Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ben was born to one of the finest most respectable ladies in England, her Ladyship Leia Organa…as well as one of the most flighty, rambunctious, and charming of American men, Han Solo.

Leia Organa had made the voyage to America to meet with her twin brother who had taken an interest in missionary work. Luke Skywalker’s focus had always been more on the church. That’s what he had been doing, helping to build chapels and whatnot throughout the ever expanding East Coast. Naturally, he found himself an excellent carpenter to help.

Naturally, it had to be Han Solo. And his interest was never much in the church, more in the fact that Luke was paying handsomely for his services. And because they had become unlikely friends. A scoundrel of an American man and a devoted blonde missionary.

Well, if they were an unlikely friendship, Han and Leia were only more so.

The British socialite had bewitched him and as long as she had insisted that the American only irritated her, eventually it was the two of them getting married on one of the many beautiful chapels that her brother and now husband had helped build.

Benjamin Solo was born in a modest (but beautifully crafted) cabin in a small coastal town in Maine that his uncle was fond of for it’s quiet innocence. Something that he insisted would be hard to come by as industry had started to sweep it’s way through the world. 

Needless to say, his parents' relationship was hardly traditional. And it didn’t seem to upset them.

But then the news came that Luke and Leia’s adopted mother, Breha (the woman who raised them after their parents died), had fallen ill and she knew they needed to return to England.

Ben was four when he made that transatlantic voyage for the first time. But even at such a young age, it was clear it was worlds away from anything he knew.

They were welcomed into a large beautiful house bigger than six of his house put together. He didn’t understand why his mother and uncle cried so much, he just knows his father took him for a long long walk high on his shoulders, not saying a word but sniffling like he had a cold.

Ben had been too young to understand at the time that Breha’s death meant Luke and Leia would now be the proprietors of the estate and all the titles that had now been passed down to them. He had been too young to understand why his father got so quiet or why they didn’t play much anymore.

And then a year later, he was still too young to understand what his father meant when he said he would see him very soon before he loaded up on a ship, back to the States.

His uncle held him up high on his shoulder as they waved goodbye as the ship set sail. His mother waved too. Ben was still young but old enough to know that none of it was good once they loaded back up in the carriage and his mother burst into tears.

He was old enough to suspect that they would never again be all together in that little cabin in Maine that he could hardly remember but nevertheless missed so much.

Han came back a few times a year, stayed for a few weeks, went to gatherings with his wife, charmed people with his stories…and then would get ready for his return. Ben was terrified and didn’t want him to leave. 

Ben didn’t like England. Although his memories of his birthplace were fleeting, he knew he was happier there. He knew he didn’t have to wear high collars and narrow shoes he was constantly growing out of.

He begged his father to take him with him. Han told him… maybe when you’re older.

By the time he was eight, Ben decided it was old enough, and when his father packed up to leave, Ben packed his things too.

To his surprise, his father seemed amused. And his mother…said yes.

This is how Ben found himself growing up on two continents. When he was traveling with his father he was free. He’d play in the mud, he’d chase after the dogs, and his studies were left up to him. He found he learned most when he had a book with him for company up in a tree he had climbed. 

He’d hardly even bathe, which (in his youth) he hardly noticed until they would return to England to find his mother very cross and unsatisfied that Ben had spent more time playing with worms than devoted to his studies that Han swore to keep up with. 

And in a way, he did but it’s just not so much about etiquette or rehearsing dance steps for balls. Instead, it was how to hunt, how to win in a fight, how to fix a roof, or race horses. 

Which made the long stretches of being in England, in the large Organa namesake estate, that much longer. It was surrounded in beautiful green and ponds and trees that he wanted to explore but his lessons and namesake kept him practically chained to a schedule he despised.

But he became very accustomed to hiding when he could, aquainting himself with every nook and cranny in the house and where to hide.

And in hiding, you hear more than you would out in the open.

“And listen to how he talks. One summer in the colonies he’s got no British left in him. Talking like you now.”

“Ehh, sweetheart, don’t pretend you don’t think it’s cute. I for one am glad he shook the accent. He was getting as stuffy as the other stifled kids around here. He needed some air.”

“He’s got responsibilities here! Expectations! Han, why do you commit so hard to doing the opposite of what I want? I didn’t want you to take him in the first place but I only allowed it because you know how much he looks up to you.”

“You sound so disappointed about that,” Han chuckles. “Thought you’d appreciate getting him some air. You told me you hated growing up the way you did. All lessons, no play. Shouldn’t our son have that chance?”

His mother didn’t answer Han.

But it was hardly the first or last argument he would hear from his parents. But the one constant in it all is perhaps most arguments were always about Ben.

But that argument led to Han disappearing a few days later, leaving only a small puppy behind and a letter that read he would be back again soon.

It hurt, but as Ben sat on his bed with the rambunctious new puppy, he had to be glad at least he had a friend.

It was under a table (sharing table food with his ever growing furry companion), and hidden by the elaborate table runner, that Ben heard the first bit of news that forever changed his life. His mother was talking to one of her many society friends that he heard his name mentioned. 

“Is your Benjamin faring well?”

“Oh of course. He’s a wonderful boy. Very studious. Always curious. Constant mischief but I’m not sure what else I could have expected.”

“We’ll that’s the Yankee in him I suppose.”

His mother's only response to that was to take a sip of her tea. Ben hardly resisted laughing, his hands fiddling with a wooden horse his father made for him. 

“The arrangement with the Netal’s though, that’s very exciting news.”

“Yes, I think so,” his mother replies. He hears her cup clink quietly back in the saucer. 

“Have you told Benjamin?”

“No,” his mother says after a long pause and Ben freezes. Unsettled about what this has to do with him. 

“Well, I think you should. That way he can understand why best behavior comes first. It would be a shame if the betrothal fell through now. With all you’ve had to go through.”

Betrothal?

“On the contrary, I think Ben is very sweet and can present himself well on his own. I’m sure he and Bazine will get along splendidly.”

This is how Ben first discovered he was already intended to marry Bazine Netal. 

It wasn’t long after that that he went to a ball with his mother. She thought it important to expose him to society and what it really looked like. And behave.

It was at the Netal estate.

Ben thought it looked more frightening in tandom with all the gossiping he can pick up from his mother and her friends as they glide through the large house.

“To think this could all be his someday,” one of the women says, sparing a glance at Ben.

“Hush, he’s just a boy,” Leia waves her off, turning to reach for his hand. He puts it behind his back so she won’t hold his hand like he was six and not nearly eleven. He’s not a child.

She still wraps and arm around his shoulder. 

“Dinner won’t be for a while but the other children are in the nurs–”

“I’m not going in the nursery.”

“Sorry, not the nursery. It’s the study with books and toys and–”

“I’m too old for toys.”

“I know…but just read your book and I’ll come fetch you when it’s time to eat.”

Ben sits and sulks, wishing the fever he had tried to feign had worked and he could have stayed home.

But he finds a corner reserved enough to open his copy of Swiss Family Robinson and try to ignore the sound of the maids tending to the literal babies throughout the room. It’s hard to focus with all the noise. And it doesn’t help that–

“How tall are you?”

Ben turned his neck to the side to see a small girl looking up at him. Big eyes boring into his. 

“What?”

If his tutor, Mr. Threepio was there he would have instructed him to say Pardon me. But he doesn’t think about that now.

“How tall are you?” she asks him again, this time sounding a little annoyed she had to ask twice.

“I…I don’t know.”

“Well, stand up then. Let me see.”

“Little girl, I’m very busy–”

She snags his hand and pulls him up with a strength that he didn’t expect her to have for a girl a few heads shorter than himself. And she only looks disappointed, slumping

“Never mind.”

And then she spun around, letting his arm go as she wandered off. His eyes followed her curiously. She must have been a few years younger than him.

His stomach sinks a little as he realizes that this must be her.

This must be the girl he’s betrothed to.

He watches as she seems to survey the room, keeping an eye on the servants watching the other children before she picks up a small stool on the other side of the room and carries it over to the wardrobe in the corner. The wardrobe with some sort of doll on the top.

Oh.

As he approaches she reaches, even on her toes for the toy but she can’t quite get it. Before she gives up though, he finds himself reaching for it (only on his toes, not the stool). She gasps in shock to turn and see him. From where she stands on the stool, she is only a few inches shorter than him now.

“Perhaps I’m tall enough after all.”

“That’s mine,” she says, her eyes honed in on what he now sees is a bunny in a dress.

He contemplates for a moment, keeping it from her just to tease her. The way he imagines big brothers play with little siblings. But he’s not a brother. And he never knows how to play much with other children.

Especially with the girl that he’s expected to marry one day.

So he hands it to her.

“Thank you,” she beams as she hugs it tight. “I’ve been looking for it for ages. That other girl has been hiding it from me.” Ben assumes she means one of the other children throughout the party. “You’re the only nice one, I think.”

“I’m not that nice.”

The girl giggles at him. “Then why did you help me?”

“There’s nothing better to do and you’re not being very insen-inconspiteo–uhh,” he sighs, forgetting how to say the word he had learned the other day.

“Inconspicuous?”

Ben’s eyes blare wide. Such a little girl saying the word without difficulty. He can’t even say it and he’s nearly eleven. How humiliating.

“How do you know that word?”

