie, and gradually the needy demands of her body eased.

As she lay there, warm and safe, the day caught up with her, and she nodded off.

When Rey stirred, she found that the movie had ended and someone had draped a blanket over her. Probably Leia, but she couldn’t help imagining Ben.

She glanced toward the couch as she sat up.

Empty.

Rey started to tremble. She threw off the blanket and got up, terrified that he was gone, that it was too late to ask him to stay, too late to touch him and be held and…

She stumbled toward the kitchen, where the light was on and low voices came from the direction of the breakfast table.

Rey clung to the edge of the doorway and nearly sagged in relief when she saw Ben there with his parents.

He saw her before Han or Leia did, and she jerked back, breathing hard.

The old pain returned, and she went to her room and dropped onto her bed and cried.

A few minutes later, she grabbed her phone off the charger and texted Leia with shaky fingers. Don’t let him leave. Don’t mention me, but please don’t let him leave.

She checked her other texts. One from Finn checking in. She sent him a thumbs up emoji. Another from Lusica which was just an eggplant and some sweat drops, which made Rey smile and shake her head.

Stalwart companion and horny bitch, she thought wryly, sending an eyeroll emoji back.

Her phone Ta-dinged. Leia.

Are you sure?

Rey took a deep breath and wrote, Yes.

A few seconds that felt like years before ellipses appeared to indicate Leia was typing.

Okay.

Rey sighed, relieved, and went to wash the makeup off her face, looking at her damp freckled skin in the mirror when she was done. She wasn’t sure what exactly it was she was looking for. Maybe that thing that had made Ben write that he wanted her.

Whatever it was, she didn’t find it.

It was late enough that she considered changing into her pajamas, but she looked nice in this dress and part of her wanted to keep looking nice. Maybe it was weak of her, maybe it was vulnerable, maybe it was contradictory, but she wanted Ben to notice her.

She fetched her phone and typed, Is it normal to want to kiss someone you also want to push off a cliff?

The ellipses appeared after a minute, and then Lusica’s reply came through. It’s how you feel, so it’s normal. More ellipses. And you already punched him, so get to the kissing. I need to live vicariously through you.

Rey snorted. Her fingers hovered over the screen, and then she typed, I’ll keep you apprised.

Rey left her phone on the nightstand and wandered back out toward the kitchen. Han and Leia were in the living room, discussing whether to watch something or pull out a board game. They let her know that Luke and Chewie had both gone home after the movie and hadn’t wanted to wake her to say goodbye.

Rey entered the kitchen and peeked at the breakfast table, but no one was there.

Light and movement came from the laundry room. On impulse, Rey slipped inside and shut the door behind her, heart thumping hard as Ben stopped mid-fold to stare at her.

“You have one minute,” she said, leaning against the door and folding her arms, heat flaring in her cheeks as she tried to pretend she’d had a plan before walking in there. “Talk.”

He just stared at her, wasting precious seconds, before swallowing and setting the item in his hands down — a hooded sweatshirt. He rubbed his palms on his jeans and said, “I love you.”

Rey’s head jerked, her chin lifting half an inch, and she stared at him. Her heart filled so fast and so hard that it hurt, and she couldn’t tell if the joy or the pain was more real, but she’d come to trust pain. It was more honest.

He glanced around them and his mouth pressed and trembled the way it did when he was overcome with emotion. “I didn’t intend to tell you while surrounded by laundry,” he said, gesturing in an all-encompassing way at the dirty clothes still in his bag and the folded things on the dryer. He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “But, I don’t know, it seemed like something I needed to say first. Before anything else.”

Rey nodded minimally, attempting to keep her expression impassive.

His jaw shifted, and he swallowed. Put his hands in his pockets. She could see a reddish bruise on the underside of his jaw. It matched the much more obvious one at the corner of his mouth, and she felt a twinge of guilt. “Luke and I talked about the nature of soulmates. It started in letters, but we talked a lot more when he came to see me. He said something that hit me pretty hard. See, I was thinking about my leaving like… you were a kid, you weren’t my girlfriend, you weren’t… in a position where I had to pass everything by you. We weren’t together, I didn’t need permission, and that was supposed to make it easier, simpler. But what Luke said was… soulmates transcend romance and even family. They’re deeper than all of that. And I realized… I was thinking about it wrong. I thought of you as an individual apart from me, but you became a fixture of my life the moment we sparked. So I should have included you.” His mouth worked for a moment. “I doubt there’s anything you could have said that would have made me stay, but I should have let you in, told you everything, let you say whatever you needed to.”

“I couldn’t have made you stay,” she repeated slowly, unfolding her arms.

He shrugged, and that infuriated her. “Maybe I would have stayed a little longer. Tried to see if I could do it. If we could do it, together. But—”

She bristled. “But you left. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”

He looked like he wanted to say something but thought better of it. Instead, he looked helplessly at the laundry as if it held the answers. “Tell me, then. Make me understand.”

