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self-proclaimed-chaotic-good · 4 years ago

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Thank U, Next | Poe Dameron x Reader (2/2)

Prompt: Joy

Fandom: Star Wars (Sequel Trilogy)

Words: 6049 (idk what happened)

Warning: Minor swearing? Mentions of bullying. Some chonks of dialogue here and there.

A/N: So this became longer than expected, but I wanted to make sure I wrapped up everything. I hadn’t written this much for a fic in a long time and I hope a coherent story came out of it.

You dropped off a container of beef stew at Finn’s house and was dragged into a long conversation by his parents on what you’ve been up to. It was always the same spiel that you told the others. You had a cozy apartment in New York, you had work published, and now you’re waiting for your big break. Half an hour before lunch, you excused yourself, giving yourself time to calm down before you reached the diner.

You were the first to arrive, picking a booth near the corner and a window. When the waiter came by, you debated whether you should order for Poe, assuming that his taste buds are the same, then thought better of it. You simply ordered two waters and said you were expecting someone else.

Poe’s truck pulled into the parking lot eight minutes later. He spotted you through the window and waved. You offered a smile, taking a deep breath to compose yourself as he made his way inside the diner. The waiter came by just as Poe sat down. He flipped through the menu and gave his order, saying exactly what you thought he’d order. He hadn’t changed. The waiter left after you gave him your order.

“So, how are things?” Poe asked.

You shrugged. “They’re good,” you said, “You?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Just good?”

“Yeah, you know. What else can I say? Nothing eventful had happened lately. Everything’s just routine at this point.”

He hummed, not buying it. “What happened to the story you wrote our senior year? I would have thought that you’d do some revisions before getting published.”

“Oh, that thing,” you said, feigning indifference as you wiped the side of your cup with a finger, “It’s… I kind of gave up on that one, you know?”

“Why? It was so good!”

You shrugged again. You wanted to believe him, but this nagging feeling in your brain, telling you that he was lying, that he doesn’t know what he’s talking, wouldn’t stop every time he complimented your story. It was like a sensory alarm that went off every time he touched a certain subject. You had hoped that you’d get over this feeling, but it was something that was more recent than your time with Poe was, and it affected you more deeply and painfully.

“Didn’t think it’d be something that I wanted to be known for. I wanted to try different writing styles and genres to find where I fit. Besides, I didn't think you’d remember that one. It was so long ago.”

“Are you kidding me? I loved that story. There were moments that made me laugh, made me cry, and it was just so relatable and interesting. I really think you should revisit that one.”

“Yeah, I’ll try. Maybe it’ll help my writer’s block.”

The rest of the day was spent on eating and talking about high school. He brought up the time when someone tried to pull a prank on the soccer team by spiking their watercooler during an important game, but got caught because the cooler fell over them. Then, that time when he was performing with his band and one of his fangirls ran on stage to try and kiss him.

“There were so many people that hated me when we were together,” you said, shaking your head.

“Aw, come on. I don’t think it was that bad,” he said.

You scoffed. “Poe, I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without girls following me, sneering at me and telling me that I wasn’t good enough for you. That one day you were going to leave me for someone else once you got bored of me and that you were only with me because you felt sorry for me. Remember the time we went to Rose’s house when her parents were away and some asshole invited a bunch of people? We got separated and your fangirls decided to team up and dunk me into the pool and hold me there. If Finn, Snap, and Kare weren't there, I would have drowned.”

Poe frowned, sitting back. “I… I didn’t know that happened. (Y/n/n), why didn’t you tell me?”

You sighed, scratching your head in frustration, memories of your arguments over it resurfacing. “I did, but you dismissed it. You said that they were drunk and didn’t mean it to go that far.”

“(Y/n/n), I’m sorry, I didn’t… I didn’t know. I just thought… I don’t know why, but I thought you were exaggerating. I should have known better. I should have known that you wouldn’t lie about these kinds of stuff.”

“Yeah… which was one of the reasons why I thought we wouldn’t have lasted long after we graduated,” you said softly. “All kinds of problems when it comes to long distance relationships.”

“We could have at least tried.”

“And if it came to the point where someone tells you that, I don’t know, that I was cheating on you, which has happened to many couples that are involved in the military, what would you have done? Or if something happened while you were away? Were you just going to brush it off, or get angry if I want to talk about it?”

“Well, we'll never know, now, will we?” he countered.

You let out a heavy sigh, gathering your things. “I’m sorry. I’m instigating again,” you said, taking out some bills to pay for the meal, “It really was nice to talk to you again, Poe, really. I think it’s best if I get going.”

Poe’s hand shot out and grabbed your wrist before you could leave. “No, you’re not running away again. Please, let’s just take this conversation elsewhere, okay? I’ve got the check. Meet me by the docks?”

He pleaded with his warm brown eyes, his grip on you loosening. He grabbed your money and gave it back to you, taking out his own wallet to pay. You reluctantly let him, shoving the money back in your bag.

“Fine. The docks at eight.”

“Thank you.”

You stopped by the house before meeting Poe, helping your mother with some chores around the house. Your mother was acting weird, glancing at you every now and then with a weird look. You asked her what was wrong, but she simply shrugged it off.

“So, I heard that you and Poe were hanging out today,” she said casually as she washed the dishes.

“Really?” you asked incredulously.

“It’s a small town, kid,” she said with a shrug, “Besides, I like him. Good kid. Stubborn, though, wanting to follow his parents’ footsteps in the military. A bit oblivious, too. I remember you coming home upset because he got carried away when talking with his friends and he didn’t realize that there were girls flirting with him. Besides all of that, you guys were good together. Not like that guy from New York-”

“Is that what this is all about?” You leaned against the counter and crossed your arms.

Your mother turned the faucet off and wiped her hands. “Sweetie, I heard from Armitage that Ben was in town-”

“He’s telling everyone, has he? What a rat.”

She shook her head. “Millicent was in the garden again and Armitage came by to get her. It just sort of came up about Ben. Armitage was just concerned for you, that’s all.”

“If he’s so concerned, then he should have told his friend to stop being an asshole.”

“Armitage said they stopped talking after he heard about what happened between the two of you.”

You walked away, sitting at the dining table without a word. Your mother sighed, taking a seat next to you. She took your hands into her own, but you refused to look at her.

“I’m sensing that there are things that you have not told me about what happened between you and Ben. I’m not forcing you to tell me, just that I’m always here to talk, okay?” You nodded. She leaned forward, pecking your forehead, before patting your shoulders. “Right, you’re going to meet your pilot boy. Tell him I said hi, alright?”

“Okay.”

The bed of Poe’s truck was facing the docks, the tailgate open with a lamp sitting on it. Poe was taking out a cooler and a blanket when you arrived. He took out a beer bottle from the cooler and handed one to you before hopping onto the tailgate. You followed suit, grabbing the bottle opener while you stared out at the water.

“Excited for the reunion?” he asked.

“Yes and no. Probably just going to stick to my people the whole night.”

Poe nodded in understanding. “Yeah, I lost touch with a lot of people when I left. Gonna be weird to see my old friends from school.”

“And your fangirls?” you teased.

He huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. “They’re probably all married anyways.”

“They’ll probably leave their husbands’ sides to follow you. I mean, look at you. You’re still quite a catch, Poe.”

He looked at you and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? I only want one person to catch me, though. If they want me.”

“Can’t imagine why anyone would want to be caught by… that person. They seemed to only mess things up.”

“Hey, that’s not true. A relationship isn’t just one person, (Y/n). I’ve messed some stuff up, too. Hell, I haven’t been able to maintain a long relationship for a while. People break up for one reason or another. But, sometimes, that doesn’t mean they can’t try again.”

You took a swig of your beer and leaned back, feeling his eyes following your every movement. You shifted in your spot, turning back to the water in front of you. Light from the docks and the town reflected off its inky black surface, a sliver of the moon peeking out from the clouds, illuminating everything else.

“You’re saying you wanna try ‘us’ again? Poe, you’re up in the air most of the time.”

“That’s true, but your work can be done anywhere, right? You’ve always said that you wanted to travel and it would help your writing. Maybe this time, you can come with me.”

“Where is all of this coming from?”

“Would it be crazy to say that I never stopped thinking about you?”

“It’s pretty crazy, actually.”

A long time ago, those sweet words would have heated your cheeks and made you feel giddy. Now you take each word with hesitation and skepticism, as if those sugar cubes were actually salt blocks. It’s one thing to say sweet things, it’s another to act on them.

“Besides,” you said, the bottle inches from your lips, “We’re not the same people from high school anymore.”

“Then, we’ll start over.”

You sighed. “Can we just drop it for now and enjoy the view?”

“Okay,” he relented, shifting around to get comfortable, “We can do that.”

You stayed like that until it was late. It was nice to sit in silence. It wasn’t awkward between you two, just two people enjoying the peacefulness of the night. Such a stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of New York with an active nightlife.

When it was time to head home, Poe pulled you into a long hug, the heat from his body radiating off of him and shielding you from the cold breeze. You slowly raised your arms, wrapping them around him. You missed this. You missed him. So much. You wished you could stop pulling away from him, but you had scars that you weren’t ready for him to see.

One more day until your class reunion. You weren’t exactly jumping for joy, but it wasn’t like you were going to be alone, either. You met up with Finn and Rey at the mini golf course, taking turns while you talked. Even though you met Rey recently, it was like talking to an old friend. You would tell her about the time Finn claimed to have asthma so he’d be excused from running laps in PE and she’d tell you how they met and how they felt like they were going to die on one of their dates when the elevator stopped working.

After the last round and almost getting smacked by Rey’s bicep, the three of you went to go and get pizza. It was under new owners from the last time you’ve been there, but they kept the retro charm with the brick and mortar walls and arcade games in the corner.

