#pls don't step on any of my plants I don't have many left

[bookrat]

Went on a camping trip down to south Florida, starting in the everglades

We were looking for snakes and American crocodiles, but we did find this day moth and tree snail

Plus a couple nocturnal critters settling down for a nice days sleep

Lots of high quality birds in the swamp

Saw frigate birds in the Dry Tortugas, but they mostly hung motionless and effortlessly high in the air like low poly videogame background birds

Had to flee back north early ahead of Nikole. Managed to catch a glimpse of this bark anole when we stopped for breakfast, but all the iguanas were hiding.

Tons of introduced rock agamas calling this gas station home, and a nearby rooster hung out with a flock of grackles. Was hoping to see more exotic reptiles around Miami, but perhaps another time.

[miazeklos]

HEY. HEY PUT THOSE TAGS INTO A FULL STORY PLS. Comfort. Healing. D-0 (I LOVE THAT LITTLE GUY!!!) don't just hide this potential in tags! :O

Anything for you, dear. ;D Based on this post. This is also on AO3 because it’s Christmas Eve and therefore traditional.   Also I gotta warn you, this was written... entirely on public transport, so sorry in advance for any mistakes. 

.

They wait out the rest of the war onTatooine.

Ben had been the one to bring it up,resolute to go alone, and Rey had followed without a second thought. They lieas low as they can at first, eager to avoid the wrath of anyone who couldfollow them here, but they plant themselves into the locals's lives soon enough,taking on the role of mechanics for anyone who could need their services inexchange for anything to help them earn a living. Even though it's onlytemporary, things are still light years better than they had been on Jakku. Shehas a home here, not a makeshift shelter, and better yet, she might have afamily. It's only when they both find the rhythm of their new life that sherealises how easy it actually is.

“D-0, what happened to my memory circuit?”

“I-in here.”

“Are you still hoarding my droids?” Rey looks up from the engine she's beenslaving over for a week now just in time to catch the deadpan look he sends herway. The contrast between their working stations never fails to make her smile,even if the reasons behind it are less than pleasant - hers is clean enough,after years of doing this on her own, and the chaos that reigns over Ben's,with his two helpers and the array of needed parts that he has floating inorbit around him, is such an obvious compensation for an absence that it makesher heart ache. When he’s like this – entirely consumed by whatever is takinghis attention, face scrunched up in concentration with a lightness to his bodythat hadn’t seemed possible before – she thinks she might never want to lookaway.

“This is an assistance droid. It's what he does. I had a similar one as a child.”He stretches his hand out impatiently, only to realise that the miniaturecompartment needs to be manually opened. “Give it here.”

“N-no thank you.” D-0 rolls away before Bencan have another chance to approach and he retracts his arm as if he'd beenburnt, the pile of metal suspended in the air coming to a precarious stop as hefrowns.

“He does that with everyone.” Hisexpression eases, but there's still something there, bigger than astrangely misbehaving droid, as if he had understood but rather wished hehadn't. It’s something Rey has seen before, but he carefully tucks the emotionaway before she can so much as nudge it awake. “I'm not sure what happened tohim, but it takes him a while to approach a human. Or anything bigger than BB-8.”

“It’s all right. See?” He taps the droid inquestion until he gets an acknowledgment as D-0 whirls away pensively at a safedistance. “It’s not always bad.”

“O-often.”

Ben freezes for a moment before, with aquick glance at Rey and the work she’d forgotten about, hunching back over hisown project. “Someone needs to fix that defect of his. Droids don’t stutter.”

It would be an easy enough thing to dealwith and they both know it, but Rey bites the comment back along with a widearray of things he might not be quite ready to hear her say. “He’s fine as heis.”

A week later, as they flee through themarket on the run from the scene that they’d left behind – a spy that they’dhad to dispose of once he’d attacked them, again,though whether it’s from the former First Order or the new New Republic thistime, Rey isn’t sure any longer – the droid is the first thing Ben asks foronce he’s sure they’re safe.

~.~

She starts to notice a pattern after that.

It’s a silly thing to pay so much attentionto, given what had started it, but it’s impossible to ignore once Rey catcheson – no matter what he does, no matter how content or safe he is, everythingfrom Ben’s direction feels like he’s suspended mid-air, constantly waiting forthe other shoe to drop. What exactly it is that he’s expecting is impossible totell, but it’s there all the same, like an anxious backdrop to his every move.It relaxes its hold on him more and more every day and it never disappearscompletely – every step he makes is made with him holding his breath.

She finally cracks when she steps into theshower one day and sees him stiffen for all of a moment, shoulders caving inbefore he lets go.

“This doesn’t bother you when I do it.” It’sbarely a question and he cracks one eye open to give her a questioning look. “Unexpectedtouching.”

“No.” He rinses the soap out of his hair,the pristinely maintained air of nonchalance only giving when she doesn’telaborate either. “Why should it?”

Lessthan a year ago, I could have used it to kill you.It’s such a distant thought now, when he looks her in the eye, as open as he’sbeen ever since the very start. It had just meant something different then. “Itdoes with everyone else. I’ve seen it in a crowd. With our neighbours, too.”They don’t have too many of those and it’s still just a temporary home, but thepeople in their vicinity tend to be surprisingly affectionate. He’s always acutelyaware of his surroundings, but never of her – if anything, Rey suspects thatshe might have caught him by surprise only due to the fact that her presence isalready constant in his mind. “It doesn’t surprise you when it bothers others,too.”