She clenched her hands and unclenched them. “My parents left me. Suddenly. Without an explanation. And then you came along and did the exact same thing.” She balled her hands into fists until her nails bit into her palms, and her eyes filled. “They never came back.”

He opened his mouth, but she shook her head. She wasn’t finished.

“I didn’t know if you were going to come back, Ben. I really didn’t. My own parents thought I was trash they could throw away, so why wouldn’t you?”

He flinched at that.

“You’re here, but what’s to stop you from running away when things get hard again?”

He considered her, his gaze solemn. Eventually, he asked, “Did you want an answer to that?”

She shrugged, the tears spilling down her cheeks.

He ran a hand through his hair and looked at the washing machine. It was open, and he’d obviously just finished a load. His lips twisted, tugging at the bruise, and he fixed her with those intense eyes of his. “You’re talking like I wanted to leave. I didn’t. I just didn’t see any better option.”

“Than abandoning me?”

He took a step closer, brows coming together. “You wanted an answer. I’m giving you one. I’m not your parents, Rey. I left you in good hands, I gave you a reason — a crappy one, yes, but a reason — and, yes, how I left should have been handled better, but I kept in contact, and I fucking came back. So don’t fucking compare me to them.”

Rey felt her eyes widen, and if she didn’t have a door at her back she would have retreated a step.

Well.

Okay, then.

His expression softened. “I get that your parents screwed you up. I get being screwed up. And I am so fucking sorry that I stirred all of that shit up. I really am. No qualifiers. I am so sorry about that.”

She struggled not to tremble, the tears flowing freely now.

He took a deep breath. “I love you. I loved you. And I wasn’t honest with you. I didn’t trust you. I’ve given you very few reasons to trust me, and I know it’s going to take time to rebuild that. But I didn’t leave because I wanted to hurt you. I left because I wanted to keep you safe.” His mouth worked and his eyes turned wet, but it didn’t dim his intensity. “From me.” He stepped forward again and leaned in, placing one hand on the door beside her head. Rey fought a shiver. She’d forgotten how big he was. “But you want to know why I’m never going to leave again? Because of you. Because I never want to be away from you another fucking second for the rest of my life. And the only thing that will ever make me leave again is if you tell me to. If you need time for college, if you need time for yourself, I’ll give it to you. You only have to ask. But if you don’t—” He leaned further in, close enough she could feel his breath on her upturned face, close enough she could see how his eyes flickered to her lips and then back up. “I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.”

Rey lost her breath, caught by the absolute conviction she saw in his eyes. When he said that, he believed it, and she found herself wanting to believe, too.

She came slowly back to herself and shifted sideways out from between him and the door. She wanted to say something but didn’t know what, so she just reached for the doorknob.

Ben stepped back to let her open it, but she felt his gaze burning into her as she slipped out of the room.

Ben did his laundry in a daze after Rey left, overwhelmed by having her in his proximity, talking to him, looking at him. He thought about their conversation, picked over it, wondered if he’d made things worse.

Maybe he should have been more penitent, but he wasn’t going to lie or pretend. And he wasn’t inclined to be a doormat. Neither was Rey, and he loved that about her. Respected it.

His soulmate had a core of steel.

And, it seemed, fists of steel.

He touched his tongue to the wound on the inside of his lip. He’d been prodding it throughout the day, unable to help himself. He didn’t hate her for hitting him. Didn’t even blame her, really. It had pissed him off in the moment, but he thought it was something she’d needed to get out, and if anyone could understand the overwhelming need to hit something…

Ben wasn’t one to throw stones.

They would talk about it, but not yet. They had more important ground to cover, and he didn’t get the impression that she was itching to hit him again.

So that could wait.

The applause when she’d hit him had been unexpected but shouldn’t’ve been. She’d punched him in front of people who’d enjoyed the drama and bloodsport he and Rey had provided ever since they’d sparked.

It made him so fucking glad he’d quit. After the incident with Thomas, the administration had been relieved when he’d called to resign. They hadn’t said it, but he knew they’d been worried about Thomas suing the school. They would probably have fired him if he hadn’t already been leaving the country. He was, frankly, surprised they hadn’t fired him in his first year, the first time he’d destroyed school property, but he thought that had had a lot to do with who his mother was. He wasn’t so naive as to think the administration liked him enough on his own merit to let him get away with that shit. And though he hadn’t ever intentionally used his mother as a crutch, he’d always known his connection to her had propped him up.

So, when he’d left, he’d emailed all of his remaining lesson plans and tests so that the sub wouldn’t struggle. It had been the least he could do after not giving his two weeks notice.