“So,” Finn said, sipping his soda as he narrowed his eyes at you, “I heard you were hanging around with Dameron.”

You groaned, taking a big bite of your pizza. Finn smirked, unfazed by your glare.

“Who’s Dameron, again?” Rey asked.

“Poe. One of (Y/n)’s exes,” he said, “Pretty cool dude, too. They broke up because he wanted to go join the military.”

“Yeah, thanks for telling everyone about my love life, friend,” you said.

“Understandable,” Rey, looking at you sympathetically, “I heard it’s hard to maintain a relationship when your significant other is in the military.”

“Thank you.”

“I shipped you two so hard,” Finn continued, shaking his head in disappointment.

“Well, life… you know?”

Finn nodded, raising his soda. You and Rey clinked your glasses with his and drank.

“I can tell you one thing, though, I’ve heard about our classmates, and less than half of them ended up in the same career path that they had set out to do when we graduated. Man, so much for pressuring us to pick our college major in Freshman year, right? Why couldn’t they have taught us budgeting and work ethic in different work environments?”

You hummed. “Maybe you should be a teacher, Finn.”

“See?” Rey said excitedly, pointing at her fiance, “That’s what I’ve been telling him!”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but I’ve been concentrating on more fitness. Maybe be a PT? Rey’s the one getting her doctorates, so when I go to her high school reunion, I can be the trophy husband to a successful doctor.”

“Aw, Finnie.” Rey leaned her head on his shoulder.

You sighed, drinking your soda as if it was alcohol. The price you pay for hanging out with your friends who are a couple, becoming the third wheel. You looked down at your tray of pizza. Maybe you could try and finish it all by yourself. Sometimes when they’re wrapped up in each other, it’ll take a while for them to snap out of it, which means you might be there for a while.

You couldn’t sleep that night, knowing that Ben was going to be there. So far, you hadn’t ran into him, which was saying a lot because you ran into a lot of old classmates and teachers the past few days. Unless he was actively avoiding you.

Your mother found you sitting at the kitchen table slouching over two chocolate pudding cups. She wordlessly got her own cup and sat next to you, waiting. You sighed, leaning back in your chair. Where to begin?

“The reason why I haven’t written my book is… because I had been writing scripts for Ben,” you said, staring down at your spoon, “Scripts that Ben had taken and put under his name, and his name alone. I didn’t know until I went to visit him on one of his sets that he had done that. He said that he took my idea and changed some of the major points of the story, so he technically wrote it. Then, I went to the film festival with him and saw that it was almost exactly the same script that I wrote. I foolishly did it again and again, believing him when he said that he’ll have me more involved in his movies and… he didn’t.”

You shook your head, opening another pudding cup. Your mother waited patiently, nodding for you to continue.

“When I confronted him about it, he confessed that he made some deal with an indie film studio and that it would be more profitable and more exposure for him to take the credit. After all, I only write simple little stories that even a high schooler could write,” you added the last bit bitterly, “I’m scraping by while doubting my life choices of doing something I love instead doing something where I won’t gamble whether I’d earn enough money to pay for food and rent. Meanwhile, Ben’s having a field day winning awards for his directing and screenwriting at film festivals, not that he ever lived uncomfortably, being the mayor’s son and all.

“I just,” you sighed in frustration, your eyes beginning to sting as the exhaustion and anger took over you, “I’ve been told so many times how I’m not good enough, how writing won’t pay the bills, how writing doesn’t even take any skills or effort. I’ve been talked down to because of my choices, as if I was stupid or lazy. I’ve been trying to use spite to get me through this, reminding myself that this is what I’ve always wanted to do, no matter how many times the publishers tell me to change my stories into another cliche, but it’s tiring. It’s not enough. And I was stubborn to try and stick to my guns instead of compromising, because that would mean that everyone was right and that whole thing with Ben… I thought I could finally be with someone without giving up my dreams, but being with him made me question whether they should just stay as dreams and not a reality.”

“Oh, sweetie,” your mother said softly, pulling you in as you furiously wiped the tears that just kept falling.

“I don’t know what I’m doing! I don’t know if I want to write anymore. I tried and… nothing seemed to stick. Nothing felt right.”

“And you think if you were to take a job in, I don’t know, accounting, would you be happy? Even if it paid your bills and helped you buy that nice apartment?”

“No, of course not, but at least it’s something. It’s not like anyone is impressed with a writer unless they’re New York Times’ bestseller and become a movie franchise. It’s so frustrating. I want to do what I love, but I want to live comfortably while doing it.”

“And you will,” your mother assured you, rubbing your back soothingly, “I can feel that you’re close, so close to making it. You just have to keep pressing on. You’ll get there and it wouldn’t be to prove people wrong or show Ben up, it’ll be for you. Go back and find that drive you had when you began writing, everything else will follow. You are talented, (Y/n), and you have people that love you and care for you. If things are meant to be, if you feel it in your heart that it’s right, then it will work out.”

“Thanks, mom.”

“There better be a dedication for me at the front of the book.”

You both laughed. “Yeah, it might take a whole page.”

Talking with your mother helped ease your nerves a bit and Finn and Rey had texted you, offering to carpool with them. You accepted, being reassured once again that they’ll have your back.

You dressed casual, not expecting anything too fancy for the reunion. On your way towards campus, Finn began to play music that was popular from your time at school and you discovered that Rey had an amazing voice.

“You think that they’ll make a slideshow?” Finn asked.

“God, I hope not,” you groaned, “I looked terrible.”

“No, you didn’t! You dated two of the hottest guys in school, me and Dameron,” he said confidently.

“Nice compliment while tooting your own horn there, friend.”

“Hey, and also, you can tell that looks don’t matter to you ‘cause you had a crush on Hux, too.”

“Hey, I thought he was cute. Don’t judge me.”

“Oh, is he the ginger one that we saw the other day walking his cat?” Rey asked. Finn nodded. “I… I can kind of see it. Yeah.”

“You don’t sound convincing. Anyways! You guys were talking about visiting New York sometime this year?”

There was a new gym on your old high school campus, topped with solar panels and an air condition unit. The parking lot was gradually filling up, a trickle of a line leading into the new gym, the front double doors wide open with streamers and balloons in the school’s colors bordering them.

Finn pulled up next to a familiar truck, making you roll your eyes. He flashed you a cheeky grin before climbing out, rushing around to hold Rey’s door open. You stared at the campus, at the newly painted walls, cleaner drinking water fountains, neatly trimmed grass, and the large banner that ran across the front of the main office welcoming your alumni class. You could see your younger self hanging out by the old gym with your friends, or waiting outside of the bandroom for Poe, or setting up a booth for your school club.

“Feels weird, doesn’t it?” Poe asked from behind you.

“You have to stop doing that,” you scolded him, smacking his arm.

He winced, rubbing the spot where you hit him. “At least you’re slowly treating me like how you used to.”

“Hey, Dameron!” Finn called out, tackling him into a hug.

Poe grunted before hugging him back. “Hey, you act like we haven’t drank together earlier this week. This must be Rey, right?”

Rey smiled, coming over to give him a more gentle hug. “Nice to meet you, Poe. I’ve heard so much about you,” she said.

While the two of them conversed about flying vehicles, you pulled Finn on the side, looking around cautiously. “I forgot to tell you before we came here…,” you started in a hushed tone, “So, there’s this thing with Ben-”

“Ben Solo?”

“Yes, him, I want to pretty much avoid him if possible and I need your help with that.”

Finn frowned in concern, cracking his knuckles. “Did he hurt you?”

“He never hit me,” you said quickly, “Just… it just really affected me mentally and emotionally, you know? I just don’t want to deal with that right now.”

“When did this happen?”

“We ran into each other in New York at a book signing. We caught up with each other, got coffee, then we started dating, so… that was a while ago, though.”

Finn nodded, patting your shoulder. “Don’t worry. We got your back, remember? Does Poe know?”

You shook your head. “I don’t think so.”

“Great, ‘cause him and Solo had some beef in high school.”

“Of course he does. Poe thinks he’s some kind of resistance leader or something.”

All four of you made your way towards the gym, signing in and writing out your name tags. Finn looped his arm with Rey and dragged her towards the punch bowl, leaving you trailing behind with Poe. He slowly offered his arm for you to take. You stared at it for a while as he nudged you with it. You thought back to what your mother had told you. You had people that love and care about you. Despite what happened between you two, despite the years apart, Poe Dameron still cared. Even if you weren’t able to move your relationship forward to more than friends, he would at least still be in your life.

You wrapped your arms around his bicep, the corner of Poe’s lips turning up as you did so, and the two of you made your way over to where Finn was talking to one of your former teachers, Lando Calrissian. He turned and broke into a wide smile as he greeted the two of you.

Throughout the day, the four of you made your rounds with the teachers and your fellow classmates. Just as you predicted, some of the women that had a crush on Poe briefly left their husbands’ side to greet him and linger around, finding any form of small talk as an excuse to stick around.

“I heard the two of you broke up after graduation,” one of them said, “Did you two get back together?”

“Not yet,” Poe answered before you could say anything, “Still tryna win (Y/n) over again. Worth it, though, right?” He bumped his forehead onto your head in an act of displaying affection.

She forced a smile on her face. “Aw, that’s so sweet,” she said before walking away.

“I should have bet money on that happening,” you muttered.

“Man, did you see her face?” Poe chuckled, turning to face you, “Besides, betting only works if I wanted to oppose you on that, and I’m tired of doing that with you. I was serious, though. I really want us to try again, but if you don’t want to, then fine. If you want to just stay friends, good. One word from you shall silence me forever, (Y/n), I’m serious.”