“My grandfather says it all the time. Says I need to practice it more.”

Ben doesn’t mean to laugh but he does. He had been committed to being miserable the whole time just to spite his mother but his defenses slip when this girl makes him laugh.

Maybe she’s not all bad.

But then her face twists and she reaches for him. He nearly takes a step back but she all but pulls a strand of Chewie’s fur from his coat.

“Does your hair fall out?”

He snickers again. “No…that’s from my dog.”

Her whole face lights up. “You have a dog?”

“Yeah. Chewie.”

“Is he big?”

“Huge.”

“Huge enough to ride like a horse?”

“What? No. People don’t ride dogs.”

“But horses are too big to ride.”

“Not for adults.”

“I’m an adult.”

Ben smirks. “No, you’re not.”

“Well, when I am one I bet I’ll be taller than you,” she emphasizes by holding a hand over his hair, easily with her vantage point on the stool.

“No,” he argues back, trying to hide his smirk. “I’m only going to get taller. Because when you’re this tall,” he holds up a hand to where hers is by his head. “I’m gonna be this tall,” he exaggerates by holding his other hand still holding his book as high as he can possibly reach.

Her whole head cranes back just to see it and she scoffs like she’s not impressed. “I’m gonna be that tall too.”

“I don’t think so,” Ben stifles a chuckle.

“I am. You’ll see.”

“I highly dou–”

“What are you doing?”

Ben flinches as another voice snaps out beside him and he returns his hands at his side to see another girl, closer to his age scowling at the girl on the stool.

The little girl who quickly hides the bunny behind her back. “Nothing.”

The older girl grabs the doll anyway and yanks it from her so forcefully the smaller girl nearly flies from the stool. Ben reaches out to catch her in time so she makes a solid landing on her feet.

“I told you not to touch my things, little cretin!”

This girl is inches from the smaller one’s face. Her teeth barred in disdain. Her hair pulled back so tight in a bun it gives Ben a headache. In a word, she looks scary.

“I just wanted to play with it. You weren’t playing with it and you said you don’t play with dolls any–”

“That doesn’t mean I want you touching my things and getting your filth all over them. You’re lucky enough my father lets you in our house.”

“I’m sorry, Bazine. I just thought it was pretty.”

And just like that…Ben felt sick. 

This older girl, the one about his age…the one that had just been so cruel to the small girl for playing with a toy that she clearly had no interest in, was Bazine Netal. The girl he was betrothed to.

“It’s not pretty. But I guess you wouldn’t know the difference, would you?”

Ben swore in his mind a vile word he heard his father use once (or a hundred times) when he accidentally hammered too close to his thumb. 

Because it went from being almost not entirely terrible to fucking devastating.

Bazine seems to pay him no attention as she turns away so forcefully, the ribbons on the back of her dress nearly snap the smaller girl in the face before stomping off.

And then it’s just Ben and…whoever this girl is.

He doesn’t know what to say. He nearly tried to joke and say, At least you’re not supposed to marry her someday, but the thought alone was so vile he might have gotten sick. Instead, he just stands there, trying not to panic when he can hear her give the smallest of sniffles.

With nothing else coming to mind, he thinks of the etiquette lessons with Mr. Threepio of all things and passes her his handkerchief except she’s already wiped her eyes on the elbow of her sleeve.

So Ben stands there, wishing he hadn’t been so selfish with his own crisis to let what happened to this girl play out.

This girl…whoever she was.

“You okay?”

She nods, sniffling once more before a bell rings all through the house. The signal for dinner.

“Are you hungry?”

She nods, yes.

He knows to expect he won’t be able to sit next to his mother. There will be a table for the children where he’ll be sat, as much as he denies he is one. But he looks to the small girl sadly and sighs. “Do you want to sit next to me?”

She looks up at him, again with wide eyes. This time he sees the flecks of gold mixed with green and brown. His stomach does something odd again, but he knows it likely means he must be hungry.

“Really?”

He shrugs but she smiles, snagging his hand tightly. He frowns, about to pry it free because he didn’t mean for her to latch onto him. But he also can’t bring himself to pull away after how Bazine spoke to her like she was dirt on her shoe.

“What is your name?”

“Rey.”

Ben chuckles at how informal it is. Surely she’s had lessons at her age that teach her to at least introduce herself correctly.

“What’s your full name?”

“Reyna.” A spin of his finger makes her keep going. She rolls her eyes as she finally answers completely. “Reyna Palpatine.”

Palpatine. He believes they are neighbors actually. He’s heard that name from his mother before, mostly when she speaks to friends. And she does not like him. Which would explain why they don’t call on him or go to his house. 

Ben wonders why.

But this is just a little girl and he knows all too well the worlds of difference that exist between just one generation of family. He can’t imagine how drastic it could be with two. 

“But I like Rey,” she says, rubbing the end of her nose like it itches.

“So do I.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name is Lord Benjamin Thaddeus Orga–”

“What do I call you?” she interrupts, not interested in titles.

He can’t help but chuckle.

“Ben.”

She nods. “I like Ben.”

“Me too.”

Fourteen Years Later

Ben has been on horseback the whole journey. It was difficult to be discreet when you were in a carriage, never mind that he despised carriages. But soaking wet on a massive black horse was hardly subtle either. It is likely that if he makes it to his destination he’ll die quickly of pneumonia. But he has very little consideration for his own well-being at this point. 

His path and purpose are so focused he doesn’t even have space for the needling thoughts threatening to break him. All the horrible possibilities of what he has set out to find. A truth that may hurt too much to reveal, but he needs to know. 

And no one in Chandrila was going to be honest with him apparently. His own mother even.

It’s not completely dark yet but it will be soon. Ben rides faster, determined to get somewhere with candlelight before he’s forced to make camp somewhere… again.  

It’s been a long ride. 

So when he rounds over a once familiar hill and sees the modest little house sitting in the distance, glowing warmly, he just about sobs in relief. 

It’s then his nerves truly seize him and all the possibilities crash into him. 

She will likely be upset with him. She must feel so betrayed.

And he can’t fault her for that…the agony she has endured. She thinks he forgot her, and willingly left her behind. Every day he has devoted to their future, she has spent in vicious betrayal of something he never meant to do. And she is the one who suffered because of it. He tries not to let his mother's words hurt him more than they have. But they torture him anyway and he chokes on his own sobs as Silencer gallops onward.

Her grandfather arranged her with a nobleman from the North. She left not long after you...and if rumors are to be believed she was expecting a child last I heard. 

He refuses to believe it. It's why he took off that instant to see her. He knew it couldn't be true. And damn his family's wishes. Damn her grandfather’s. Damn propriety and society and carriages. Everyone. 

All he ever wanted was a life with her. 

He races forward to the stables where he finds a gray mare he hasn’t seen in equally long as her rider. He sighs, petting Kira’s mane in greeting and she whinnies, supposedly recognizing him. 

He ties Silencer up in the empty stable, trying to ignore the near-violent trembling of his hands as he wipes the wet hair from his eyes and races back out towards the house. 

His heart pounds out of his rib cage almost painfully. But it nearly stops dead in his chest when he rounds the final corner to the cobblestone path leading up to the front picket gate where someone already awaits him with a rifle pointed at the ready. 

“Stop right there!” 

Ben nearly falls to his knees as soon as his hands shoot up in surrender. Even in the darkness, he can see who it is. He could never forget the shape of her. 

She’s just a silhouette with the light glowing from the front door framing her. He can tell she’s got on an old pair of breeches that he knows she prefers to wear. He had given her all his old ones that he had grown out of years ago. Among many other things. He wonders if those are his.

And she’s holding the rifle…just like he taught her to. Memories of a time, years before, when he was just a foolish smitten boy, transfixed with the girl beside him flood his mind and his heart twists in his chest. They were so carefree then. It’s how they always should have been.

But life hasn’t been that fair to them.

“Rey,” Ben is horrified at the sound of his voice after hours of no use and torturous thoughts. But it doesn’t matter. “Rey, it’s me,” he croaks. 

“I see that,” she grits out, not lowering the weapon. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I’ve been looking ev–”

“I don’t care. You need to leave.”

“Rey, please, just let me speak with you. There’s so much more–”

“I have everything I need from you. And you clearly got what you wanted from me. The nerve you have to show your face now…I ought to shoot you just for that.”

Ben fumbles, frantically patting his pockets. “I have–”

The gun clicks as a warning. She’s not kidding. “I said don’t-”

Ben pulls out the thick stack of parchment from his coat. It’s soaked through now and the ink on the envelopes is hardly legible but it’s the most evidence he has. “Rey, these are yours! ” he shouts over the storm.

“I doubt it.”

“These are all the letters I wrote you. They were intercepted,” Ben hardly resists vomiting. He’s never felt so scared. Not because she has the rifle aimed at him. He’s not scared of being shot. He’s just scared of losing her for good.

Rey just chuckles. “If it’s anything like the first one you sent, you can keep them.”

All these months he’s been such a fool, thinking it could be so easy. Then his mother told him her suspicions. For the first time in his life he went knocking on the Palpatine’s front door only to be told the same thing.

He barged in, ignoring the shouts and protests of his staff to race to the room he knew to be hers. A room he had only ever entered through the window.

Her clothes and books and things were all gone.