He did wonder if any of his kids from the robotics club had clapped. Stynnix probably had. It seemed like something she would do, if only because she loved drama. But Ben found himself oddly unsettled by the thought of Finn or Rose or Connix clapping and cheering with the rest of the mob.

Maybe they hadn’t clapped. They’d never struck him as bloodthirsty, and he’d seen plenty of kids in the crowd who’d been looking at their peers in confusion or disgust.

He didn’t care that the little shits from his classes had almost certainly been the loudest and most enthusiastic. He’d hated them as much as they’d hated him. Of course they would have loved it, and that was irritating, sure, but he’d have been amused if those bastards had been slapped around by someone half their size, so it evened out.

But it did bother him to wonder if his kids had clapped.

That stung.

Ben finished putting a new load in and folding what he’d gotten out of the dryer, and then he went into the kitchen and looked outside, peering into the quiet green. He could make Rey out in the hammock across the yard, all bare arms and legs, but she wasn’t close enough to see him.

Part of him still sounded alarm bells at the sight of her. She looked so young. But he knew that there had to be a point when he stopped pushing her away, stopped treating her like she couldn’t make her own choices, and that point had always been eighteen. He might still fight with himself over lingering concerns, but it wasn’t his job to protect her from himself anymore.

He wasn’t entirely sure how to explain it if she didn’t understand what would have been so bad about him messing around with a seventeen-year-old. He could tell his dad still didn’t get it, even after their talk. Han wasn’t exactly prone to following rules in the first place, and to him legal was good enough.

At least he seemed to accept that Ben hadn’t run off for the fun of it.

When Ben was a teenager, he’d run away because he’d been hurt and angry and wanted to hurt his parents. To make them pay attention to him, to acknowledge his pain and their role in it.

With Rey… he’d been afraid. Afraid of himself and his demons. Afraid of her.

He’d had almost nothing but introspection to keep him company this year, and he’d come to the conclusion that things would have been less traumatic for Rey if he’d been honest with her from the start and had set clear boundaries. He might still have had to leave, but she would have known why instead of whatever garbled shit he’d given her at prom when his hand had been hurting like a motherfucker and his brain had been muddled by rage and need and terror.

Making impulsive decisions on painkillers for a boxer’s fracture had probably not helped. He’d been slightly high when he’d called his mother and babbled at her while packing a bag after he’d booked a ticket to Europe. To his mother’s credit, she’d tried to calm him down and make him think about what he was doing, but he’d been convinced that leaving had been the only way.

He was still convinced it had been necessary, but everything before his leaving had been a problem. The problem, really. His worry that telling her the truth would push things further and faster down the track had instead built to a truly spectacular trainwreck. With multiple casualties.

His leaving might still have opened a rift between them, but it wouldn’t have been as wide.

Probably.

Maybe.

And maybe he shouldn’t have snapped at her about lumping him in with her parents, but it had pissed him off. He knew it had hurt her, and he felt like shit that he could have spared her pain by being… better. At communication, at being an adult, at being a soulmate, at being a person, but her parents were pieces of shit who’d left a kid — their kid — by herself in the most selfish and destructive way possible.

Ben might be a piece of shit, but he wasn’t her parents. He hadn’t left her unprotected, friendless, and alone. He hadn’t left her wondering where he was or if he’d ever come back — though it had fucking gutted him when she’d said she hadn’t known if he was going to come back. He’d told her he would. He’d meant it. And he’d done it.

But he did have to be a man and face what his failures had done to her, the breaches of trust and wounds he’d reopened.

So he would.

Leia came out to tell Rey they were queuing up another movie. “I told him he could stay the night. He didn’t want to, so I said I’d cleared it with you. Is that okay?”

The hammock creaked as Rey shifted. Leia’s phrasing didn’t make it sound like it’d been Rey’s idea, and that was what she’d been worried about. “Yeah. Thanks.” She blushed, feeling awkward that she’d asked Leia to do this for her, and dismounted the hammock, which tried to keep hold of her skirt, but she quickly tugged it back into place. “I just…”

Leia stopped her with a hand to her arm and a gentle smile. “You don’t have to explain. I understand.”

Rey expected that she did.

When they entered, Ben was leaning against a counter, looking at his phone again. Rey caught sight of a row of yellow letter tiles and a colorful board before he glanced up.

She frowned and moved closer. “Are you playing Words With Friends?”

His eyes tracked her, but she ignored him and focused on the device in his hands. His murmur was low but mild. “You didn’t think I gave up Scrabble altogether, did you?”

“You two make the popcorn,” said Leia.

Wait, what?

Rey whipped around, but Leia was already out of the room.

Ben moved, and she turned back to find him pocketing his phone and reaching for the cabinet with the popcorn. “She is not as subtle as she thinks she is,” he rumbled.

He handed Rey a bag of popcorn, which she opened and placed in the microwave. She felt his eyes on her, calculating.