“Slow down, there, Mister Darcy,” you said, “It’s not even the end of the night yet.”

Your little group grew with the added Janna, Rose, Armitage, Snap, Kare, Jessika, and more came by to talk. Living in New York, you didn’t have much friends. A few writing buddies, a few college classmates, a neighbor, the nice couple that ran the restaurant downstairs, and your editor. Coming here, that uneasy feeling that you had, you realized, was vulnerability. It wasn’t something you’d normally do living in New York, even around friends. But, with these people, the ones that you grew up with, it was easy to let your guard down and enjoy the moment.

You were having fun and you were glad that you decided to come. Though as time went on, you felt your throat tighten and your eyes stinging. It was starting again. You excused yourself, walking out of the gym for some air. Poe watched you leave, concern written all over his face. Rose nudged him, assuring that you were fine and needed air.

You sat down on one of the benches overlooking the basketball and tennis courts. Leaning back, you inhaled deeply before exhaling slowly. Whenever you felt overwhelming happiness, dread was always there waiting to ruin it. You couldn’t even remember when it started, but you became better at dealing with it.

“Didn’t think you’d come.”

You froze, not wanting to turn to face the source of that voice. Out of all times that he would try to approach you, he chose the time where you were alone away from everyone else. You sensed him sit down next to you. For a while, you sat in silence. It was a different silence than with Poe. With Poe, it was comforting and relaxing, with no words needed to be said. By the end of it, you would feel refreshed like you had come out of meditation. With Ben, it was like sitting with an energy vampire, and by the end of it, you felt tired and drained.

“I didn’t think you’d come, either,” you said, your voice breaking the silence. You tried to raise your chin, preparing for battle.

Ben sighed, shifting around. You heard crumpling, then something nudging your hand. You looked down and saw a thick manila envelope. You dared to look up at him for the first time in a year. He looked tired.

“What’s this?” you asked.

“It’s… I’m sorry that I took your work, took everything that you could have used as evidence to prove that they’re your work,” he said, looking down, “I’ve gathered all of them and put it in your envelope so you could submit it for copyright. If you want to take legal actions, I’ll happily allow it.”

Allow it. Sure. As if he was giving me permission. He’s probably patting his back for this one good deal he’s doing. You took the envelope, feeling the weight of it, picturing all the scripts that you had written in the past. Writing came easy to you back then. Then you remembered all the lies he had told you. When you were no longer willing to do what he wanted, you were no longer useful. There was this heavy feeling in your chest, something wanting to come out unless you’ll explode. The sad thing was that he wasn’t always like this, and it was probably why you foolishly kept overlooking or denying his bad behavior.

“We could have worked together,” you said, “And you had to go and pull that shit?”

“I know, I’m sorry.” It was hard to tell if he was being genuine. You could no longer trust your instincts when it came to him.

“You would dare criticize my writing when you couldn’t even write anything for yourself? And you just know that I would believe all of it, and you still kept at it. Do you know how hard it was to write anything after what you put me through? Being told my writing is not complex or sophisticated enough, being told that my own scripts aren’t even my own, watching you keep those awards for screenwriting while no one else would want to even look at my work? Sorry isn’t going to cut it, Ben Solo.”

Ben inhaled sharply. “Then, what the hell do you want me to do, huh? All your stuff is there. Go and copyright it, sue me for plagiarism, and I’ll pay you the fees.”

“Fees that you could easily pay off,” you said, standing up, “But when I do speak to my lawyer, I’ll see what else I can do to you.”

“Yeah, would you be happy then?”

You glared down at him. “After all of that, I’ll finally be free of you, so maybe I will be,” you said, then added in a low voice, “It’s a shame, though. I thought we worked well together, but sharing wasn’t exactly your thing. You hurt me, Ben. I don’t think we could even be friends after this.”

“Right, like how your close friends with Armitage, Finn, and Poe, right? Just friends?” Ben snapped.

You shook your head at him. “You are utterly ridiculous, Solo. Just be glad I hadn’t told your mom about what you did.”

You let out another slow exhale as you walked away, your work in hand, and a heavy weight left behind. It wasn’t completely over, but the burden of it hanging over your shoulders was gone. All that was left was tying loose ends. Then after, you can start again.

In the gym, they had already set up the small stage with chairs scattered about. Poe sat on stage with a guitar in hand. He shifted on the stool that was clearly too small for him, tuning the guitar as he looked around. You found an empty seat between Rey and Rose at the front and sat down. Poe smiled as you met his eyes and he began to play.

At the end of the night, you and the girls decided to hang out for the rest of the week before you and Rey had to fly back home. You exchanged numbers and looked up movies playing. A few of you had different choices of movies, but Rose suggested that they should time it so we could watch all of them. After parting with the others, Poe jogged up to you.

“Hey,” he said, “I really enjoyed the past few days. It was nice to hang out again. I’m, uh, I actually have to leave tomorrow night. One of the pilots got sick, so… I was wondering, ‘cause I know you’re spending time with the girls and I don’t want to take too much of your time, but if you could see me off? Even if just for a few minutes.”

You sighed, looking down at your shoes, then back at Rose and Rey who had paused their conversation to give you a thumbs up. You shook your head and turned back to Poe. He waited patiently with pleading eyes, chipping away at your remaining walls.

“Okay. Just text me what time and I’ll try to be there before you go,” you said, taking out your phone.

You handed your phone over and watched as Poe excitedly inputted his number before texting himself. “Okay, all set,” he said.

“This doesn’t mean anything more than it has to be,” you reminded him.

“I know. We’ll take it one step at a time. Restart.”

“Thank you, Poe,” you said softly, stepping forward and catching him by surprise as you pulled him into a hug.

Poe returned the hug, engulfing you fully. “Don’t mention it, (Y/n/n). I’m one call away if you need me.”

The next day, you drive to the airport an hour before Poe heads off to his gate. As a pilot, he could pass the gruelling standard TSA checks and flash his ID, but he waited for you in his pilot uniform. Jessika had given you all a ride and offered to drive you to the airport. They girls had gone to Starbucks while you made your way over to his airlines.

He spotted you, giving you a long salute, which you returned, then grabbed his luggage, making his way towards the escalators up. He turned around one last time and waved. Raising your hand to wave back, you couldn’t help but see his military uniform instead of his pilot uniform, thinking what if you had at least been there when he was first shipped off. When he was out of sight, you turned and slowly made your way towards the others.

Coming back to your hometown, you didn’t expect much to happen. You expected nostalgia, of course, like looking at an old doll house you used to play with. The bittersweet feeling in your stomach as you flipped through photo albums with your mother, as you drive by your old hang out spots, and seeing your classmates for the first time in ten years. You expected to feel distant from them. These were all familiar things, but you were not the same person that left this town, and neither is everyone else.

You didn’t expect to be pulled into a warm embrace, to be fully welcomed back, to be seen and treated as yourself as you are now and not expected to be yourself from ten years ago. You didn’t expect this much confrontation, of the past coming back and making you face them head on to set things straight. You didn’t expect to feel lighter and stronger and more confident, acknowledging everything that you had gone through and their effects on you, that they were things that you were capable of overcoming.

On your last day in your hometown, until next time, you had a teary goodbye with your friends and your mother. You promised to be in more touch with them this time and that they were free to visit you in New York any time.

Taking your window seat and settling in, you took out your journal and flipped through all the scribbles of ideas you had done. You turned to a blank page and began to write. You ignored any grammatical mistakes you made and kept going, knowing that once your flow is going, you had to go with it or get stuck. The only thing that stopped you was a familiar voice.

“Good morning, passengers, and thank you for choosing our airlines-” Poe announced.

You smiled, leaning back in your chair. After talking to your mother about what you were going to do once you got back to New York, you decided that you weren’t going to worry about things too far in the future. You were going to focus on the present and set up long and short time goals. You could still work on that novel, but you could also put together anthologies for a start. Maybe go back into script writing. Maybe even revisit that story you wrote in high school.

It’s just like what Poe said, life was funny. You plan something, you end up doing something else, but if it was meant to be, you somehow end up where you had always wanted to go from the start.

And you feel that it’s finally happening for you.

#WritersMonth2020 #poe dameron x reader #past Finn x Reader #background Finn x Rey #poe dameron #past ben solo x reader #star wars imagine #star wars sequel trilogy #star wars #High school reunion au #high school au

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eleanor-writes-stuff · 7 years ago

Text

tell me how this story ends [one-shot]

moodboard courtesy of @reylocalligraphy

In a world where you have to earn your soulmate, Rey has spent the last two years waiting for the day she and Kylo wake up with each other’s marks, waiting for the day the universe tells them they’re meant to be. The mark never shows up, but even the knowledge that they’re just not meant for each other doesn’t make their break up any easier on Rey.

Nearly three years later, Kylo suddenly reappears in her life with a request to help him become the man he once was, the man Rey has always secretly suspected to be her true soulmate.

For Day 6 - Soulmates of @reylo-week-2018

Ten thousands words of soulmate stuff, for the prompt ‘identifying marks’. As always, this spiraled wildly out of control and I have no idea what the hell I’ve unleashed upon the unsuspecting masses. Sorry!

Also available on AO3.

Rey’s third year of college gets off to a spectacularly bad start, and it’s all thanks to her two best friends finding out they’re soulmates.

It’s not that she isn’t happy for Finn and Poe because she is – she’s seen this coming for years, and they really do fit each other perfectly. If it hadn’t been for the… collateral damage, she’d probably be over the moon for her friends right now. But the fact is that Finn, completely oblivious to his connection with Poe, had started dating her roommate less than two months into their first year of college, and now Rey finds herself trying desperately to comfort an inconsolable Rose Tico in a bar on a Tuesday night.