Storming into her grandfather’s study he was disappointed to learn the man was out of the country and wouldn’t return until the end of the month. It did not stop him from rifling through his desk and finding a stack of letters, all addressed to Rey in Ben’s hand.

Every letter he had sent her. Unopened. And there was no sign of letters she had tried to send him. Clearly something, or more particularly someone else, was involved here. Whatever first letter she is referring to couldn’t have been anything he sent.

“Rey, anything you received from me was false! Whatever it was, I would never–”

“They were in your hand! You think I could be so easily deceived?!”

“Then they were forged!”

“By who?!”

The rain is coming down harder now, resulting in their voices rising. They’re screaming just to be heard now. Faint thunder rumbles in the distance. 

“I…I’m not sure! My guess is someone your grandfather hired to–”

“I want you to leave, Ben!”

“Rey, did you–”

Just then lightning flashes above them and the thunder that follows is loud and booming and it even makes Ben jolt at the volume. 

But it’s nothing compared to the tiny but powerful cries he hears coming from the house. Rey turns around back to the house, rifle finally lowered. He can see, in the light that bathes the cobblestones, the concern on her face. 

The worry for the child that is inside crying. 

Ben’s heart lurches. It shatters as he realizes he was wrong to hope.  

Because it’s true. 

She didn’t wait for him. 

Chapter Text

When Ben returns after spending months (though not his longest visit by far) with his father, he’s most eager to find Rey. 

Since the ball at the Netal estate, he had come to think of her as his very dear friend. Mainly because he can speak to her about all the things he misses and not worry about the other boys his age mocking him for whining. 

He told her all about life in America and why he talks differently than her and what his father is like, what it felt like to swim in the ocean and eat something you had caught by cooking it over a fire yourself. She didn’t like that topic as much but she listened anyway.

Finally, he had someone who he could speak to and she listened with such enthusiasm. 

And when it came to Rey telling him about her and her life, he could listen to her all day. He didn’t usually find much interest in other people but conversing with Rey was easy. She was his friend and for once, returning to England had not felt like such a punishment.

Before his departure he had discovered the quickest way to the Palpatine estate was through the forest behind his own. He had traversed them many times but it’s exciting to think his friend is on the other side.

Or perhaps at the spot in the middle where they would meet on occasion. But he finds their clearing empty. He shouldn’t be surprised though, Rey likely doesn’t know he’s home yet.

He can’t wait to surprise her.

Even Chewie seems to catch on as to who they are en route to see, now evidently racing Ben.

But as they approach the treeline, he stills, seeing the carriage out in front of the Palpatine estate and how a man and a young boy perhaps a little older than himself stand before it. Both have bright orange hair. 

He hangs back, unsure who it was.

Lord Palpatine descends the stairs of his massive house a moment later, reaching to greet the man before him. And then how a handmaiden seems to pull Rey along to stand out with them.

The boy too holds a box and his father points to Rey with some instruction before he approaches her holding out a large box. Much larger than the one Ben carries. 

She doesn’t seem to move until her grandfather says something. Ben is too far away to hear but clearly it startles her enough to flinch and reach out to open it. 

And just seeing the patterned tissue paper that she folds back, he deflates a little already knowing it’s a dress. Something expensive and fitting for a girl of her pedigree. So he sinks back, realizng what he’s brought her isn’t really fit for… Her Ladyship, he reminds himself.

He opens it again to see the things he brought her. Knick knacks. Trinkets and what most would consider to be detritus or refuse.

It looks rather pathetic now that he thinks about it. He feels quite stupid and he has to grab Chewie by the collar before he seems intent on making the last leg of the journey to Rey without him. Because he wants to see her as much as he does.

Instead, he pulls away as they all head inside and makes the journey back home. And it feels a lot longer on the way back until he stashes the box under his bed, wondering if he’s gonna give it to her at all.

“Ben! There you are!” his mother marches through the door and Ben snaps to a stand like he’s been caught.

“You ran off so soon! Were did you–Darling, you’re covered in mud already.”

“Sorry,” he exhales as she combs his hair back.

“That’s alright, just clean Chewie before he gets too far” she kisses his head. “We had lunch all prepared and you just ran off without a word,” she angles his chin up and wipes away what must be mud from his cheek. 

He just shrugs. “I went to the forest. I was on a boat for a long time, I wanted to stretch my legs.”

She chuckles. “Long legs need a lot of exercise, don’t they?”

Ben hums, attempting a chuckle. He would have managed it if he was in a better mood and not thinking about that kid with the orange head.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, they’re nearly longer than mine now. You’re gonna be impossible to chase down soon enough."

“I went dress shopping with Bazine and her mother the other day. She was getting some school clothes. I bought you some things as well but we’ll need to have them taken in given you’ve grown just in a few months.”

Ben frowns down at his plate, although it is not the chicken’s fault for his increasingly bad mood.

“She’s going to be attending Miss Jocasta’s Ladies. Just across town from where you’ll be at Ackbar’s.”

Ben nods, pretending as if this is interesting but from the tone she’s using not even she is really entertained by it. He hates to think of Bazine sitting here and her mother laughing in that snivelliing way she does when she tells stories. 

His own mother can’t stand their company. That much he knows. And to think they come here often and dine with his mother. To think that now that he’s home he will probably have to attend one of their parties again. Dreadful unless Rey gets invited too. Unfortunately, Rey doesn’t get to attend everything he does. And he’s not entirely sure why.

He’s never even been in her house. She’s never been in his. They only ever get to meet at their spot in the forest or at gatherings.

“I doubt there will be many chances to interact though, rules are rather strict in boarding school. Luke went to Ackbar’s Academy and heaven knows I rarely saw him when we were–”

“Why don’t we ever invite the Palpatine’s over?

His mother pauses, looking at him curiously.

“Pardon?”

“The Palpatine’s. They’ve never been over and we’ve never been to theirs. That’s odd considering we are neighbors, isn’t it?”

His mother takes a sip of her tea before settling her cup and tray back on the table. “Why are you thinking about the Palpatine’s?”

Ben has tried to be as methodical as he can be but he’s never been the most subtle. “Miss Reyna is very kind. But I think often lonely. It would be polite to offer an invitation, would it not?”

“Reyna Palpatine,” his mother nods, not looking or sounding surprised in the slightest. “You’ve missed her, I take it.”

He accepts his mother is not ignorant of his friendship with her but they haven’t discussed it really. At one point she even seemed grateful he had made a friend about his age, although it always seemed to bother her that Rey was…Rey.

“I…suppose we could try. To be honest, I’m not sure Reyna’s grandfather would accept.”

“Why?”

“Just because we have similar circles of friends doesn’t mean we think of each other that way.”

“But Rey’s not like him.”

“I’m sure she’s not but…it’s just complicated.”

Ben slumps back in his chair. “In what way?”

“In a way you are too young to learn about, Benjamin.” Her tone changes then. It’s not a topic she will budge on.

Ben sighs, crossing his arms.

“Why is everyone so rude to her?”

“Who? Little Reyna?”

“Yes,” Ben says impatiently, forgetting his manners but not in the interest of finding them, considering. He thinks of how Bazine spoke to her when they first met, the comment she made about letting her in the house. How other ladies seem to mention her with a sense of pity.

“Rey is not–”

“Rey?” His mother frowns, having never heard the nickname. Ben curses himself for slipping.

“Miss Reyna, excuse me, is not like her grandfather.”

“Of course she’s not, I’m not saying that at all, Benjamin. She’s a sweet girl, she’s just–”

“Just what? What’s wrong with her? Why does everyone either forget her or scold her?”

His mother gives a long sigh, a good sign they are the only ones in the room aside from Mr. Threepio. She doesn’t let her facade fall in front of many.

“I’m…I’m not entirely sure.”

The admission of acknoweldgment instead of denying it made something sharp poke at his chest. His mother knew Rey was treated unfairly and didn’t do anything.

It hurt. Especially when he was already upset.

The next day, when he finally found Rey at their spot in the forest, he tried not to still feel angry. And her presence helped that greatly.

She hadn’t changed a bit. Maybe a bit taller, but so was he.

The squeal she made when she opened the box to see all the trinkets he had collected for her filled him with joy. He should never have doubted it.

The shells, the pinecones. She gasped at the photograph he was now embarrassed by. All this time he’s been talking up his home as a fortress by the sea when she can now see for herself it is little more than a shack. It would likely fit in her grandfather’s lavish stables.

But she liked it.

Almost as much as she liked the hand-carved bunny he had made. His father had taught him how to whittle.

“I was just trying to practice. Figured you might like one of my lesser attempts,” he shrugged when she held it up like some kind of relic, saying she would love it forever.

It was a half-truth of course. He had attempted about a dozen different times with various chunks of wood until he made one to his liking. Until he had made one good enough to gift her.

All his failed ones were either tossed in the fireplace in his frustration or narrowly saved by his father who insisted they were all very impressive.

“You brought all these things for me?” Rey asked him when she pulled away to look up at him. She almost looked like she could cry. But in a happy sort of way.

Hes made her happy. Something that feels better than…he can’t think of anything to compare it to.

And looking at her completely now he sees she’s wearing the dress the other boy gifted her from yesterday.

He clears his throat. “It’s nothing. Just little things.”