“I played against my mother while I was away. And others, mostly random matches. A few with Uncle Luke. He has a different vocabulary than mom, but it’s just as decimating.”

Rey dug in the fridge for a bottled water. She didn’t know if Han would want another beer or not — he’d been slowly building up his blood alcohol all day and might be at his limit. On holidays, which Rey supposed today counted as, he liked to get just shy of tipsy. She got him a soda to be safe, and another for Leia.

Ben could get his own damn drink.

He’d said he wasn’t like her parents, and she’d thought about that in the quiet of the hammock. So when she straightened to set the water and soda on the counter, she also straightened her spine. “You’re not my parents, but your leaving felt the same.”

A moment of silence as the microwave hummed along and popcorn began to crack into being. Rey steeled herself to look at him, a little surprised at how close they were. She had to look up at him, and he had to look down at her, his eyes so big and sad that she almost wanted to hug him to make him feel better.

“I get that.” He glanced toward the microwave and kept his voice down so they wouldn’t be heard from the other room. “There’s a lot I probably could have done to prevent that, or mitigate it. You didn’t need to go through it, and you definitely didn’t deserve it.”

Rey felt grief pull at the corners of her mouth. “But you wouldn’t have stayed.”

He only looked at her, his eyes sad.

“How am I supposed deal with that?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. But I’m here to help, if you need me.”

She gave a humorless laugh. “Yeah, now you are.”

He spread his hands. “What do you want me to say, Rey? That I’m sorry I removed myself from a situation I was in no way emotionally capable of facing? That, more likely than not, would have resulted in me taking advantage of a girl ten years my junior? Even without my Snoke issues — and we can go over all of those if you want — you needed a chance to find out who you were without me. In a healthy environment.” At this last, he gestured to the kitchen, the motion encompassing the house and his parents in the next room.

Rey narrowed her eyes at him, his patronization astounding. The mention of Snoke had almost been enough to keep her silent, but that last little bit had pushed all the wrong buttons. “Yes, please, tell me more about all the decisions you made for me.”

He huffed a sigh. “Rey…”

She crossed her arms and put her weight on her back foot, shifting a few inches away from him. “There’s that tone again. Do you think I’m being unreasonable, Ben?”

She saw the calculation on his face, the suspicion that things would go very badly for him if he said yes. But she also saw the urge to say yes, and that pissed her off further.

“You are such an asshole,” she snapped, then turned and marched into the living room.

He followed. “I didn’t even say anything!”

“You didn’t have to!” she yelled back.

Han and Leia, who were on the couch together, started laughing.

Rey blinked at them, puzzled and annoyed.

“Sorry,” said Leia, covering her smile with a hand.

Han grinned and slung his arm along the couch behind his wife. “You sound exactly like us, when we were your age.”

“Huge fights,” Leia said, nudging her husband in the ribs. “Screaming matches, really.”

“You loved me,” Han said smugly.

“You were obnoxious,” she replied.

Han looked between Ben and Rey and said, “That wasn’t a no. You both heard it, you’re my witnesses.”

Leia rolled her eyes and leaned against her husband. “You keep telling yourself that.”

They made a pretty picture of domesticity, and Rey felt embarrassed for having quarreled with Ben in front of them.

She went back into the kitchen, jerking her head for him to join her, and led him into the backyard. There, she folded her arms. “Okay. Clearly, I don’t like that you left. And you’re not going to apologize for it.” She glanced up from under her lashes, hoping he would contradict her, but he only shook his head minutely.

“I’m sorry for the way it went down,” he said softly. They stood silently for a moment, and he looked at her training dummy, his pensive expression lit by sunlight only just beginning to slant into golden evening. His tone changed, became solemn and distant. “You know… Luke is the only person who told me I was doing the right thing.”

Rey frowned at him, thrown by the abruptness of the declaration. Did he expect her to change her mind based on Luke’s opinion? Was that what this was?

Ben swallowed and shook his head as if to clear it. “Statura doesn’t make judgment calls, just sort of asks questions until you figure out your own answers.”

Rey nodded warily. Her therapist did the same thing.

“And my mom… she’s so adamant about not getting into the middle of… of us that she hasn’t really said anything about it.”

Rey glanced at the house, thinking about Leia and trying to see her actions through this new lens. “Is that why she didn’t tell me you were arriving today?”

He considered it. “Maybe. Or maybe she didn’t want to spoil your day.”

Rey sighed. “Well, good fucking job there.”

Ben laughed at that, and the sound made her feel warm. He still had a slight smile when he continued, his bruised mouth more obvious with the sunlight highlighting it. “Dad obviously thought it was dumb. He’s very black-and-white sometimes. If I didn’t want to… you know… then I should’ve just kept my hands to myself. Simple.” He kicked idly at the flagstones and shook his head, mouth grim. He clearly didn’t think it would have been that simple. “But Luke said he thought I was doing the right thing.” He shrugged, and Rey recognized in the motion that he was trying to downplay how much it meant to him.