“It’s not even that I’m not happy for them,” Rose hiccups, downing the last of some electric blue cocktail Rey has yet to learn the name of. “Because it just… it makes sense, you know? If the theory about earning each other and becoming soulmates is correct, then I see it. They’ve always been so close, but then summer happened and I was gone and they had all that time together…” She chokes out a sob, shoulders shaking as she falls forward into Rey’s arms.

Rey, who isn’t the best at comforting people, who doesn’t know the first thing about having your heart broken, who absolutely hates all of this soulmate bullshit. “It’s okay, honey,” she rests her chin on top of Rose’s head and hopes the way she’s patting her distraught friend’s back is at least some source of comfort. “I know you wish them well, but it’s okay to be hurt and angry. You don’t deserve this, Rose. This is just… bullshit, all of it. Where do the fates get off, ruining perfectly good relationships just because they think they have a better idea?”

“It really was a perfect relationship,” Rose wails into her shoulder, and for what has to be the tenth time this evening, Rey winces and wonders how the fuck she of all people had ended up being the one to comfort Rose. At least Paige is on her way to spend the week with her little sister, but until the older Tico arrives Rose is stuck with Rey and her pathetic attempts at being a supportive friend.

As Rose mourns all the plans and dreams she’d so carefully come up with over the past two years, Rey casts her eyes about to make sure no one they know is watching her roommate break down in public. The next few weeks will be hard enough without some asshole classmates constantly reminding her of the break up or mocking her for crying about it.

There are no familiar faces, thankfully, and nearly everyone there is too caught up in their own business to so much as look Rose’s way, but right at the end of the bar Rey’s eyes snag on someone already looking at her.

The man momentarily drops his gaze to Rose before giving Rey an empathetic look, one that holds all the discomfort she’s internally dealing with right now. It’s not that she doesn’t love Rose, and it’s definitely not that she doesn’t want to do everything within her power to make things better. But growing up bounced around from one home to another, with no actual friends until she met Finn at age fifteen, means that Rey is woefully inexperienced when it comes to dealing with emotional humans other than herself. And Rose is nothing if not an emotional human, even on the best of days; Rey should’ve known that someone with the capacity for such joy would also be capable of immense grief.

Rose pulls away then, and Rey acknowledges the stranger with a nod before she turns her attention back to her friend. “I’m sorry,” Rose says, snagging a napkin from the bar to wipe away her tears and blow her nose. “I know it’s got to be hard for you to be trapped in the middle of all this, but I’m so grateful you’re here, Rey. It means a lot to me.”

“I’ll always be here,” Rey assures her. “Even if… even if you two can’t stay friends after this, I’ll still be here for you, okay?” Finn is drowning in guilt and Rose is the sweetest person she knows, so at least neither of them would make her pick a side even if they go their separate ways after this.

Eyeing Rose’s empty glass, Rey turns to get the bartender’s attention. It’ll be her fourth drink tonight, but even if she does get drunk Paige will be there to take care of her. Besides, Rose will probably be grateful for a distraction in the morning, even if it comes in the form of a hangover.

Before she can flag down the bartender, however, she appears with a new round for both of them. “Courtesy of my friend over there,” the woman tells them, pointing out the man Rey had noticed earlier. “He knows what it’s like to go through a rough night.”

The man is studiously avoiding them – sure, he could just be busy with his phone right now, but something tells Rey that’s not the case – but Rose doesn’t let that stop her. “Hey! Hey, bartender’s friend!” she hollers, and Rey starts to reconsider allowing her to have a fourth drink.

The bartender merely leans back and watches with an amused glint in her eyes as her friend is forced to drop his act and look up.

“Thank you, nice stranger!” Rose says, raising her glass at him. The man’s lips twitch with a smile, and he raises his own glass in return, nodding at them before he goes back to his phone once more. Rey thinks maybe he was looking directly at her when he nodded, but she can’t be sure.

“Thanks,” she tells the bartender once Rose has settled down and is happily sipping at her drink. “And sorry about my friend. She’s just…”

“Drinking her sorrows away?” the woman supplies knowingly. “We’ve all been there. I’m Phasma, by the way.”

It’s an unusual name but then again, this is an unusual bar. There’s a reason they’re here in this fancy, overpriced place instead of their usual spot, and it’s because no one in their social circle would ever set foot in a hipster bar. “I’m Rey,” she says, holding her hand out with a smile. “And that’s Rose.”

“Nice to meet you,” Phasma shakes her hand firmly. “And that,” she points at her friend, “is Kylo. In case you were wondering,” she shrugs.

“Right,” Rey says faintly, her eyes lingering on the man a tad too long. She quickly turns away just as he begins to lift his head. “Um, thanks again,” she tells Phasma, and the woman flashes her one last smile before she gets back to work.

Rey turns back to Rose, and they spend a good hour trash-talking the soulmate system and cursing the fates for being such busybodies. Occasionally, when Rose lapses into a moment of silence, Rey finds herself looking at the man – Kylo. He’s still there, and every time she turns to look at him he catches her in the act. After the third time she offers him a sheepish smile, one he returns with a smile of his own. The sight of his lips slowly curving into something promising warms her in a way even the alcohol doesn’t.

Eventually Paige arrives to pick up her sister, and Rey isn’t the slightest bit surprised when Kylo approaches her as soon as the Ticos are gone.

“Is it okay if I sit here?” he asks, the slightest note of uncertainty in his voice belying his confident mask.

He’s incredibly tall, she realizes with a jolt, and even more interesting to look at up close. Rey’s not even going to pretend to be coy; she’s already out late on a school night, might as well get some fun out of it. “Sure,” she tells him with a smile, gesturing to Rose’s abandoned seat. “I’m Rey.”

“Kylo,” he offers in return, holding out his hand once he’s seated. His skin is warm to the touch, and the way her hand is utterly dwarfed by his puts the oddest thought into her head: this man will swallow you whole.

It feels like a prophecy, like a warning, like the fates trying to meddle in her business the way they do with everyone else’s.

Rey ignores all of it and goes home with him that night.

She sneaks out the next morning while he’s sleeping, and that should be that.

But then they start running into each other literally everywhere – the library where she works, the hole-in-the-wall place she gets takeout from, even the rarely-used trail she prefers for her morning runs.

Eventually, it gets too ridiculous to ignore. “This feels like a sign, doesn’t it?” Kylo asks when they find each other in line at a food truck on campus, one month after they first met.

“Fucking universe can’t keep its nose out of our business,” Rey mutters as Kylo’s shoulder bumps into hers. “At least it’s better than those death sentences,” she sighs, digging through her pockets for change.

“You mean soulmate marks?” He sounds amused, which is the total opposite of the horror Rey usually faces when she shares her less than favorable thoughts on something most people hold sacred. They find themselves at the front of the line before she can reply, and Kylo gestures for her to go first. He jumps in and adds his order before Rey can hand over her fistful of crumpled-up dollar bills, and ignores her protests as he pays for both their orders.

“Look,” Kylo tells her patiently, quieting her complaints as he places a hand on the small of her back to guide her away from the truck. “If the universe is throwing us together for a reason, I don’t really mind. I had a good time with you the other night, and clearly you’re as much of a believer in soulmate marks as I am so really, I have no complaints.”

“Wait, you hate the marks too?” Rey asks, the small matter of repayment forgotten as Kylo hands over her food and leads her to a nearby bench.

He shrugs, unwrapping his sandwich. “I wouldn’t say hate, but I’m definitely not a big fan of them. I’ve seen them in action up close and I’m just not convinced, you know?”

“They seem to be working out for the people I know,” Rey says after the first bite of her burger. “But it all feels so unnecessary to me. Why can’t we just figure things out ourselves? And sometimes it seems like they cause more hurt than anything. Remember my friend, the one I was with the night we met?”

“Soulmate match gone wrong?” Kylo guesses, not the least bit surprised. She’s never actually known soulmates who didn’t eventually work out, but there are stories out there of the occasional match ending in flames.

“No, just the fates fucking a perfectly great person over,” she huffs. “She’d been dating my other friend, Finn, for almost two years, and they were ridiculously happy together. Like ‘disgustingly in love, most likely to get married after college’ happy. And then one day Finn found out he’s soulmates with his best friend, and suddenly Rose was left with nothing.”

Kylo makes a noise of sympathy, occupied with his food for the moment. “How’s it working out for Finn and his buddy?” he asks a moment later.

“Surprisingly well,” Rey grudgingly admits. “I’ve kinda always known they were meant to be though, so no surprises there. But it would have been nice of the fates to either let them know from the beginning or just stay out of it and let them figure it out in a less painful way, you know? I’m happy for them, but why did Rose have to go through that?”

“Wouldn’t that be even more of a death sentence, though?” Kylo wonders, turning to her. “If we were all just born with marks,” he clarifies. “Imagine growing up your whole life feeling like you can’t date anyone else because you’ve got your soulmate’s name right there, so what’s the point even if you’re in love with someone? And wouldn’t it suck, not knowing your soulmate at all? What if you finally meet them and they turn out to be a total asshole, but you can’t do anything about it because you’re meant to be and all that?”

Rey stares at him until Kylo ducks his head and makes a show of focusing on his sandwich. Clearly he’s put some thought into this. “Yeah,” she says after a while. “Yeah, that would suck too. See, this is what I mean. Aren’t we all just better off without the marks? Say you and I decide to date, and we end up being really happy together – why can’t that be enough? Even if we suddenly get our marks and it’s someone else, why can’t we just be happy with what we have instead of breaking each other’s hearts for the slightest possibility that someone else could make us happier?”

Now it’s his turn to stare at her, and Rey finds herself fiddling with the edge of her burger wrapper as she waits for him to respond. “Would you do that, though?” Kylo asks, his voice unusually soft. “Would you give up a sure thing – a perfect match – to fight for what you’ve already got in hand, even though there’s no guarantee it’ll last the way soulmate bonds do?”