“No, I love them. Best things anyone ever gave me, really.”

“Really?” he frowns, looking at the fine detail on the gown she was wearing…but then he sees the mud at the hem. Too much for how early it is and how she can be cautious when she wants to be. Which means she seemed to be getting muddy (and even torn) on purpose.

He must be grinning from ear to ear.

“Thank you, Ben.”

“You’re welcome.”

He wants to ask her who the boy was. He hated to think he was possessive of Rey’s attention. After all, he can’t expect to be her only friend. The poor girl spends so much time alone as it is, it’s wrong of him to be upset by it. 

But she has a way of pulling him from his thoughts with ease. Something he had missed greatly. 

“Your home sounds wonderful. I wish I could have gone with you.”

It wasn’t appropriate for her to say. Even at their age they should be speaking more formally. Even if they are the only ones there. None of it was exactly appropriate. 

Neither was what he said though.

“Then I’ll take you there someday…”

Dear Ben,

I’m sorry to hear the boys in your dorm are such pricks. You said it much nicer than that but since you are a gentleman and this is only a letter (and I am hardly a lady), I will say it for you.

And this way (unless this letter is delivered to the wrong person) I can express my frustration by writing all the swears that I would be punished for saying aloud. So forgive me for the crass passage that follows. For writing them, and knowing you are the reader, is the only way to uphold my sanity.

I must also apologize for my absolute twat bird bastard of a grandfather because, sadly, our beautiful fucking fortress was torn the bloody fuck down after one of the maids found me in a tree and was appalled to see the missing sheets from the house had been used for a roof. 

I had fallen asleep like a complete shit for brains and not heard my name called for dinner, and did not even hear her approach because Chewie must have somewhere else to nap that afternoon.

Unfortunately, without a dog’s ears, I was compromised and it led to the discovery of all our hard work because my grandfather said that a lady does not climb “goddamn trees!”

I told him I made it myself so you are not suspected however he did confiscate all of the britches you had passed down to me so on the off chance you’ve grown again, I could really use some more. Although I doubt I’d fit into anything you’ve been wearing lately. You’re getting too fucking tall. But I suppose you warned me of that since our first meeting.

I’m sorry to complain. I suppose it’s just not the same anyway by myself. I am accustomed to solitude and in a way I prefer it. But there is something about your company that makes me notice now how alone I really am. I am not mentioning that for sympathy, it is merely an observation of the kind of friend you are. Especially since you have always insisted you were horrible company.

I assure you Ben Solo you are missed dearly. I know you only have complaints of the city but I would still rather be there because at least it wouldn’t be so bloody quiet.

And because you’re there, of course.

Anyways, I can sense that Ms. Phasma is marching the halls hunting me down and I have to conceal this letter before I really get punished. I suppose I will have to take out the rest of my frustration on a poor tree armed with a stick and those fencing forms you taught me.

Hurry home! Please!

Sincerely,

Rey

P.S. One more. FUCK!

Ben’s side hurt by the time he finished reading, although he couldn’t help but feel his heart sink. 

Her grandfather insisted she continue to be schooled by tutors at home instead. She had begged to go to school and he had refused.

So Ben always sends her letters of how boring it is so she doesn’t feel like she’s missing out.

But he can see that Lord Palpatine seems determined to ensure his granddaughter grows up as quiet, calmly, and ladylike as possible. And in doing so he’s sequestered her to that foreboding manor (that Ben has still never stepped foot in) and far away from anyone.

He waits until the aforementioned pricks in his room leave and the rowdiness vacates the hall outside before he settles at the desk and writes her back, two pairs of too-short britches folded beside him ready to make the journey back to Chandrila to her.

He tells her they can rebuild the fortress anytime but it was hardly what he liked so much about their spot. It was because that time and space would be theirs for however long they needed it.

And when he placed some leaves and flowers in the package as well, he only did so because he knows her fondness for green things.

Ben is admiring the pond that his spot at the teahouse overlooks. He always looked at the water with fondness. With the ocean being so integral to what he admires about his home in Maine.

But he looks to it now, recalling not a week before when he was home and he and Rey splashed in the pond with Chewie in Chandrila. 

At fifteen now, he knew better than to have let it get so out of hand, he went home soaking wet. And he was ashamed later on when he kept thinking about how Rey’s clothes clung to her. He wasn’t sure why it had captivated his thoughts so much. He had taught her how to swim years earlier in that same pond and he wasn’t thinking this much about her then.

But even now as he looks to the water, his imagination run wildly, as if Rey walked out of it’s depths. Her eyes closed as she tries to gather her hair in her hands.

“Benjamin!” 

A shrill voice pulls him from his thoughts, reminding him of his surroundings in the dreadfully crowded teahouse. Particularly the girl sitting across from him.

“You always do that. Your attention wanders and then I’m practically talking to myself.”

“My apologies, Miss Netal,” Ben clears his throat. “My wits are not with me today,” he says truthfully as he devotes his focus to the cup in front of him and blinking a few times when he only manages to think how the shade of the liquid is not dissimilar to Rey’s eyes.

He’s not sure what’s wrong with him. It’s been like this since he arrived back in London for school, he’s not absorbed a single lecture in his several days back in courses.

“Clearly,” Bazine scoffs. “This is the only time we will see each other until we both return home to Chadrila for the holidays.”

Ben nodded in understanding but was grateful this would be the only opportunity. Isolated conversation with Bazine was always grueling. Not from lack of trying either. He’s tried plenty. He just has nothing in common with her.

She didn’t like to read. She didn’t like music. She hated any talk about Maine or his father. She hated Chewie. She hated dogs in general, screaming hysterically if one barked anywhere near her. 

What kind of person took no enjoyment in anything?

And he didn’t like her. Even her voice. Not that he told her that, he was enough of a gentleman to do that. 

But it seemed Bazine was not enough of a lady. She scoffed at him every time he spoke, saying that his accent was intrinsically ‘backwood’ or ‘savage’ and she was embarrassed for him for sounding so American. 

Something she reminds him of when he apparently speaks too loud when some noblewomen pass by their table.

“Honestly, you don’t even attempt to sound civilized, Benjamin.”

“I’ve never heard anyone else complain about how I speak other than you, my lady,” Ben grumbles between his teeth. “I talk as my father does.”

Bazine scoffs in a manner meant to insult him. And it makes him wonder if she resents him as much as he does her.

“Well, from what I hear, that’s nothing to brag about.”

Ben’s eyes narrow at her blatant comment. “What have you heard about my father?”

“I hear he spends more gambling than he makes in carpentry. Which isn’t surprising considering the dwellings Americans find so lavish.”

Something ugly grew in his gut. Refusal and even betrayal he felt from his mother to expect this from him. To put him in this situation.  

His mother wasn’t betrothed so now he must be? 

That hardly seemed fair.

He looks out the window for some kind of sanctuary only to see the frenzied image of Rey in the water again.

He shuts his eyes and wonders when Rey, a safe space in his mind, had begun to feel like torment.

Ben has never been called home before but considering the trouble he’s been having with the other boys (not that he ever starts it) and the excuse to go home for a few days, he didn’t question it. 

Although the quickly approaching date of his sixteenth birthday certainly made him nervous she was going to do something awfully embarrassing. Hopefully not some sort of ball or party that would be more a punishment than having to stay at school.

However, it’s while he’s wrestling with the back of the carriage to release his massive trunk and simultaneously trying to swat Chewie’s insistent wet nose out of his own, that he hears the clearing of a throat very familiar to him.

And he realizes what the surprise was.

“Hey, kid.”

Ben’s trunk crashes to the ground as he looks up to see none other than his father sitting on the front steps with a smirk on his face.

“Dad?”

“Yup.”

“Dad!” Ben exhales in surprise rushing forward to embrace him and the man laughs.

“Damn, you got tall…look at you,” Han pulls him back by the arms to look him up and down. Their eyes are nearly level now. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Well, kids still have birthdays don’t they?”

Ben rolls his eyes and his father shoves his arm playfully. “‘Scuse me, young adults. Young men, I mean.”

“You came all this way for my birthday?”

His father shrugs in that way he does that is meant to convey that it’s nothing or it’s so easy it hardly made a difference. But his father hasn’t been here, to stay, for years it seems. And Ben feels…well, it’s a rare feeling. Something special.

“Did Luke come?” Ben looks around for a bearded man.

“Oh, you know that kid. He’s always building a chapel somewhere and trying to sleep on rocks and talk to clouds. Couldn’t pull him away from important work like that, could I?”

Ben laughs when his Dad pulls him by the shoulder and ruffles his hair.

“Guess not.”

“Well…I guess it’s just me. Disappointing as that is. In tow with your sixteenth birthday present.”

“My–”

A loud whinny of a horse from the stables interrupts him and Ben’s eyes blow wide. His jaw hangs open.

“Did you–?”

“Well, you already had a dog, didn’t you?” Han laughs, patting Chewie on the back. “Thought you could use some speed.”

They enter the stables to see a young but wiry back steed trotting in place in the stables. There is a beautiful shine to his coat and Ben smiles when the beast seems to settle with a carrot offering.

“He’s beautiful.”