It struck her for the first time how few people Ben had in his life. He’d just mentioned every person who would have had any contact with him while he was gone.

Four people. Five, including her.

And one was his therapist.

He didn’t have any friends to tell him everything was going to be okay, to get him through the day. And, yeah, he’d brought that on himself, but… it made her sad. He didn’t have a Finn to keep him from getting too down on himself, or a Lusica to tell him his feelings were valid even when his emotions were at war, or a Rose to slap him in the back of the head when he needed it.

He hadn’t even had his own mother for most of that year, except for phone calls and game apps, and Rey felt a pang of guilt at having kept Leia away from her own son.

Leia had gotten Rey through some very dark nights, but Ben had had to face his alone.

“Was it very bad?” she asked softly, turning her face down so he wouldn’t see the tears. “Being out there on your own?”

She felt his eyes on her, but she couldn’t look at him.

“It wasn’t easy,” he said softly. “But knowing I was doing the right thing — believing that — it helped.”

“And if you ever stopped believing that?”

“If I stopped believing it was the right course, I would have come home sooner. But I didn’t.”

“You could have.”

He didn’t say anything, so she glanced at him, and the motion jostled a few tears loose. He was watching her solemnly, as if he wasn’t quite sure what she was trying to say.

She could feel her heartbeat in her throat. “You could have come home sooner. You waited until now, but… you wrote… I mean, you made it sound like… like it was hard to stay away. But you didn’t come home on my birthday.”

He frowned, his eyes a warm toffee brown as the scents of summer curled around them, fresh cut grass and traces of smoke and barbecue still clinging to the grill. Carefully, he asked, “Did you want me to?”

She gripped her elbows, feeling vulnerable. “I thought you might.”

Concern creased his brow. “You should have said something. I would have. I just… you were so upset about your finals last year, I didn’t want to distract you. I knew how much MIT mattered to you.”

“Well, I’m probably not going to get in anyway,” she said, her voice breaking.

Ben made to step forward, then hesitated and asked, “Can I… do you want a hug?”

She sniffled and shook her head, not quite ready to touch him yet. She might break apart if he put his arms around her, and she didn’t know if she would be able to put the pieces back together. “No. But thank you.”

He nodded and stayed where he was. Watching her.

Rey rubbed her tears away with the heel of her hand and turned toward the house. “What awful movie do you think your parents picked?”

He followed her inside, and for the first time in a long time Rey didn’t feel like her world was askew.

To Rey’s surprise, Leia had talked Han into the new “Wonder Woman.” She hadn’t anticipated that Leia might like superhero movies, but once they settled in with snacks (no one felt like eating dinner after their late lunch), Rey realized why Leia had wanted to see it. It had triumph and pathos and plenty of strong women who could kick ass.

Leia smiled when they paused for a bathroom break and more snacks. “I love that General Antiope is played by the actress from ‘The Princess Bride.’”

“Really?” said Rey. She hadn’t recognized her.

“Mhm. Robin Wright.”

“She’s good in ‘House of Cards,’” Ben said, coming back from the kitchen with a bag of ruffle chips and tub of dip. He offered some to Rey, and she grabbed a handful and started to munch. She was sitting on the opposite end of the couch from him, while Han and Leia sat in their usual chairs, but Rey was on the side Ben used to sit on. It threw her a little bit.

Ben opened the dip and held it out, and she dragged a chip through it and sighed when she put it in her mouth.

He smiled, bemused. “I forgot how much you like food.”

She stretched to get more dip as he sat down. “I love food.”

“Mm,” he murmured, gaze flickering over her. “You’ve gained some weight.”

She arched a brow at him, and Leia put her hand over her face as if she couldn’t believe her son’s stupidity. Rey considered it, though. His tone of voice had been… pleased.

He seemed to realize that the two women were just sitting there, not saying anything, and a spark of panic lit in his eye. “I didn’t mean…”

Rey got to her knees and stole the bag of chips to grab another handful. She handed it back with a reassuring nod. “I know what you meant. It’s fine.” She reached to drag a large chip through the dip and put the whole thing in her mouth, silencing her for a moment as she broke it with her tongue and chewed. When her mouth was clear, she said, “I did need to gain some weight after Plutt’s.”

Leia glanced back at them and raised a brow at Ben. If Rey read the look correctly, Leia was letting her son know he’d gotten off easy. It made Rey both want to smile and frown. She didn’t see any reason to get angry about a comment he hadn’t intended as an insult.

When she leaned across the middle cushion to get more dip, he leaned toward her and whispered worriedly, “You know I think you’re beautiful, right?”