As a child, Rey was fascinated with the idea of soulmates, with the idea of having at least one person who’s supposed to stay with you forever. A sure thing, Kylo calls it, and of course some part of her craves the stability of that, the assurance of something known and permanent. But– “I don’t think I could ever walk away from someone I love, soulmate or not,” she tells him quietly, thinking of the longing glances Finn and Rose still exchange sometimes, of the way some feelings don’t ever leave you. She’d regret it for the rest of her life, if she had to walk away from someone without knowing how things would have turned out otherwise.

“Yeah,” Kylo says, just… looking at her. “Yeah, I see what you mean,” he shakes it off and gives her a grin. “I’d much rather be thrown together like this than wear a death sentence on my skin.”

Rey laughs when he playfully bumps his shoulder against hers. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but Kylo would’ve been a weird name to have on me anyway.”

He shrugs and finishes up what’s left of his sandwich, balling the wrapper up and tossing it into the bin next to them before he speaks. “I don’t know if that’s even what it would say, actually.”

“What do you mean?” Rey frowns, digging through her bag for a bottle of water to wash down her lunch. “What else would it say if not your name?”

“My birth name, maybe,” Kylo answers, a study in fake nonchalance as he takes the bottle she’s offering him and turns away from her as he drinks.

“Kylo Ren isn’t your–” Rey starts before she rolls her eyes at herself. “Of course Kylo Ren isn’t your real name. Why am I even surprised?” She waits for him to turn back to her before asking, “So what’s your actual name? You know, so that I don’t wake up one day and think I’ve been matched up with some asshole of a stranger.”

“You’d still be stuck with an asshole,” he smirks, letting out a cross between a gasp and a surprised laugh when Rey slaps him on the arm. “It’s, um, it’s Ben Solo. Just in case.”

One hand moves to run through his hair while he angles his body away from her. Rey can’t tell whether he’s nervous to run with her implication of them possibly being soulmates or uncomfortable with sharing such a personal detail. “That’s a nice name,” she offers quietly, leaning forward to catch his eye and give him a smile.

“I don’t really like it,” Kylo mumbles, avoiding her eyes.

There’s a story there, in the way his shoulders have gone tense, in the way he tugs at his hair and restlessly taps his right foot and curls his hands into fists. Rey decides it’s a story for some other day, if they make it that far.

“Okay, Kylo,” she says, pulling out her phone. “Now give me your number. If anyone’s going to be planning our next run-in, I’d rather it be us than the fates.”

They have their second date – I paid for your food and I told you uncomfortably personal stuff, it totally counts as a first date – later that week, and by the time winter rolls around they’re officially together.

And at some point between Christmas and New Year’s, Rey finds herself thinking she wouldn’t mind too much if the fates do decide to make him her soulmate after all.

Kylo speaks rarely and briefly about Ben Solo, about the man he used to be, but it’s enough for Rey to realize that he isn’t as dead as Kylo would like him to be.

He’s there in the way Kylo’s eyes go soft when they see her, in the way he comforts her on her so-called birthday – the day she was found, not born –, in the way he automatically tucks errant locks of hair behind her ear and always makes sure she’s eaten no matter how busy he is and holds her in their sleep even though he runs too warm to find cuddling comfortable.

“I just don’t understand how you can like Kylo Ren,” Finn huffs in exasperation the day she tells her friends about their relationship. There’s history there, a brief overlap in their internships at some place called the First Order, and the man Finn describes to her sounds nothing like the man she knows, so much so that Rey begins to wonder if she’s even in a relationship with Kylo Ren at all.

She never calls him Ben, never reveals any of her thoughts to him, but privately Rey starts to think maybe the man she knows is Ben Solo after all. Just in case, Kylo had said all those months ago when he gave her his true name, but with every passing day Rey grows more certain that the only name that could ever belong on her skin is Ben.

And that’s another can of worms entirely, the fact that she’s started actively wanting a mark – his mark. They’ve spoken of it only once since that day on the bench, when Kylo told her about his parents and how the mark made it so that they couldn’t live without each other but their personalities made it such that they couldn’t live with each other. It’s the reason he’s not totally sold on the concept, the reason he’d rather have her than a mark, but why can’t he have both? Why can’t they have each other for good?

On their first anniversary, Rey decides she’ll bring it up, just casually float the idea that maybe they could start waiting for their marks the way most couples do. It won’t actually change anything or speed up the process, but she thinks she’s ready for Kylo to know how she feels about him, about them.

But then– “Hey,” Kylo says tiredly, stumbling into the apartment that’s only recently gone from being his to theirs. He’s paler than ever, hair a mess and clothes all wrinkled, the bags under his eyes worse than those Rey sees on students camped out in the library during finals week.

Immediately, she knows he’s spent the day juggling classes and Snoke’s errands.

“Babe,” Rey sighs, meeting him at the door to help him set his things down and shrug off his jacket. “You can’t keep going like this. You’re going to work yourself into the ground.”

Kylo pulls her close and rests his chin on top of her head. “It’s just another year,” he mumbles into her hair. “Once I have my master’s, Snoke will finally offer me a permanent position and we’ll be set.”

She loves that he’s thinking about their future and not just his, but Rey wishes Snoke and his awful company didn’t have to be a part of it. Kylo is insistent though, says he’s known he belongs at First Order ever since he first interned for them the summer before college, says he owes everything about the man he is today to Snoke.

“But does he have to take advantage of you like this in the meantime?” Rey asks, leading him to the kitchen. “You’re not even working for him right now, and he still has you doing a million things a day. You’re in grad school, Kylo. You don’t have time for this.”

It’s an old argument – the only one they ever have, really – and she knows he’s just as tired of it as she is. “Can we not do this tonight, please?” Kylo murmurs, brushing his lips across her temple. “I’m exhausted, and I just want to spend what little time we have before I fall asleep celebrating our anniversary.”

“Okay,” Rey relents, carding her fingers through his hair as he leans down to rest his head on her shoulder. “Okay, not tonight. C’mon, I got us dinner.”

He’s the chef between the two of them, so her idea of preparing dinner is just getting all their favorite takeout dishes. Kylo smiles at the sight and mumbles this is great, thank you against her lips anyway, and after dinner they manage to hang out on the couch for a whole thirty minutes before he starts dozing off.

She brushes her teeth while he’s in the shower, mainly just to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep on his feet. Kylo’s in bed by the time she’s dressed, and he apologizes constantly and profusely for ruining the evening. “I’ll make it up to you,” he promises, reaching out to draw Rey into his arms. “We can do anything you want this weekend.”

“I just want to be together,” she murmurs, brushing hair out of his face before resting her hand on his cheek. “We’ve both been so busy lately, it feels like we haven’t spent any time together since school started.”

Kylo winces. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he turns and presses a kiss to her palm. “I’ll make the time, I promise.” His words are beginning to run together, and he punctuates his promise with a yawn.

“I know,” Rey smiles, running her hand through his hair. “Go to sleep now, Kylo. You need it.”

He kisses her good night and shifts his head so that it’s cradled between her neck and shoulder, and Rey holds him close as his breathing evens out and his form grows soft and pliant in her arms, the stress of the day leaking out of his tense frame. She doesn’t get much sleep that night, thinking about Kylo and Ben, about Kylo and Snoke, about Kylo and her.

When he wakes in the morning his dark circles are even more pronounced in the light of day, and Rey watches in quiet concern as he stumbles bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived through his morning routine, barely stopping for a piece of toast before he’s reaching for his things.

She can’t let him go on like this, can’t let him head into another busy day just like all the others, and so Rey finds herself reaching for him before he can leave the kitchen.

“I love you,” she tells Kylo, the first time she’s ever done so.

He smiles, the first sign of life she’s seen in him all morning, and all the stress and exhaustion on his face seems to melt away as his eyes light up. “I love you too,” Kylo murmurs right before he kisses her, his hands warm around her waist and his shoulders loose under her hands.

When they finally pull apart for air he looks at her for the longest time, opens his mouth to speak just as Rey blurts out, “I take back everything I ever said about not wanting a mark. I wish I had one. I wish I had yours.”

His smile grows dim, and Rey’s heart grows heavy. Being in love doesn’t necessarily equal wanting to be together forever, right? “I’m sorry, that was too much–” She moves to step out of Kylo’s arms, only for him to shake his head and tighten his grip on her.

“No, no, that’s not–” He sighs and leans down to press his forehead to hers, both of their eyes fluttering shut at the soothing gesture. “I wish you had my mark too,” Kylo whispers right before he kisses her again.

Later, once he’s gone and she’s getting ready for the day, Rey gives in to the silly urge to check her reflection in the mirror before she gets dressed, just a cursory sweep for anything new. It just feels like the time is right, like everything has fallen into place, like they’re finally on the same page the way soulmates are supposed to be.

It becomes a daily routine, one that she keeps up even long after things are over.

Two weeks before graduation, everything goes wrong.

Maybe it’s Rey’s fault, maybe she’s destroyed them by constantly seeking out things that aren’t there, by searching for glimpses of Ben the way she desperately studies her own reflection each morning.

Maybe in trying to secure their future she’s completely destroyed their present, but the same could easily be said of Kylo.

“Rey, you don’t understand! Look at the starting salary!” Kylo picks up the letter she’d found on their coffee table just minutes ago, the letter she’d confronted him with. “Do you even understand what this could do for us? I could give you everything you deserve, everything we’ve ever wanted.”

“For fuck’s sake, I don’t care about the money, Kylo,” she tells him for what feels like the millionth time, a scream of frustration lodged in her throat. “This man is going to use you until he kills you, and I can’t bear to watch it!”