“Fast too. Wait till you see him. He’s from good American breeding so he’ll only get bigger, just like you,” Han pokes him like he always does and Ben can’t help but smile. “And he’s been on a boat for far too long so he’s going to need a lot of exercise. But I’m sure Mr. Threepio would just love to take him out while you’re busy at school.” Ben laughs at the vision that would be. The small man would be screaming all over the country.

“You like him?”

“I love him,” Ben nods, hugging his father tight. He always forgets how much he misses the man until he hears his voice again and this way he can hide his tears against his father’s shoulder. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Of course, kid.”

It was the best birthday he had ever recalled having. 

His parents didn’t argue, just teased and his mother rolled her eyes a lot but she smiled too. More than she has in a long time.

The maids and butlers were not utilized for the evening and it was just the three of them and Chewie in the sitting room, eating their dessert on the coffee table. Ben was astounded. They had never been allowed to eat in any other room but the dining room. The rugs and furniture were too valuable apparently. But for once, not valuable enough to prevent them from casting propriety aside. 

Ben ate at least half the cake himself. Chewie took a big bite out of his father’s portion when he wasn’t looking and his mother laughed so hard she rolled back on the rug. Ben laughed too, mostly because it been too long since he heard that noise. 

He forgot how hard his mother could laugh. Or how wide she could smile when she meant it.

She proceeded to pass him too many presents she had wrapped for him.

“I’m afraid I can’t compete much with a horse,” she sighed as she took a sip of her drink. 

When Ben opened a set of new calligraphy pens and ink, he found himself even hugging her. Which they rarely did anymore.

And he wondered to himself if this is how it always could have been if they had stayed in Maine when he was a baby. 

If only that could have been their reality.

Oddly enough though, he finds himself unable to wish for that life completely. After all, how would he meet Rey if he never left Maine?

The next day, he and his father rode horses side by side surrounding the whole estate. 

Han told him that the horse, his new horse, had come from a farm in Maine and was in need of a name. His father seemed to think it was a joke when he thought Silencer would fit considering the steed made ‘a hell of a lot of noise’ when he got angry.

“Well, so do I,” Ben had shrugged with a smirk.

They rode around and Ben got to see Chandrila from a perspective he rarely had and he got to do it with his father. And he was just so happy he wasn’t in London. 

“Race you to the pond?”

“That’s cheating, you know the path better than I do,” his father laughs.

“Excuses,” Ben laughed as he urged Silencer to a gallop and left his father in his dust.

Traversing trees and leaping over fallen logs, Ben feels free. The wind hitting his face vigorously bears him no pain. If anything it makes his smile all the wider.

He can’t recall a time he had felt so free.

The pond comes into view and with no sign of his father behind him, he hops off the big horse and lets him walk the rest of the way to get some water. Ben pats the steed’s side with pride, amused at the huff he gives.

They are about ten feet from the shallow shore when he hears the snap of a branch above him. He cranes his neck up in an instant to see a figure huddle closer to the gathering of leaves. Chewie doesn’t even bother to bark, he knows it’s her as well.

Even without seeing her, it could be no one else.

“Rey?”

“Ben?”

Ben chuckles at the sound of her equal surprise. “Good to see you are same as always,” he beams at the shake of the leaves, imagining the smile on her own face.

In the distance he can hear the gallop of his father’s horse.

“I–I didn’t think it was you at first,” Rey calls down, her voice softer than he expected. “You’re supposed to be at school.”

“My mother surprised me for my birthday,” he explains, waiting impatiently by the trunk for her to descend. But she remained in the tree. “My father is home. I want you to meet him.”

“Your father?”

“He got me a horse,” Ben beams, giving some slack to the reigns enough that Silencer can reach the water so Ben doens’t have to move from his spot. “Come down and meet them. You’ll love Silencer.” Not to mention he was eager to see her, perhaps offer his hand when she hopped down.

Even though she wouldn’t need it.

Chewie was scratching the trunk, waiting for Rey to climb down and scratch his ears. He was no better than the dog.

“Um…”

Ben laughs, “Don’t tell me you’re scared suddenly. You’ve scaled down from higher points than that.”

“Ben.” Her tone is short and it makes his smile fade in an instant as he realizes that she is not as pleased to see him as he is to see her.

Ben frowns at her hesitance. He should have had the foresight to consider that she was unwell but instead, selfish boy he was, assumed it had to do with him. His initial suspicion was that her thoughts of him had aged as his had of her. Only instead of maturing fondly (perhaps too fondly in his case) maybe she now disproved of his company as so many others did.

“My apologies,” Ben clears his throat, stepping further from the tree and joining Silencer by the water, already feeling devastation sweep through all the spaces in his chest where Rey lives. “That was rude of me.”

He hears a sniffle and it’s then he registers the rare occurrence taking place.

She’s crying.

“Rey, what’s–?”

The wild neigh of his father’s horse cuts off his words and Chewie trots around happily that the scent of his favorite people are all together, unaware of the tension he has arrived to.

“Told you he knew how to book it, didn’t I?” Han laughed hopping off his own horse and stepping over to clap a hand to his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Ben nods, but hyper fixated on the tree behind him. His attention feeling distant suddenly. “He’s wonderful.”

“That he is.”

A solid thud behind him and the joyful charge Chewie gives to knock her over tells him Rey is out of the tree. Han laughs jovily. “Well, I take it we aren’t going to be robbed.”

“My apologies,” Rey says, no trace of sadness in her voice. “Thought it best to announce myself.”

“My God, that was a jump,” his father gasps, his eck craned up at the tree she had descended from. “You alright, little lady?”

Rey gives a small giggle and Ben’s stomach eases enough to turn to look at her, only to have it sink as soon as he sees her.

Her tears have been wiped away but on her left cheek, he sees the distinct outline of what he knows to be a hand.

She knows he sees but she ignores his gaze, turning her head to the side to pat Silencer’s back. “You’re right, Ben, I do like him.” Chewie is not pleased Rey’s attention is on the horse and barks in that whining way he does when he’s needy.

“Rey–”

“Ben, who’s your friend?”

“Uh,” Ben clears his throat, turning to his father and realizing he’s forgone his responsibility for introductions in this situation. “Father, this is Miss Reyna Pal–”

“Oh, Rey. This is her?” His father’s brows lift up in amusement. 

Rey curtsies politely but nevr takes her hand off the horse. “You must be Mister Solo. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Your son has told me so much about you.”

“Han, please. And likewise. Ben talks about you all the time. ”

“Dad.”

“Heard you’ve got a mouth to rival a sailor,” Han laughs and Ben blanches in horror.

“Dad!”

Thankfully Rey laughs. “When provoked. And only around those I trust which amounts to your son, so my apologies.”

“Fair enough.”

Rey smiles sweetly before her eyes flit back to Ben. “Happy Birthday, by the way.”

Ben nods, but his throat is too dry to be capable of speech.

“I just sent my birthday letter to you. How awkward you won’t be there to receive it, now I’ve got nothing for you.”

“Hell, he got to see you. That’s plenty,” Han smirks and Ben gulps. 

“Dad,” Ben mumbles.

“You got this horse for him?” Rey asks his father, now untucking hair from her ear to drape over her face, obstructing the redness of her cheek.

“I did,” his father nods, stepping forward to pat the horse himself.  “Beautiful,isn’t he?”

“He’s lovely,” Rey sighs, petting his mane. The horse isn’t capable of purring but it almost sounds like he is. 

“No fair, you get a dog and a horse when I have none,” she scrunches her nose playfully at Ben. 

It should reassure him but her eyes are still red though. Ben tries to play along even though she has always been much better at pretend than him. “Chewie prefers you anyway. I’m sure it won’t be long before it’s the same for Silencer.”

“Course it’ll happen faster if you get to ride him,” Han suggests. “What do you say, wanna go for a jaunt?”

Ben’s face heats up at what his father is implying. Rey would need to join him on horseback if she accepts the offer. He’s not sure if he’s grateful or disappointed when she shakes her head.

“You’re sure?” His father pressed. “We’re gonna head back after, do you want to join us for din–”

“REEEEYYYNAAA!”

All three of them hear the sound of her name called in the wind by a voice in the distance. Instantly Rey stiffens.

“I better get gonig. Thank you for the invitation though.”

“You’re welcome anytime. Door is always open for any friend of Ben’s.”

It’s not. His father has to know that, doesn’t he? As does Rey.

Rey’s lips press together and nods quickly. “Thank you…Han.”

It’s a nice sentiment anyway. It’s nice to pretend.

“I’ll see you soon, Ben,” she calls out, not turning around even though Ben doubts his father missed the redness of her cheek by that point.

“Soon,” Ben promises as she rushes away down the path.

Ben isn’t sure how much time passes before his father settles what feels to be a now sympathetic hand to his shoulder.

“We should head back,” Ben insisted quickly before turning back for his horse.

That feeling of freedom was fleeting.

They weren’t too off from that same spot just days later when his father’s face turned apologetic, pulling Ben from his continued thoughts of a handprint on a freckled cheek. 

“Listen, kid…”

Those two words and Ben knows everything is about to change. His head lowered instead of scanning his surrounding looking in the trees for a girl who may be hiding.

Because he understands now. All the time Han had been spending with him is for a reason. 

And Ben suspected it had been from guilt of lost time, but now he thinks it might be something else. Perhaps a different kind of guilt.

“You’re leaving already?” Ben looks away, wondering how he let himself get so swept up. 