“Is this about the droid?”

He’s just incredulous enough for her toknow that she’s right. “The same droid you’ve trained to trust you?”

The smile she gets in return might just bethe saddest one he’d ever given her. It’s a good thing, Rey supposes – she’sbeen seeing him happy more and more often lately and if memories are the onlything that can draw this out of him, it’s all the better for both of them.

“I’ve found that if you can’t train peopleto trust you, you have to teach yourself to duck out of their way.” There’s ascattered, chaotic recoil of recollection somewhere deep inside him, of lightningand shouting and pain and more pain It stretches on, seemingly over the courseof years, right before he shoves it out of sight. It’s horrifying, even more sofor how matter-of-fact he finds it – it’s a part of his life, just another laststraw on top of years of questioning and doubt, both external and internal; alifetime of looking over his shoulder and only seeing more unanswered questionsscattered along his path. It’s something she understands all too well, but eventhen, it’s far too much and for the first time, she sees it all, laid out likean open book in front of her on his command. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed,”he says, voice even lower than usual as he finally looks her in the eye, “but Ihave to train people out of mistrusting me.”

He’d never managed to train himself to trust him, that much Rey knowsnow. It almost makes her laugh; how for a long time, she had hoped against hopethat he would end up the explanation to all of her missing pieces (the past andthe peace and the hope, both her own and the ones of the entire galaxy), giventhat she’d answered some of his own questions in the meantime. Bond or no bond,she can’t imagine the relief it must have been – realising that she had lookedat him and had seen nothing but him alone, without a single accusation orpraise or expectation.

“Not me,” she argues immediately, ready fora rebuttal. He’s fond of arguing for argument’s sake, she’d had the time tofind out, but this might just be too important for him to try it now.

“No,” Ben agrees and there’s a little awein there too, just before he breaks into a smile. It’s entirely different thistime and it lights up his entire face and she’s already gravitating towards itlike a spaceship towards its homing beacon even before his hand cups her cheekand draws her closer. “Not you.”

~.~

When she wakes up the next day, the otherhalf of the bed is empty.

It’s a relatively common occurrence forher; waking up alone. Ben is a light sleeper and doesn’t seem to need much ofit to begin with, while Rey had had a much easier time of it ever since they’darrived on Tatooine. It would be a day like any other if it hadn’t been for thevoices in the only other room in the house and the strange mechanical wheezing thataccompanies it.

“Ben?” She rubs the sleep out of her eyesand pats the floor for her lightsaber, checking in on him through the bond oninstinct. He’s tense but not afraid, though that might just be the effort notto wake her – perhaps whoever is there doesn’t know that he’s not alone. Itshould have shocked her, how quickly every possible enemy on every spot on thespectrum had shifted into a vague theywhen they’d ended up alone against the rest of the galaxy, but it’s almost ahabit by now. Back when they had first slept with their weapons under theirpillows, it had been easier to think of their potential enemies as varying degreesof dangerous. Now, it’s just a distant sort of anxiety, ready to jump up atevery hint of a threat.

Lightsaber clutched in her hand, shetiptoes over to the door as the frenzied noise grows louder and her breathleaves her on a relieved exhale just as it comes to an abrupt stop.

“Do you see now? There’s no point infussing. This could have been much easier.” The sight in front of her is afamiliar one – Ben’s lying on his front on the floor, eyes shielded by themakeshift mask he usually uses when needed as he clutches D-0 in one hand and adrill in the other. Rey plucks one of the instruments floating around the roomand revels in the fact that he doesn’t flinch at the disturbance, the tension frommoments ago seeping away in favour of mild annoyance.

“B-better now.”

“I know.Now you can’t pretend you can’t hear me when I ask for something.” He tossesthe drill away in favour of an unsettlingly large needle. “We have to do something about this speechpattern. I thought it would go away on its own, but it’s been months.”

“R-Rey.”

“Yes, most likely. She’s good at that, isn’tshe?” The tone shifts from berating to almost conspiratorial mid-sentence and Reysteps fully into the room once his greeting flows through the connectionbetween them, as well as the awareness of her presence, and the warmth thatfollows engulfs her from head to toe, gentle and tentative and so carelesslyhonest that it nearly makes her cry. “Fixing things.”

When he turns to face her, she throws thewrench in his general direction. “I’m not sure he needs my help with thingsthat can fix themselves.”

Ben swiftly moves its course towards thetable where her weapon is already resting, returning her grin with one of hisown as he jumps up to his feet, repairs temporarily forgotten. “Perhaps not,”he allows, nearing her without an ounce of hesitation (it might not matteranymore, she thinks, how many times they’ve caught each other with their guarddown; not when it’s far more of a blessing than it’s ever been a curse). Atlong last, he’s actually landed, right here in front of her, without the pastbreathing down his back. It might be just around the corner, but the change isstill palpable enough for Rey to realise that she’d been holding her breathwith him; enough for her to feel nearly lightheaded as her own memories slip tothe side right along with his. “It’s enough that you’re here.”

This time, when she reaches out towardshim, Ben meets her halfway.