Kylo softens, and for one beautiful moment she thinks she’s won. “I’ll be fine, sweetheart,” he says, shattering the illusion in one fell swoop even as he steps forward to gently rest his hands on her neck. “I told you things will get easier once school is done and it’s just the job. I might have to put in a lot of hours for the first few years–” At this she steps away from him, but he keeps going anyway. “Snoke said it’s the fastest way to a promotion, and once that happens I’ll be able to take it slow–”

“Not if you die first,” Rey snaps, crossing her arms over her chest. “He says jump and you ask how high, and he knows it, Kylo. He’s been taking advantage of it for six years, and there’s no way he’s going to stop anytime soon. It just keeps getting worse, and I’m so worried, Ben–” A sob rises past her chest as tears pool in her eyes, clouding her vision so that she can’t see the scowl on his face.

“What did you just call me?”

It takes Rey a while to blink away her tears, to realize her mistake. “I just...” She shakes off her doubt and decides to go for it, to try the only option she has left. “I called you Ben, because that’s who you are to me. The man I love is kind, and gentle, and caring, and I won’t let Snoke change that, I won’t let him hollow you out and turn you into some kind of monster like him–”

Kylo’s face hardens, his eyes cold as he glares at her. “The man you love,” he says quietly, his hands forming fists at his side, “doesn’t exist, Rey. And if you’ve spent the last two years thinking… if you’ve spent all this time hoping… fuck, do you even know what love is, Rey?”

“Of course I–”

“No,” Kylo cuts her off firmly. “No, you don’t. Love is about accepting someone the way they are, not trying to change them. And that’s why you’ll never get a mark, sweetheart,” he sneers, and finally, finally, she sees the man Finn warned her about, “because you don’t even know what love is.”

“I love you,” Rey insists, stepping forward to take his hand even when all she wants to do is flinch away from his cruel words. “I love you, and that’s why I can’t stand to see you this way, that’s why I’m trying to keep you away from Snoke–”

Kylo shakes his head. “You’re in love with a ghost, Rey, not me.” He doesn’t give her a chance to reply, snatches up his keys from the table and slams the door on his way out without so much as a goodbye.

Not that she would’ve been capable of a reply anyway, his accusation stinging like a slap to the face. And the worst part is that it’s true, isn’t it? Everything she loves about him she’s told herself is Ben, and everything she can’t stand she’s attributed to Kylo, to Snoke’s creation.

She goes to bed that night knowing she won’t get a wink of sleep, and when he finally comes back he slips under the covers wordlessly and turns his back to her. Neither of them sleep; neither of them speak.

There’s nothing left to say, nothing other than perfunctory pleasantries and the occasional question about misplaced items.

The day before graduation, Kylo grabs some leftovers she’s set out on the kitchen counter and joins her at the table. They eat in silence, as they have for the past two weeks, until he sets his food down and looks at her.

“I took the job,” he says, and it takes all her effort not to let her fork clatter to the ground. She nods, makes some kind of sound in acknowledgement, and pushes her barely-touched plate away.

Kylo stares at her for the longest time, and then he sighs. “It’s over, isn’t it?” he asks, and more than anything it’s the resignation in his voice that breaks her.

A cry rips past her throat, and Rey claps a hand to her mouth as she starts sobbing in earnest, her shoulders shaking and her lungs short of breath and everything, everything hurts with the knowledge that there’s no fixing this, that Kylo won’t even try to fix this.

His chair scrapes against the floor as he gets up to cross the table, and she doesn’t even have it in her to fight when he picks her up and holds her close. They slide down to the floor, and he leans his back against the wall as she curls up in his arms and cries into his shoulder.

“Shh, it’s going to be okay, sweetheart,” he tells her, his voice thick with tears of his own. “You’re going to be okay. Maybe it’s for the best, maybe there’s a reason you never got my mark.”

She shakes her head at that, chokes on a sob at the reminder and tries to protest it. “No, listen to me, Rey,” Kylo moves, coaxes her to straighten up so that she’s looking at him. “You deserve so much better than me, okay? You deserve someone who won’t pick a stupid job over you, and I’m so, so sorry I couldn’t be that person for you, sweetheart,” he whispers, his face wet with tears as he leans down to rest his forehead against hers one last time. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be the person you want me to be.”

“I’m sorry we weren’t enough,” Rey tells him in return, her voice small and shaky and unfamiliar to her own ears. She wishes, god how she wishes, she had never heard the name Ben Solo to begin with, wishes she could have loved Kylo from the start, the good and the bad and everything in between.

But a part of her has always known, even from that first day, that she was never meant to wear Kylo Ren on her skin. He will swallow you whole, the universe had warned her, and in her arrogance she’d thought to defy the fates, to prove them wrong.

The day after graduation, when she wakes up to packed boxes and an empty apartment, she knows what it means to be swallowed whole, to be so consumed by love and regret and grief that nothing else exists anymore.

“I left two boxes on the dining table,” Kylo tells her quietly, his voice just as hoarse as hers from all the crying they’ve done in the last few days. “It’s all the stuff that we got together. I thought maybe…maybe you’d like to look through it and see what you want to keep.”

Two boxes. Nearly two years together and that’s all they have to show for the life they’d made, the life they’d shared.

Rey shakes her head, careful to avoid his eyes in the mirror as she gathers her toiletries. “You take it. Just… take all of it. You’ll have more space than me, anyway.”

“Right,” Kylo mutters. “Chandrila, right? It’s kinda known for shoebox apartments.”

It’s also where he was born, where his family lives, where she’s moving to work with his father.

“Yeah, things are gonna be pretty cramped,” Rey says weakly, slow to form the unfamiliar words shared between strangers, acquaintances at best.

Kylo nods and disappears from the mirror, and in the living room she hears him resume his task of separating their boxes into two distinct piles.

When she comes out of the bedroom with one last box in her hands, he’s taping the ones in the kitchen shut. She doesn’t move closer to inspect the contents, doesn’t say goodbye to what’s left of their life together.

Instead she sits on the couch, dazed and numb as he makes multiple trips down to the rental he’s parked outside their building, moving his life box by box away from their apartment. Her own boxes remain in a corner; Finn and Poe are coming by later with a truck, the truck they’ll use to drive her and her life to Chandrila.

Finally, there’s only one box left, one last trip upstairs.

She follows him to the door, barely aware of her own movements.

“Rey…”

Against all reason, she finds herself laughing through tears. “You know, I’m usually very good at saying goodbye,” she tells him.

“That’s… good?” Kylo asks, and the way his brow furrows in confusion is so painfully endearing, so achingly familiar, that it wipes all traces of humor off her face.

She shakes her head, a fresh wave of tears hitting her. “But I don’t know how to say goodbye to you,” Rey cries, allowing him to hold her. “I don’t know how to say goodbye forever to someone I love.”

A lifetime ago she’d told him she could never walk away from someone she love, and now here they are.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Kylo murmurs, his lips brushing against her hair. “It’s going to be okay,” he says for both their sakes, even if neither of them believe it. For a while they stand right before the threshold of their old apartment, of their new lives, and they hold each other up.

When he pulls back to give her a reassuring smile, Kylo’s eyes are red. “I should get going,” he says, picking up the box he’d carelessly dropped to the ground to hold her. “I’m pretty sure I’m parked illegally, so...”

They linger - his eyes on her, her hands still around him, the air between them thick with a thousand things they’ll never get to say.

“Okay,” Kylo says, nodding to himself. “Okay, I should go.”

Rey lets go of him just as he lets go of her, and they each take a step backwards to put some distance between them, the beginning of a great chasm.

“Take care of yourself, Kylo,” she pleads. Now that I can’t anymore.

He nods and offers her a thin-lipped smile. “You too, Rey.”

And then she watches the man she loves walk away from her.

Sometimes life settles down just enough for Rey to forget how much she hates the meddlesome fates… only for a reminder to sucker punch her out of the blue.

It’s been two years since graduation, two years since she moved to Chandrila and started working at Han Solo’s garage. Maybe it’s a waste of her engineering degree, but it’s a good job, and it pays well, and maybe… maybe she’s just enough of a masochist that she craves the small reminders of Kylo she gets from being around his family so much.

If anyone asks though, it’s because Han’s shop specializes in restoring vintage cars and she loves getting the chance to work on them.

It’s the answer she gives Kylo the day she literally bumps into him in the garage.

She’s holding a loosely-capped bottle of motor oil, her face turned to the side to address Chewie, when she bumps into him and gets oil all over his shirt. It’s black, so it doesn’t really matter, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s soaked through.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry–”

And that’s when she sees him.

“Hi, Rey,” Kylo says, smiling at her as if he isn’t dripping motor oil, as if this isn’t the first time they’ve seen each other in two years.

She stutters out an apology, and then a comment on his shirt, and then an order to follow her to the back office where they keep a few spare tees, all the while painfully aware of Chewie’s eyes on them. Thank god Han is out getting lunch.

Kylo asks about her job while she digs through a drawer for a shirt that’ll fit him, and after she’s given her standard reply she hesitantly turns the same question on him.

“Oh, I, uh… I quit. Last week, actually.”

“You…” She turns around to face him, paint-stained shirt gripped tightly in her hands. “You quit your job?”

“Yeah,” Kylo drops his eyes to the ground and runs a hand through his hair, and her free hand twitches with the phantom impulse to do the same. “You… you were right. About Snoke, about the job, about everything. I guess it only took me two years to see that,” he mutters with a scowl.

“Better late than never,” Rey says for lack of something better, something thoughtful, something more suited to the fact that he’s finally quit the job that had torn them apart in the first place. She hands the shirt to him abruptly, her movements sudden and jerky. “I’ll just,” she turns her back to Kylo to give him some privacy, and remembers too late that the window in Han’s office is tinted and highly reflective.