“No, no, not yet. There’s just something we need to talk about.”

Ben looks to him warily, in preparation for something equally as humiliating as one of the last big talks they shared.

His father smirks. “Don’t worry it’s not that. I’m pretty sure we already had that talk a few summers ago.”

Mortified, Ben shakes his head. “That’s not what I–”

“Unless you have some specific questions.” Han raises his eyebrows and Ben chooses to ignore how his father’s eyes flit above to the trees. A not so subtle reference to Rey.

“What were you going to say?” Ben blurts out in a rushed panic to abort the other subject.

Han sighs and his gaze focuses on his hands where he’s fiddling with a piece of wood. 

“You won’t be able to come see me next summer, kid.”

He had not been expecting that. The ground beneath his own feet seems far away suddenly, and the sky seems to be spinning.

“What?” His mouth feels so dry.

“I won’t be there.”

“Why?!”

“A buddy of mine and myself are taking a bit of an expedition. A lotta folks are moving west and when people expand and want to build, people like me come in handy.”

“There’s plenty other people who can do that then. Why do you have to go?”

“Made a deal. Gotta keep my word.”

“What about your word to me!? You said I’d always be welcome home.”

“Ben, this is your home.”

“No! No it’s not! I hate my school, I hate the clothes, I hate the rules! And the only reason I haven’t lost my mind is–”

Ben shuts his mouth. He’s not sure what he was going to say. 

No that’s a lie. He does. 

Clearing his throat, he thinks of another lie. “The only thing that keeps me from going insane is knowing I get to leave for the summers.”

“Ben you’re smart. Smarter at your age than I am now or ever will be. You’ve got a future here that I could never have. You’re going to be someone here. I want that for you.”

“I don’t want that for me. I don’t want to be anybody. I just want to…”

“What?”

“I want to make my own choices. I can’t do that here.”

Han gives a small chuckle, as if any of this could be funny. “I doubt that.”

“How could you do this? Just leave us? Lecture me on the importance of making a life here I don’t want when you were too much of a coward to do it yourself!”

“Ben.”

“No! You left us! You leave all the time and you only come back to give me a gift, distract me from noticing what a bastard you’re being for fucking leaving!”

“Ben!”

Ben evades the hand that attempts to seize his arm as he hops on his horse and flees.

Out of the cover of the trees, rain pelts against his face and mixes with his tears.

All this time he thought of his father as the one who understood when in fact his father was the one that always left. 

He doesn’t care that he’s leaving him to this life. He never cared. Even the invitation to Rey, it’s like he’s mocking Ben in a world that he knows is unfair and saying that it’s what’s best for him. When he well knows the arrangement in place with the Netals. And what has he done to rid him of it?

But it hurts more than anything that it’s not more of a surprise. Like he’s known all along but has hidden it away. 

Hidden away and yet right in front of his face all this time. 

Quite like the branch that strikes him so hard in the face he falls off the horse entirely.

He lands heavily in the mud, his ears ringing and his face stinging painfully. Only one eye opens and in the wash of the rain pouring over him he sees the blood stain his clothes.

“Fuck,” he hisses to himself, looking around for Silencer. He hears him up ahead, likely confused as to where his rider went.

Ben heaves himself to his feet, blinded by rain and blood and pain and guided only by the sound of the horse getting further away. Shame, embarrassment floods him that he couldn’t keep himself together enough to stay on the damn horse. Now Silencer will be gone, his father will be gone, he’ll have to go back to the school he hates. And his only true friend in the world suddenly seems so much further away now in Chandrila than she was when he was in London.

Once again, he is wrong. 

The sounds of Silencer’s approaching hooves and rain nearly block out the sound of his name called frantically through the rain.

“Ben!”

Ben looks up to see Rey ride up on his horse beside him, hopping down with the reigns in her hand and holding tight. 

“You’re bleeding! What happened?”

“I just–” Her hand finds his cheek, a handkerchief plastered to his skin with the rain. “Didn’t see the branch, it’s…it’s nothing.”

“Ben, it doesn’t look good,” she tells him quickly. “You…you need a doctor.”

“I–”

“Come on, I’ll help you get back on Silencer.”

Her hands grip his arms in a gentle but firm manner. “Rey,” he shakes his head, stalling by Silencer’s middle to look at her. He can still only open one eye.

“Get on the horse, Ben.” Her tone is softer then, but her face is stricken by worry. But all he can truly gather is that thankfully her cheek looks better. 

He doubts she feels better though.

“Rey.”

“You’ll be fine, just get on the horse.”

Ben knows, as a now sixteen year old boy that leaving his father to cry on his own is pathetic enough. Something he is too old for on it’s own. And he should know better than to let his defenses slip any further with her to see him.

“Ben?”

But he doesn’t.

His lip trembles and a sob escapes him, tears from his throat. He feels small and weak and ugly and-

“I know. It’s okay,” she breathes out, her fingers gentle on his cheek where she wipes at his wound.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, thinking how selfish he must be. He isn’t sure what happened to Rey the other day but she is the one to hold him up and be there for him when she had to stay strong and hide her feelings.

“I’m sorry, Rey.”

She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. Her arms thread under his and her head leans against his chest, holding him close. 

“Everything will be okay,” she tells him.

He knows she’s getting blood on her dress. He knows this is not appropriate. He knows she is likely right and he needs to get to a doctor.

Still, he hugs her tight. And it’s when his chin is tucked over her hair when he’s certain he’s never hugged anyone besides his parents. At most maybe some of his mother’s old friends or their staff when he was a young boy.

But even excluding all that, this feels different.

He’s never been this close to anyone and he knows he’s breaking every etiquette rule in every one of Mr, Threepio’s book. He knows they are nearly of courting age (if not already) and their solitude alone could be enough to ruin them. 

And in that moment, he hopes they are. He hopes they are ruined. Then they would have to stay together, wouldn’t they?

This is where he would like to stay. This space where tears are free to be shed and not scolded or mocked. 

Later

It must be out of pure desperation that Rey allows Ben to enter her house. She is clearly more focused on tending to the child crying in one of these rooms and likely knowing that he would follow her anyway. 

She rushes off  as soon as she's inside and only turns around to tell him to stay where he is so he didn’t drip all over her floors. 

Part of him wants to go back outside and break something, hating that the manifestation of all he had dreaded is materializing before him. Everything he’s been trying to deny his mother had shared.

He had screamed at her wildly demanding she tell him where Rey was. This was of course, after he had stormed into Palpatine’s house, broke into his office, and found the many letters that were locked in his desk drawer. Thankfully the owner of the manor was not. For if he was, Ben would be on the run from the law for murder. 

But then Rey storms back out to where he is, rifle gone and some parchment in her hand before she settles it flat against the table. Her eyes piercing and angry. The most of an invitation he will get.

He tries to find words, but he can't. In the light of the cottage he sees her features clearly and he is unsettled to see her look at him like she never has before. Like she doesn't know him. He means to ask what she’s offering but she turns away and into what he suspects to be the nursery.

Looking down and marching for the nearest candlelight, he sees what appears to be one of his letters. It looks so like his own hand, he is nearly deceived himself.

But these are not his words.

Someone did indeed forge this. But it’s an excellent likeness and…it kills him to see it now, knowing what it has cost them as he quickly skims over it's contents.

All these months he had been so naive. He knew the chances of Rey’s letters reaching him would be slim in his travels, but he never imagined that the only one that arrived to Rey was one of great deception. He doesn’t know who wrote it but it had to be someone studying his own letters, his own penmanship, and preying on Rey’s vulnerabilities.

The lines he reads in a frenzy strike him like blows to his head along with every little whine he hears coming from the child in the other room. Another man’s child. 

Rey,

I sympathize with you and think of you still as a dear friend, however, I have made longstanding commitments to Bazine. You and I both know this.

He hears Rey shush the baby softly, assuring them all was well. Ben feels dizzy. He even loses his place and his eyes start at another random part of the letter, only to make him feel worse.

Any promises I might have made to you were done so in feverish moments of lust or to appease my growing needs as I matured into adulthood. I had supposed you were doing the same. With the dissolution of our meetings, now we can both move forward grateful for such experiences. 

“Shh, I’ve got you, love,” Rey whispers to a now-quiet baby in a now-quiet cottage but his ears are pounding. 

I wish you the best in your endeavors and that this letter does not find you too heavily impacted by my confessions. 

Everything around him blurs and his head feels heavy. Everything crashed into him. Everything he’s always hoped for shattered in a matter of minutes. In only so many words that she thinks him capable of.

Perhaps Armitage would still be open to the arrangement that had been earlier rescinded.

Apologies,

Ben 

He teeters for a moment…and then he collapses to the floor. 

Chapter Text

Summer in England is as muggy as he imagined it might be.

The weather is humid but the expectation of endless layers and stiff collars remained. 

Still, that first summer home was not as morose as expected. He and Rey met in the woods nearly every day. He would bring leftover biscuits for her to try when she told him she hadn’t had a biscuit in years. He let her keep the whole box. 

He never admitted it outright but she was the better rider between the two of them. Once she hopped on Silencer and held out her arm for him to join her. He sat behind home, his arms having nowhere to go but her waist. Her hair smelled of fresh flowers. And when she looked over her shoulder to smile at him, his nose bumped hers. 