She looked up at him, frozen at the furthest point of her reach, and slowly shook her head no. He had never called her beautiful. Not even in his letters.

He took a deep breath, his eyes still on hers. “I do. Very much.”

Rey felt a flare of insecurity and whispered back, “What about Paige?”

He looked so confused that she almost laughed, and then his expression cleared. “Paige Tico?” he whispered, incredulous. “Are you still mad about that?”

Rey shrugged and looked at him expectantly.

Ben blinked and shot a glance at his mother, who suddenly got up and went to see what was keeping Han. Rey felt embarrassed for a second that their whispering probably hadn’t been as quiet as they’d thought, but Ben’s eyes were intent on hers and his chest rose and fell faster than usual, and his gaze dropped to her lips. He flushed and jerked his gaze back to hers. He seemed to chew on his words for a moment. “I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. And definitely not Paige Tico. I mean, she was nice and all, but… you’re you.” He shrugged helplessly and licked his lips, wetting them.

Rey wanted to lick those lips for him.

“I didn’t even have a type until we sparked.”

Rey stared at him, eyes wide and heart thumping, and he caressed her with his eyes from head to toe and back.

His chest expanded. “You are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Rey was going to kiss him. She was just about to sway forward when she was saved by Han calling, “We’re coming in! You can stop making out now!”

They jumped apart and turned as one to glare at the doorway, but it was Rey who said, “Shut up, Han,” when Ben’s parents entered.

Han raised his brows at her, then threw back his head and laughed. Leia smirked, and Rey caught Ben giving her an odd look.

From then on, Rey tried very hard not to accidentally touch Ben when she reached for more chips, and he moved the dip to the cushion between them so that she wouldn’t have to stretch as far. She felt hyper-aware of him, and it didn’t help that he looked at her almost as much as he looked at the movie.

If their fingers brushed, she wasn’t sure it wouldn’t turn into a caress, and Rey wasn’t quite ready to expose just how badly she wanted him.

Not yet.

Rey checked on her new laptop after the movie and found it charged. She turned it on and was in the middle of updates when Ben knocked on her open door and poked his head into the room.

“Hey,” he said awkwardly when she turned. “Um, my mom said I could stay the night here, but I didn’t know if you’d be comfortable with that.”

Rey shrugged and focused on her laptop, attempting nonchalance. “It’s fine.”

“You’re sure? I know she asked you if it was okay, but it can be hard to say no to her.”

“Stay if you want to,” she replied, still not looking at him. She had a brief vision of herself having to grab him to keep him from going to a hotel and how embarrassing that would be, so she added, “Your old room is still there. I didn’t even wreck it.” She tossed a glance over her shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

He smiled, and Rey turned back to her laptop as her heart flipped over. “Thanks for that.”

She shrugged. “I’d never do that to Leia’s property.”

His voice turned wry. “So thoughtful.”

She didn’t hear his footsteps retreating, so she glanced back over at the door. He was still there, looking at her room. It was different than it had been a year ago. She’d put posters on her walls and had stacks of books jumbled on a shelf and a desk crowded with potted plants in front of her window, at which she now sat. Her laptop was settled into a spot she’d cleared for it, but there were traces of dirt and water spots where it sat.

She had photos on the walls of herself with friends and with Ben’s family, printed and framed for her by Leia even though Rey had most of the same images on her phone.

She even had new bedding in earthy tones with plenty of green, different from the pristine ivory set Leia had chosen when this had just been a guest room.

He was huge in her doorway, and she noticed that he didn’t actually enter the room. He hadn’t earlier, either, though he’d blocked her path.

The white t-shirt looked a bit loose on him, and Rey noticed that he seemed just as underfed as he had in Leia’s Christmas photo.

“How much have you been eating lately?” she asked, frowning.

He slid his eyes toward her and smiled. “Worried about me?”

She turned back to her laptop. “No.”

“Liar.”

Rey stiffened, but she didn’t have anything at hand to throw at him except for her precious succulents, cacti, and the philodendron named Phil that would need to be repotted soon, so she just tucked her hair behind her ears and ignored him.

She felt his gaze on her for a few minutes before he said, soft and yearning, “I love you.”

Rey swallowed and trembled, lips parting. She didn’t look back at him, but her voice came out breathier than she’d intended. “For how long?”

“Since that night when you needed me to come back. When you slept through dinner, and we watched that stupid movie.”

Her lips twitched. The baking detective. She’d seen more of those advertised but couldn’t watch them. They’d reminded her too much of that night.

It had meant something to her, too.

“I probably loved you earlier than that, but that was when it really set in. I looked at you asleep on the couch, and I just… I was in love with you.”

She turned in her chair to look at him and grasped the chair’s back. “Why couldn’t you tell me?”

He shook his head, looking pained. “You were too young. And I was afraid.”