She should close her eyes, she should squeeze them tight and count to twenty just in case, but… he’s got his back turned to her too, and he’ll never know, and she just… Rey doesn’t know what she’s thinking, but she can’t bring herself to close her eyes.

In the mirror-window, she watches him pull at the back of his shirt, watches his hair get caught in the bunched-up fabric to reveal the smallest glimpse of the back of his neck.

And there, on his nape, is the unmistakable sign of a mark.

His hair falls back down to cover it before Rey can even process her discovery, much less take a closer look, but she knows what she saw, knows that Kylo carries a name in solid black ink on the back of his neck.

And there it is, the sucker punch. The fates have brought him back into her life just long enough to show her that she was never meant for him, that all the time she’s spent hoping against hope to wake up with his mark on her is time that he’s spent earning someone else.

“So, um,” Kylo turns around. “I’m staying with my parents for a while, until I figure something out, and I was wondering if maybe–”

Is that why he finally quit his job? Because his soulmate convinced him to?

“I have to go,” she croaks, already reaching for the door. “I’m sorry, I forgot something important, something…” Hot tears prick at her eyes, and Rey pulls the door open.

“Rey, is everything–”

She keeps her back to him. “I have to go,” Rey mumbles again, stepping out of the office and closing the door behind her. It only takes him seconds to open it and follow her out, but it’s enough to hide her from view as she dashes down the hallway and out the back door.

For the first time since she started working for Han, Rey decides to take some time off. When she gets back to work a week later she’s forced to explain everything to him, to come clean about the true nature of her relationship with his son where previously she’d only claimed a brief friendship, but at least Kylo’s long gone by then.

Months pass, but the hole that brief encounter tore in her doesn’t seem any closer to healing. The day he left her in their empty apartment Rey had bottled up all of her tears, all of her grief and pain and regret, because she had no intention of breaking down in front of his father.

Rey should have known that would come back to bite her in the ass someday.

Her life narrows down to work-hurt-sleep, rinse and repeat, and Rey ignores the voice inside her head that tells her she has no right to feel this way about him, about someone else’s soulmate.

So life goes on, and somehow she makes it all the way to December before Han decides to crash her pity party and burn it to the ground.

“It’s Christmas, and I know you don’t have any plans, so you’re coming to Leia’s party,” he announces one day, slapping an invitation down on her table.

“Han, thank you for inviting me but–”

“Nope. No buts. Either you come to the party, or Leia drags you to the party,” Han warns her, flashing her a triumphant grin when she gives in with a wordless nod.

Three days later she finds herself at Leia Organa’s Christmas party, a lively and crowded affair that threatens to suffocate her within her first thirty minutes of being there. Leia catches sight of her, pale and panicked, and ushers her to an upstairs balcony.

“Some air will be good for you,” she tells Rey, pressing a glass of wine into her hands. “And also this, to calm you down. Now you stay here as long as you need to, but I’d really like it if you could come down and socialize at some point, okay?”

She’s kind, and warm, and understanding, and Rey doesn’t understand how Kylo could ever have walked away from this family. She’s only met Leia a handful of times and already the woman treats her like family, has even been extra kind ever since she revealed the truth about her relationship with Kylo.

“Okay,” Rey says quietly, curling her fingers around the stem of the glass. “Thank you so much, Leia. I’m sorry for doing this here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Leia frowns at her. “It’s my own damn party, and even I get overwhelmed by the crowd sometimes.”

They both know full well that’s not what’s happening here.

Leia pats her hand. “If you’re not down in an hour, I’ll come check on you and bring more wine, okay?” she offers, and with one last kind smile she leaves Rey alone.

So far removed from it all, Rey realizes that it’s probably really nice downstairs. It’s a big crowd but almost everyone knows each other, so much so that it feels more like a reunion than a party. The house is warm but not uncomfortably so, the decorations are beautiful without being over the top, and the company is all pleasant enough. It should have been the perfect opportunity for her to end her self-imposed isolation.

Instead, it just reminds her that even in a sea of people she has no one.

Finn and Poe are spending Christmas with the Damerons, and the Tico sisters are off backpacking around Europe for two months. She’s friends with Han and Chewie, of course, but how much of their friendship stems from her past with Kylo? Would Rey ever have applied for a job at Han’s garage if she hadn’t been desperate to find some way to help him reconnect with his parents?

This, she thinks to herself, this is why you didn’t deserve to be his soulmate.

Kylo was never hers to fix, to redeem, to change. He was hers to love and support and encourage, but nothing more. Just like him quitting his job, her realization is about two years too late.

She loses track of time, up here on Leia’s balcony, all alone save for the stars, the universe, and the fates. When the door opens she assumes her hour is up and Leia is here to check on her and offer her more wine, but of course that’s not the case.

“Hi,” Kylo says, coming to sit down in the chair next to hers. He offers her a glass of wine. “My mom said she was supposed to bring this to you.”

“Thanks,” Rey mumbles, careful not to make even the slightest contact with his hand as she takes the glass from him. “I… I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“I wasn’t sure if I’d make it,” he tells her without meeting her eye. “I’ve kinda been all over the place these past few months, trying to figure out where I belong. Eventually I realized Chandrila will always be home, and so here I am.”

She feels sick – her heart is heavy and her stomach is churning and her mind is spinning. “So you’re moving here. For good?”

Kylo shrugs. “No concrete plans yet, but I think so.”

“That’s nice,” Rey murmurs absently, busying herself with her wine. “I’m sure Leia will be happy. And is your–” She stops herself in the nick of time, but it’s too late.

“Is my…?” Kylo prompts.

“Nothing,” she turns away from him completely and returns her focus to the stars. “Forget I said that.”

They lapse into silence, and when she finishes her second glass Kylo wordlessly offers her his own, the one he hasn’t touched at all. “Thanks,” she mutters, not even caring if she comes across as the distraught ex who has to drink her sorrows away in order to tolerate his presence.

Time passes – maybe another hour of it – with them just sitting there, cold and quiet and staring at the night sky. Finally, perhaps driven mad by the silence or encouraged by the alcohol in her bloodstream, Rey turns to Kylo.

“Who is she?” she asks, setting her glass down on the table between them. “If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

Kylo meets her eyes with evident confusion in his. She’d forgotten that he doesn’t know she knows. “Who is who?”

But he has to know who she’s talking about, right? There’s only one she. “Your… you know,” Rey gestures at the back of her own neck.

His hand immediately flies to the back of his neck. “How did you–”

“I saw it when you were changing the other day. I’m sorry, I promise I didn’t mean to, the window is just really, really reflective and–”

“Rey, wait,” Kylo holds up a hand to put a stop to her babbling, his forehead creased with confusion. “What do you mean, who is she?”

“I saw the mark, but not the name,” Rey admits. “Look, if you don’t want to tell me it’s fine, I totally understand that, it’s not like I have a right to know or anything so,” she shrugs, keeping her eyes fixed on her empty wineglass while the weight of Kylo’s gaze burns her skin.

Kylo rests his hand on the table, mere inches away from hers. “But you do,” he whispers, drawing her attention. “You do have a right to know.” Before she can think of something to say, he’s turning around and lifting up his hair, and Rey has a split-second to decide whether she’s ready to see it with her own two eyes.

She should close her eyes, she wants to close her eyes, but instead she finds herself staring at something incomprehensible, something impossible.

“When?” she whispers, her fingers hesitantly reaching out to trace the delicate letters printed behind Kylo’s neck.

He lets his hair fall, and she retracts her hand as he turns to face her. “Three months after we met,” he reveals quietly. “I woke up in the middle of the night because I felt something strange on my neck, and when I checked the next morning it was you.” Even after everything, he smiles at the memory.

“But why didn’t you tell me?” Rey can feel her breathing hitch, can hear how shaky her voice is, but there’s nothing she can do about the tears that have started to pool in her eyes. So many tears, endless tears for Kylo Ren, and she’s so sick of it but they keep coming anyway because again and again this man seems determined to tear her to pieces. “If you’d just said something–”

“At first I thought it would scare you,” he tells her, shaking his head with a rueful smile. “We’d only been dating for two months, and you’d made your feelings on this pretty clear. Later on, when you stopped ranting about the marks, I thought maybe you’d changed your mind for a reason, maybe you’d gotten it too or you would soon. So then I thought I’d wait for you to say something, because even after everything I was terrified that you wouldn’t be happy about this.”

“And when… when I said I love you, and told you I wished…”

Kylo’s eyes fall close for a moment, and when he looks at her again there’s so much grief in them it pulls at its counterpart in her heart. “I’d had the mark for ten months by then. When you… when you told me you loved me, I thought maybe finally–” He shakes his head, blinks away the grief. “I started wondering why it was taking you so long to get the mark, but then I remembered how they work. Getting your mark meant that you were perfect for me, that you were everything, but the fact that you never got mine… I meant what I said, Rey: you deserve someone better than me. And that’s the real reason you never got my mark. I was never worthy of you.”

“But that’s not… that can’t be right,” Rey insists. In all her years she’s never heard of one-sided bonds. She’s heard of bonds that fade, of bonds that don’t work, but never of one half-formed.

“It’s the truth,” Kylo tells her. “As Kylo Ren, I was never going to be good enough for anyone, let alone you. Which is,” he pauses, sneaking a glance at her before he goes on, “which is why I’m here. I need your help, Rey.”

Anything, she wants to say. Even after everything, she’d do anything to help him. It’s only fair, given how she’d failed him the last time.

“What do you mean?” she asks him instead, holding herself back.