As incidental as it was, Ben never forgot it. His face seemed to buzz for days. At dinner his mother even asked him with a chuckle why he was tracing the line of his nose and smiling so much. Ben does not recall which lie he gave her but he knows it was unconvincing.

Rey lit up something in him. She made him feel…weightless. 

It’s taken this long just to find a way to describe it at all, but that’s what she does to him. She makes him feel like he's flying. 

But that was last summer. 

Whereas last summer he was able to trick himself that he was still young enough to ignore responsibilities and frolic in mud, that was not to be tolerated this year. It’s been grueling. Stiff collars stay on, heat only gets worse. At least in Maine, there was the sea breeze. 

But most prominently, Rey was not home. Had not been for months meaning he had not seen her since the holiday breaks during the New Year. 

When he returned from school for the summer recess, Mr. Threepio remarked how the Palpatine house was vacant while they were away but was unsure where they had gone.

Ben hasn’t received a letter from her. He has no address to know where to send one. She made no mention of leaving in her letters while he was at school. And it unsettles him.

Something wasn’t right. 

He wanders around with Chewie in the woods, imagining what Rey must do when he’s gone. 

He climbs and tries to find that whimsy of the woods that he has always associated with these trees. But for now, it seems different but he supposes that has to do with his anger and frustration with his situation.

He was still upset with his father. Almost more so this second summer without as much distraction. 

He wonders where he is right now. The last letter Ben got from him explained he was in San Francisco. Supposedly a beautiful place that was colder in the summers than it was in the winters. It simply didn’t snow. 

But Ben doesn’t write back. Or he at least hasn’t sent any. He’s written many angry letters but has either torn them up or stuffed them away.

He couldn’t. It still stings. And while he knows that’s childish, that he’s old enough to know he should accept it and move on, consider himself lucky to have a father, Ben knows he’s still too emotional about it. Something a boy(some might say young man but he would not) should not be.

Flashes from the day he broke down and cried in Rey’s arms return to the forefront of his mind.

Not that they ever spoke of it. Their embrace. But they both knew and felt that something had changed that day.

But maybe they would have if not mentioning anything of the instance didn’t make him choke back tears. 

He did try to ask her, later, who had struck her but she changed the subject instantly. Almost before he even asked the full question. She did not wish to talk about it even if he had already explained why he was so upset that day. 

His mood lately has been foul. And more due to the continued sting of his father’s betrayal and Rey’s absence.

Unfortunately, the Netals had to be in town for the summer. They usually holiday in Greece or France but this summer they have stayed and he has had to evade their company many times as they seem intent on visiting…endlessly.

Those are usually the days he tries to sneak away and even finds himself mounting Silencer and pretending not to be grateful for a means of escape even though his father used the animal as a diversion for his.

But sadly, he can not evade everything. Private balls and dinners. Dances. 

However, it is an evening in late July when he finds himself at the Gatalenta Estate where Amilyn Holdo, one of his mother's oldest friends, was raised. He learns this is who his mother usually spends her summers with while he is gone. And the large summer celebration, complete with a banquet and music and sprawling greens, is open to one girl too many.

Bazine. 

She treated him as she always did but now she hooks an arm around his own, attempting to walk in turn with him between rooms. Even when he was speaking with other people their age, trying to force some conversation, she would poke at him. Straightening his cravat and reaching up to fix his hair. He flinches every time and picks up early enough to keep out of her reach.

Now reaching what is considered maturity, Ben can feel the pressure of this betrothal like never before. It suffocates him and it is more openly discussed amongst people Ben never even talks to. People just know, they are supposed to be married one day. Already spoken for.

The only time he can get real distance between them is when she accepts a drink her friend delivers to her. Ben doesn’t drink much but accepts glasses when passed to him even just to hold because it’s easier than facing the ridicule you receive when you decline drinks.

But damn, he’d almost prefer tracking his mother down and standing beside her, looking ten years old again. The company is miserable and he recalls why he’s spent so much time alone lately.

So when Bazine starts complaining, he initially ignores it. But then she makes an exaggerated noise as if she’s about to gag and it steeles him to attention if only to keep vomit off his boots.

But it’s not that.

“Ugh,” Bazine groans as brings the glass to her lips. “I can’t believe they even let her in here.”

Ben is scowling, swirling the liquid in his own flute (wondering if there was a half-dead plant he could pour some of it in to give the illusion he was drinking), before he turns to see what she means. And nearly drops the glass altogether.

Rey.

Suddenly Ben is frozen, caught breathless by the sight of his friend for the first time since the start of the year. Just by the sight of her alone is…well, that feeling of suffocation has yet to wane but not for the same reason as before. 

She walks into the room, her hand in the crook of her Grandfather’s elbow as they walk through the doors of the party. The music still plays and plenty of conversations carry on around him but it’s as if the room has gone empty. Silence ringing in his ears.

She’s wearing a pastel blue dress. Her hair is in a graceful braided bun but two strands frame either side of her face. Her lashes are long and fan over her cheeks when someone must compliment her.

She looks incredible.

Frankly, Ben is not ignorant of how his thoughts have changed of Rey over the years. He has been aware for too long that it’s been a long time since he has thought of her as the scrappy, wild, near-feral child who likes to run around in mud with his dog. 

He’s known that his feelings have betrayed him long before this moment. If she knew the things he has dreamt of her…she would no longer want him as a friend.

But he has known–feared–that he no longer wants her as a friend either. 

He wants more.

And he’s never been more aware of that than now, in this moment, when more than just his eyes are on her. It’s not until he notices the plunge of her neckline that he finally snaps away, knowing he needs to focus on something else quickly.

The floor, the chandeliers, the ugly hat on the woman sitting ahead of him, anything.

“Course she had to come back now,” Bazine mutters.

“Wh-Where has she been?” Ben croaks out, hating that Bazine seemed to have more answers than him. 

“Scotland, I imagine. Judging from their guests.”

Ben doesn’t know who she means, he can only seem to focus on Rey. He wonders if she sees him. He tries desperately to look at his boots, trying to think of how to calmly channel dozens of pressing questions into at least one calm one. But then Bazine speaks first.

“At least she’s getting put with someone more her pedigree, I just fear for the state of their offspring.”

Her words pull him from the internal war he was waging of trying to not look at Rey. “P-Pardon?” Something sharp in his gut clenches.

“You don’t know? Everyone knows,” she adds bitterly. “The Baron Brendol Hux’s son Armitage and her have been arranged. That’s probably why they went to Scotland. To ensure Brendol he was making a Lady out of her. Not that it’s working, she’ll always be–”

“Armitage?” he says a little too loudly. His neck snaps up to see where the redheaded man about his age approaches her with a smile before bowing to kiss her gloved knuckles. 

Something ugly within him writhes as he watches, thinking of the redheaded boy he saw, years ago. The fine gown he had gifted to Rey. His fears and suspicions he had half successfully buried arise with full force.

“They’re betrothed?”

“It only makes sense. Both were born out of wedlock and only lucky enough to have some access to society they can cling to. They’re perfect for each other. A perfect solution for their guardians.”

“She doesn’t even know him,” he practically spits out, glaring at the back of the boy’s head and despising the kind smile on Rey’s face that isn’t meant for him.

Rey never mentions other boys. He can’t explain why he’s grateful for it. He can’t explain why he hates watching her dance with other boys even though he’s dancing with Bazine.

“Doesn’t matter…although I almost feel sorry for him. At least his mother was a maid on his father’s estate. Her mother was nothing but a whore and her father died on the streets a drunk.”

Ben isn’t oblivious to the rumors people say of Rey’s parentage. But she has never spoken of it. And even if it were true, it seems cruel to hold any of that against her, as if she holds that responsibility when she is the least involved with her own coming to be.

“You shouldn’t speak of her like that,” he barely manages  to not grit through his teeth. “She’s not her parents. She’s her own person.”

“If she was born on the street that’s where she should stay. And it’s so difficult with whores to know who the father is anyway. She could just be the daughter of some peasant that Lord Palpatine was duped into raising. She comes from nothing…she’s nothing.”

Not to me.

“Miss Netal, I–”

“And Chandrila has been tainted enough by her infancy, hopefully it does not endure her marriage and they will return to the Hux’s estate in Arkanis.”

Ben tips back the glass into his mouth, his only strategy after he was stuck between smashing it or splashing the remaining liquid all over Bazine’s shoes.

Red hot rage burned his vision, his chest, and his head. 

So much so he wasn’t thinking as clearly as he should when he set his glass on the first available surface, didn’t bother to utter any sort of excuse to Bazine or his acquaintances, and all but marched right up to where Rey was listening to whatever the redhead was saying.

“Miss Palpatine,” he manages as calmly as he could.

The way her eyes snap to his in an instant, and the way she smiles when she sees it’s him…the unrest in his chest and stomach settle slightly. 

He sees how her lips purse, about to call him by his first name before she thinks better of it.

“Lord Solo.”

It seems to be a long moment where they just stare at each other before Rey breaks her eyes away and chuckles a little nervously before presenting the young man beside her.

“Mr. Solo this is Mr. Armitage Hux. He’s from Arkanis up north in Scotland.”