“I wasn’t too young to know, Ben. And, really, what’s the difference between then and now?”

His expression turned grave. “You’re old enough to make your own decisions now.”

Rey narrowed her eyes at him until he fidgeted under her glare. “Wow. That’s so incredibly gracious of you. Thank you for letting me know I’m old enough to think for myself. I would never have figured it out without you.”

He sighed. “Rey…”

“There’s that tone again.”

He dropped his head back and groaned.

“Really,” she added, standing and cocking her hip in a way she’d picked up from Lusica. “Thank you so much for letting me know that I’m now a card-carrying adult, thrown into your illustrious ranks by the colossal challenge of continuing to breathe for eighteen years.”

He raised his eyes to the ceiling and crossed his arms over his chest. “Your vocabulary and your sarcasm have both improved this past year.” He ran a hand through his hair and leaned against the doorframe as if settling in for a long argument. “Okay, look. Eighteen isn’t some magical number where you’re suddenly good enough to be an adult.”

Rey raised an unimpressed brow at him. No duh.

“But it is the age that adults have agreed on where… you’re thrown into the deep end. Whether you’re ready or not. Whether you’re mature enough or not. Whether or not anyone’s prepared you. Everyone is going to expect you to be an adult from here on out, and it’s sink or swim. No lifeguard, no flotation devices, just you.” His eyes burned into her, adding weight to his words. “I don’t know if you’re more mature than you were a year ago. I don’t know what you’re ready for. That’s something you have to figure out for yourself, and it’s something you need to be sure about, because Rey… I’m ready. For any of it. All of it.” He straightened, pushing himself off the doorjamb, and seemed to draw closer even though he didn’t move in her direction or cross her threshold. His gaze on her made her breath catch. “I want you.”

Rey took a stumbling step back as her blood rushed to the surface of her skin, making her face and chest tingle with warmth. She knew he didn’t miss it, or what it meant, because his eyes narrowed and his expression turned hungry.

He still didn’t cross her threshold.

“Before you turn eighteen, the adults in your life are supposed to look out for you. Including overruling your decisions, because you’re still technically a kid. And yeah, you might think it’s bullshit, and you might have been plenty mature at seventeen, but that’s how our society works. For everyone.”

Rey crossed her arms. It was a stupid system. “I was emancipated,” she said, not wanting to let the point go without contesting it. “So I’ve actually been legally responsible for myself for months now.”

He tilted his head with a considering frown. “True,” he said slowly. “But we still had a moral obligation to look out for you.”

Rey frowned back at him, flinching internally at the prospect that Han and Leia saw her only as an obligation. “And that just goes away now?” What did that mean for her?

He shook his head. “It doesn’t go away, but it changes. We see you differently. I can’t speak for my parents, obviously, but I see you differently. And other people will treat you differently. We’ll be here as a safety net, but you’ll be walking the tightrope on your own. Nobody’s going to try and put training wheels on you anymore.”

Rey frowned at him, then snorted. “That’s a lot of metaphors, Ben.”

The undamaged corner of his mouth curled up, and he shrugged. “I wasn’t an English teacher for nothing.”

“You reeeally hated that job.”

“I can’t believe I ever voluntarily worked with teenagers,” he said, hands in his pockets. He grimaced. “I hate teenagers.”

Rey raised a defiant brow. “I was a teenager. Technically, I still am.”

He nodded, a stain of pink flaring across his cheeks. “That’s part of why I wasn’t honest with you back then. I’ve always thought of teenagers as too young and hormonal and stupid to be trusted.”

Rey stared at him, needing a moment to process his words because she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing, but he was still speaking.

“My teenage years were hell, and everyone I interacted with in high school was either afraid of me or a piece of shit who just wanted to mess with me. And teaching… I’m pretty sure that made it worse. All I saw were kids who proved me right and other kids who hid it well.”

“You… thought I was too young and dumb to be trusted?” she said, fresh anger uncoiling inside her and settling into her limbs.

He met her eye with the air of a man who knew his answer was not going to go over well. “You were a kid, Rey.”

She jerked back at that.

He scrambled to soften the blow. “That doesn’t mean I think y—” She strode forward, silencing him mid-word, and slammed her door in his face.

Shaking with fury, she sent the same text to Finn and then Lusica.

I’m going to kill him.

Lusica replied first. Need an extra shovel? I think I know where ours is.

Rey smiled, though she didn’t feel very amused by anything just then. No. Maybe. I don’t know.

Finn replied after she’d been chatting with Lusica for a few minutes.

What happened?

Rey started to cry, so angry she couldn’t keep it in anymore. I was apparently just a dumb kid last year.

Ellipses. They stopped and started twice, then Finn asked, He still alive?

For now.

That’s rough. Ellipses. You need anything?

Just a chance to vent. I think.

Rose is here. Can I get her in on this?