“I’ve been thinking about Ben Solo,” he confesses. “About the man I used to be, about the man I might someday become. I’ve been thinking about how little I know about him, and how hard it is to remember someone you never were. And then I thought about you.”

Rey stills. “Me?”

Kylo nods. “You know Ben Solo better than anyone else, Rey. And I was hoping that… that maybe you could teach me.”

“You… want me to help you become Ben Solo?” Wasn’t this everything she’d dreamed of, just two short years ago? She shies away from it now, flinches from the thought of trying again to turn the man in front of her into someone he isn’t.

But he’s the one asking this time, he’s the one tentatively inching his hand closer to hers on the table and looking her in the eye. “Please, Rey. I’m not asking for forgiveness, or anything more from you. I just need your help to become Ben again.”

In his wide, earnest eyes, she sees a glimpse of the man she used to wake up to, of the man only she knew.

“Okay,” Rey hears herself saying against her better judgement, against all sense of self preservation. It’s been two years and still she hasn’t fallen out of love with the mere ghost of Ben Solo; how the hell is she supposed to survive resurrecting him?

She won’t, Rey knows. And yet – “Okay,” she tells him again, firmer this time.

He smiles. It’s a far cry from the sleepy smiles he used to greet her with in the mornings, but it’s genuine all the same.

They meet in a café somewhere between Leia’s office and Han’s shop two weeks later.

“It’s just,” Kylo struggles to explain what his plan is. “I don’t know how you did it, but you always brought out the best in me. So I thought maybe if we… I don’t know, hang out or something…”

Hang out. The man has her name on his skin and her traitorous heart is back to spending every night praying she gets his on hers, and he thinks they can hang out.

“Okay,” Rey says, because what does she have to lose at this point?

They start slow, meeting every other day for lunch as he settles into his new job at Leia’s foundation. By his third week she’s convinced him to actually play nice with his colleagues, and to join Leia and Han for family dinner every Sunday.

The next week he decides to go to therapy of his own volition, to figure out some things about his childhood and his parents and his time with Snoke. She tells him she’s proud of him, and when they part ways she hugs him and almost feels like everything is okay again.

At night she lies awake thinking of the man she knows now, and she realizes it doesn’t matter to her whether it’s Kylo or Ben on her skin anymore. He just… he is who he is now. He’s growing into the person he was always meant to be, and it doesn’t really matter which name that person chooses to go by.

She tells him as much five weeks into their arrangement, finally sits down with him to have the talk they should have had all those years ago about the way she’d failed him, about the way she’d seen him being torn into two and had contributed to it rather than put a stop to it.

He holds her on a bench much like the one they had their first date on, tells her he never really blamed her for it, reminds her that despite it all she was good enough for the fates to mark him with her name anyway.

“Besides,” he says, rubbing soothing circles into her back as they watch the sunset, “if you look at this from Ben’s point of view instead of Kylo’s, you saved me. If I thought Ben was truly gone, I never would have been so conflicted about you, and I never would have found the courage to quit my job, and I never would have reached out to you for help. So really, the fates knew what they were doing when they gave me the mark. They knew I needed you.”

She doesn’t forgive herself overnight, but she does feel less guilty about hoping he’ll still be hers after everything they’ve gone through – not that she ever tells him that, not that she’ll ever tell him that. If, after everything is said and done, he chooses to move on from her, to go live his best life somewhere else with someone else… well, she’ll be damned if he lets something as stupid as a half-formed bond or some misplaced sense of gratitude or obligation or destiny hold him back.

But sometimes… sometimes she wonders if there’s a reason he’s working so hard to be the man she wanted him to be once.

Four months after that first meeting at the café, nearly three months of family dinners and therapy sessions later, she finds herself walking around town with Kylo on a Saturday afternoon. They hadn’t made plans or anything; they just… like being together. It reminds her of days whiled away in each other’s presence, of how the novelty of living together had never really worn off for them, of how they could be perfectly happy doing laundry or the dishes as long as they were together.

There’s that quiet sense of contentment now, weaving between them as they draw peace from each other’s presence, occasionally bumping shoulders as they walk around.

At some point their hands graze and they meet each other’s eyes sheepishly, and Rey darts her eyes away in search of a distraction only to find–

“Kylo, look!” she gasps, turning back to him with a wide smile.

A fond smile tugs at his own lips as he stares at her, his eyes bright and warm, and after a while he takes her hand and says, “Actually, I’ve been thinking… I think I’m ready to be Ben again.”

It’s been a while since she last cried over Ben Solo, but if she still had tears for him she’d probably shed a few now. Instead she laces their fingers together and, like she had on that bench all those years ago, she simply says, “Okay, Ben.”

He smiles at her, and it takes Rey a good while to remember what it is she’d been so eager to show him. “Now come on, we need to go see those puppies!”

“What puppies?” Ben asks as she tugs him across the street and towards the park, laughing at her excitement when she heads straight for a playpen set up in the middle of the adoption drive they’ve apparently stumbled upon.

Rey drags him down to kneel on the grass with her, and sticks her free hand in between the bars of the playpen. Most of the puppies are occupied with the children on the other side of the pen, but two tiny ones – one a golden, almost orange, color and the other black – rush to her immediately.

“Ben, look!” Rey giggles as the pups lick at her ticklish palm. “They like me!”

“Everyone likes you,” he points out with a grin, placing his own free hand within the pen. The orange puppy remains fully focused on Rey, but to his surprise the black one comes over to sniff at his hand and proceeds to nuzzle into it.

“I see you’ve found the last two BBs,” a woman says as she approaches them with a clipboard. “We’ve been hoping to find a nice couple to adopt them together, so that they don’t have to be separated,” she hints.

“Oh, we’re… um,” Ben turns to her with a question Rey isn’t quite ready to answer.

“We’re just here to play,” Rey tells the woman. “They’re really cute though. You called them BBs?”

The woman nods, kneeling down alongside them. “That’s how we labelled the whole litter. This one here,” she reaches in to scratch behind the orange one’s ear, “is BB-8, the eighth in his litter. And that little cutie is his sister and the youngest, BB-9.”

“Where are BBs 1 to 7?” Rey asks, glancing at the puppy pile on the other end of the pen to see if she can spot the rest of the litter.

“Oh, they’re long gone. See, they’re purebred, so they were snapped up pretty early. But I’m afraid Mama BB got a little frisky last mating season,” the woman chuckles. “These two are a little younger than the others, and they’re only half-siblings. We haven’t been able to pin down what their dad is, so it’s been a bit harder to find a home for them.”

“Poor BBs,” Rey murmurs as the woman excuses herself to tend to a family. She turns to see Ben absent-mindedly scratching BB-9’s chin with a small smile on his face as he looks around the park, and her mind is made up. “Ben… we have to. Look at them! They’re all they’ve got in this world. We can’t let them be separated.”

Ben stares at her. She stares back at him. The BBs start yelping for attention.

“Okay,” he sighs, and that’s how they end up with puppies.

A week later, Rey and BB-8 are over at Ben’s place for the puppies’ almost-daily playdate. The BBs tire each other out within the first hour, and are happy to cuddle up together in a corner of the living room and nap.

It’s been a very long, very exhausting first week of puppy parenting, and even as Ben puts on a movie Rey can tell she won’t last long. With the puppies happily dozing in a corner and Ben’s familiar warmth pressed up against her, she finds herself drifting off just minutes into the movie.

When Rey wakes a while later the TV is on mute, the puppies are still sleeping, and Ben has moved them so they’re stretched out along the length of the couch, his arm curled around her waist to keep her on top of him and away from the edge. For the longest while Rey can’t figure out exactly why she’s woken up, but then she feels it again.

An odd, tingling sensation on the back of her neck, only mildly uncomfortable but life-changing enough to wake her up. With her heart pounding and her throat dry, Rey carefully extricates herself from Ben’s arms and slowly tiptoes to his bathroom.

BB-9 wakes to find her making her way down the hall, but quickly goes back to sleep after a little yawn.

In the bathroom, Rey splashes cold water on her face and takes several deep breaths before she lifts her hair up in one hand. Slowly, very slowly, she cranes her neck this way and that to get a glimpse.

She spies familiar handwriting from a lifetime ago, from little love notes scrawled on post-its and grocery lists stuck to the fridge.

Rey runs back into the living room, waking both the puppies and Ben as she practically launches herself into his arms. “Babe, look!” she calls out in her excitement, speeding up the process by shaking him awake. The puppies have gathered at the foot of the couch, letting out tiny little barks as they get swept up in Rey’s contagious excitement.

“Rey, what–”

She wastes no time in presenting the back of her neck to him, sweeping her hair aside as Ben slowly pulls himself upright and moves in for a closer look.

“Is this…” One hand hovers uncertainly above her neck. “Rey, is this–” She shivers when his hand finally makes contact, when he traces the mark with a shaky finger.

There, on the back of her neck, is the matching Ben to his Rey.

Rey waits for him to drop his hand before she turns around. “Tell me you still want this, Ben,” she whispers, searching his eyes. “Tell me you still love me.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Ben smiles, one hand reaching up to cup her cheek while the other rests on the back of her neck, his thumb stroking the mark. “I never stopped.”

And finally – for the first time in years, for the first time in her life – Rey kisses her soulmate.

Every time. Every damn time I tell myself I'm gonna stick to my projected word count, I'm gonna keep a tight leash on the fic. And every damn time I end up subjecting you guys to god knows what.

As usual, I'm sorry, thanks for reading, and if you liked it please don't hesitate to like/reblog/comment. I love y'all, you're so encouraging and supportive of my verbose bullshit.

#reyloweek2018 #reylo #kylo ren x rey #ben solo x rey #soulmate au #modern au #reyben #rey #ben solo #kylo ren #star wars #fic: tell me how this story ends #fic archive #my fics

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