Yeah.

Rey flipped over to her chat with Lusica and replied to a question about whether Rey still wanted to jump his bones.

Not at the moment. As she wrote it, she wondered if that was a lie. She still felt a pull toward him, despite his being a jackass.

Yeah, don’t need to reward bad behavior. Ellipses appeared, and Rey waited, but a reply from Finn came through before Lusica finished whatever she was writing.

Rose says to kick his ass. I think she’s kidding, though.

LOL

Yeah, she’s kidding. She says she’s in favor of figuratively kicking his ass since you’ve already literally done so.

Rey switched over to Lusica.

But if you do harness your inner cowgirl and turn him into your own personal bucking bronco, no judgment. You deserve to get yours. You’ve earned it. On a new line, she’d added, Maybe you could punish him? Think he likes spanking? He doesn’t seem like the type, but maybe if it’s you…

Rey rolled her eyes and wrote, Luce.

LOL! I can feel your exasperation from here.

Rey switched back to Finn.

This is Rose, I took Finn’s phone. You stay strong, okay? Don’t let him push you around because he’s older and your soulmate. Your feelings matter, and he shouldn’t get away with treating you like shit. That’s not how soulmates work. Oh, and Paige says hi.

Rey read over Rose’s message several times, feeling conflicted. She didn’t feel like Ben was pushing her around. And he’d made her feel like shit, but he’d never actually treated her like shit. He’d kept things from her and he hadn’t treated her like an equal — hadn’t seen her as an equal, and that pissed her off — but he’d always been… kind. He’d kept his distance because he’d thought of her as a kid, and while she disagreed with that, and he’d been wrong in so many ways, he’d always tried to… to take care of her. He’d come to her when she’d been sick and had needed him, and he’d shown he cared in a myriad of ways. The school lunches, the ice cream, the way he’d shown up at the hospital and comforted her after the attack. Taking her flying on her birthday. Lifting her to and from her wheelchair. Sponsoring a club he didn’t care about to make her happy.

Good things. Good memories.

Rey looked back at Rose’s message and typed, Tell Paige hi back.

She set her phone down and sat for a long time, thinking about the way he’d been before her seventeenth birthday. When things had been good.

Rey checked on her laptop to find that the updates had finished. She downloaded her favorite browser and imported her passwords and bookmarks. She dug up a photo of her friends and set it as her background.

She fiddled with it for a long while, the old memories swirling around her like wraiths to remind her why she’d fallen in love with him in the first place.

Rey finally sighed and went back to the living room to face the inevitable.

Ben was alone, the hour late enough that Han and Leia would be in bed. He sat with his feet up and his phone out, and he looked at her warily when she approached, his eyes searching her expression for a clue to her mood.

Rey stopped beside him and hugged her elbows. “Do you want to watch something?”

He blinked, surprised, but only nodded. “Sure.”

Rey curled onto the opposite end of the couch, dragging a blanket over her legs, and accepted the remote from him. And if a little shiver ran through her when their fingers accidentally brushed… and if she saw the same shiver mirrored in him… neither of them said anything about it.

“Can I ask you something?” Ben said during a commercial break on the crime procedural show they were watching.

Rey muted the TV and looked over at him. “Okay.”

His brows furrowed. “Not that I’m complaining, but… why aren’t you more angry?”

Rey looked at him, then picked at her blanket as she chose her words. “You’ve earned a stay of execution. For tonight, at least.”

He blinked twice. “How did that happen?”

She was silent for a long while, just watching images flash across the silent screen. She didn’t unmute it even when their show started up again.

When she finally spoke, her voice was soft and measured. “I am not okay with everything you’ve told me today. You should have been honest with me from the start, and I am furious that you weren’t. But.” She took a breath and cast him a warning glance, though he didn’t look inclined to interrupt. “In spite of all of that, back then, you were decent to me.” Rey swallowed a lump in her throat. “There was a lot you left out. You hid things and you lied and you kept me purposely ignorant. I was so fucking insecure because of that, and you are not off the hook for it. But… you were also pretty okay.” She lifted the remote and pointed it at the TV. “Plus, I’m really tired of fighting for tonight. I just want to veg out.” Her hand trembled as she added, “With my soulmate.”

She unmuted the TV before he could reply and pulled the blanket up over her shoulders so she was covered from neck to toe. In her periphery, she saw him swallow and nod before he looked back at the TV.

But he kept sneaking glances at her.

Rey pretended not to notice.

NOTES:

Rey and Ben both hope the other will come around to their way of thinking, but that isn't something I require for reconciliation. Healthy fighting is more about understanding, less about winning.

If you're worried they won't end up together, know that I had to resist forcing them to make out pretty much every paragraph of this chapter. I am a Reylo, and a romantic, and my instincts are pulling hard toward fluff and smut.