Ben extends his hand to the boy his age looking just as pleased to meet him. “Mr. Hux, this is Benjamin Solo. A childhood friend of mine.”

“Yes, you mentioned him before,” Hux grumbles as he takes Ben’s hand to shake. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Solo.”

“Pleasure is mine,” Ben grits out, matching Hux’s uninterested tone but trying to force a smile for Rey’s sake.

“Reyna tells me you have a beautiful Fresian steed. Insists he’s faster than any other horse.”

All Ben really focuses on is that Hux calls her by her first name. Not her preferred Rey but close enough to make his blood boil.

“Well, I’m not sure he’s the fastest but I have to agree he’s quite something.” Ben forgets just how fond Rey is of the steed. Already he decides he will feed him a dozen carrots when he gets home.

“I have a magnificent thoroughbred myself, quite fast. Should you ever wish to compare the speed.”

“I don’t really have much taste for racing, I’m afraid.”

“Then I suppose you can’t help me to convince Rey to a little competition. She rides most graciously on her new horse.”

New horse? He looks to Rey and she just gives him a strained sort of smile.

“Erm…The Baron Hux was kind enough to gift me with…a beautiful grey.”

“She is quite a natural,” Armitage smirks. But there is something sour about it. 

Ben is not a violent person but he has the strong compulsion to punch the boy in the face. 

As if Rey can read his thoughts she quickly changes the subject.

“Mr. Hux is a student at Cambridge where I believe you’ll be attending soon.”

Fuck.

“I will be, yes. What a coincidence.”

It’s not.

“Mr. Hux and his father are my grandfather’s guests for the remainder of the summer. I’m sure we’ll all see a lot of each other.”

Fuck.

His stomach burns again and when he hears the music stirring behind him he doesn’t even think, he just blurts it out.

“Miss Palpatine, if you are not engaged, I’d be honored if you took a turn with me for a dance.” He phrases it purposefully, hoping his cadence is light and not furious.

“I am not, sir,” she answers softly before nodding her head. “I’d be delighted, thank you.”

He offers her his arm and he strides towards the dancefloor with more enthusiasm than ever. He tries to exude confidence to those watching them and no doubt gossiping already. But truthfully he’s trembling.

He’s never danced with Rey in public. There were days when they were younger in the forest when he tried to teach her before she was exposed to the dances of society. She would stand on the toes of his boots, laughing as he turned her much more quickly than acceptable. Enough her feet would leave the ground and they usually land in a dizzy jumble on the ground.

Out in the ballroom however, he has most often been paired most often with Bazine though he is occasionally placed with other girls. He has never found these sort of dances particularly invigorating, perhaps always thinking of a time in the forest where not even music was needed to dance so freely. 

However, as he guides Rey to the dancefloor and takes her hand…his heart beats out of his chest, as if he has just run a mile. And he’s so overwhelmed with Rey so close to him in front of so many people that he is certain he has forgotten how to dance. She helps lead the way and it’s like the rest of the room falls quiet. Even the music sounds distant and muffled.

But when she tells him, softly, “I’ve missed you,” he hears just fine.

“I’ve missed you too.”

She smiles but her eyes wander around them. He is somewhat grateful, he is more capable of words when her eyes are not with his.

“You look…different.” 

He could kick himself.

“Not by choice, trust me,” she mumbles.

“You look beautiful.”

Her eyes return to his and he can’t help but think she looks almost confused.

“Because of the dress?” she challenges and he can see the slight way she narrows her eyes.

His heart skips.

“No.”

Her expression softens then and they continue to dance in silence. Until he opens his big mouth.

“Why didn’t you tell me you would be gone this summer?”

“I didn’t know I would be. My grandfather didn’t tell me.” Her answer is given quietly, with her eyes elsewhere.

Meanwhile he’s looking too closely.

“I’ve been very bored without you. There’s nothing to do.”

“I know…I’ve spent many summers here alone. But I’m sure you’ve got plenty other friends to keep you company.” He doesn’t miss the twist of her mouth. Something she tends to do when Bazine is the topic of discussion.

“You know I don’t.” He turns his head to see Armitage watching from the sidelines. “Who is he, really?”

“Who?”

“You know who I mean, Rey.”

He sees her swallow tightly, her eyes on the floor beneath them for a long exchange before she finally answers.

“He’s the son of a man my grandfather admires.”

Ben blanches.

“Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“Are you going to marry him?”

Rey looks up at him in horror.

“I…I don’t have an answer for that.”

“Because it is true?” He grips her hand tighter.

“Because I don’t have a choice.” 

“He’s a stranger. You don’t even like him.” He can see it in her features and even if he didn’t, he refuses to accept that she does. “He could propose to you tomorrow and then I’d never see you again.”

Rey gives a bitter sort of laugh with no hint of a smile. “I didn’t realize this was so difficult for you.”

When they first became friends, nearly every exchange they had was teasing in some respect.

But these words are not teasing. They are bitter and painful and so much heavier than their usual playful banter. Because it’s true, it is devastating for him but that is not the point she’s making. 

And he wants to apologize for his lack of foresight on her behalf. He wants to pull her close and assure her that he only fears of losing her because she is all he has left that he truly holds dear.

But he doesn’t. Fear and desperation still swirl in his thoughts before all else.

“How long have you known about this?”

This has likely been going on for years, this arrangement. Just like his and Bazine’s. Hux had visited her years ago. This is no happenstance.

“Why are you asking me like this is my fault?” Her words are sharp, her eyes narrowed.

“I’m not.”

“You are. Do you have any idea how scared I am all the time?” she asks him, her voice straining.

Ben wishes to pull her from the dancefloor, to take her away from this room, this party, and hug her. Like she had once done to him in his sadness and anger.

But this isn’t the forest. While it may appear as a lavish ballroom, it may as well be the jungle. Eyes are everywhere and everyone is aware of where they are in the societal food chain.

“Yes,” Ben insists, thinking of all he knows of her. Even the things she has never told him, but he knows how heavily they impact her.

Her house. Her lineage. Her grandfather. 

And now…this betrothal to a boy who looks like he’s inhaling something putrid every time Ben looks to him.

“I thought you of all people would understand,” Her voice tightens further and his legs struggle to move. Everything feels so heavy. 

How odd to be so transparent, so vulnerable amidst so many strangers. To be laid so bare. It strikes emotion in him quicker than he expects. 

Especially when he sees her eyes glaze over with tears. “It’s not as if you’re not arranged to marry Bazine. And it’s not as if I have ever acted ill towards you for it even though she has been nothing but cruel to me. All you had to exchange with him was a meager introduction.”

“Rey, I–”

“But you think you have the right to scold me for something I have no control over, someone that I did not choose...then maybe I don’t know you as well as I thought I did. And maybe you don’t know me.”

She sniffles and quickly presses a finger under her eye to keep a tear from falling. 

“You’re all I know.”

Her brows furrow then, confusion on her features.

He is not sure how long ago they stopped dancing but thankfully the applause around him tells him the song is over. 

“What does that mean?” she asks softly.

Ben only wishes he knew. 

No, that’s a lie.

He wishes he could find the words.

But others are spoken before he can.

“Mind if I reserve the next dance?”

Ben looks up to see the scowl of Armitage Hux’s face level with his own. Ben has no reason to hate him and yet every reason. Reason enough it seems to want to take the punch bowl and smash it over the boy’s head.

He doesn’t give an audible response, just a nod of his head and releasing his hold on Rey and marching for the nearest exit.

He makes it to the steps outside desperately in need of air, her words echoing in his ears.

A hand settles on his shoulder and he gasps in relief to know she followed him. 

She came to him.

But turning to see his concerned mother’s face and hope sinks like a rock in his gut.

“Ben, are you alright?”

“Fine,” he grumbles before pulling his arm away from her hold and retreating further away. 

There is not enough air out here either it seems.

The end of summer comes with relief and yet reluctance.

Relief because Chandrila was stifling in far too many ways. 

Reluctance because he had not spoken to Rey since the ball at the Mothma estate. 

It was wrong. 

Everything at home was wrong.

He searched the woods in the days following. Rey was never there. 

But staying wouldn’t mean it’s something he could fix. And as much as he felt hurt by the interaction, he was not shortsighted enough to assume he had not hurt her as well. Especially when she admitted to being scared.

When he was scared and vulnerable not so long ago, she did not corner him and push him for answers, she…she held him. 

When his chance to comfort her presented itself, he did the opposite.

He’s written letters left unsent. Nothing like the angry ones he had penned for his father. These were apologetic, as close as one can be to begging on their knees in written word. Hoping he had not lost his dearest friend.

But she’s not just that. He has to face that now. He can pretend that the shift in his feelings is sudden but he knows how he’s felt for Rey has always been this way. 

And he knows he should tell her. Tell her everything he’s felt for so long but can’t. Won’t.

He starts to get so desperate while he wanders the fringes of her property, in all their famous spots, and he tells himself when he sees her he will just let everything fly.

Of course, he knows better but it seems an eternity since he’s seen her. Their previous summer together seems eons away. 

He rode Silencer, hoping even if she didn’t want to speak to him, she would have been glad to see the horse or the faithful dog prancing by his side. Chewie has missed her, Ben could tell.

But they never crossed paths, as much as he attempted to. And considering how well Rey knows these trees, he assumes she can avoid him as much as she pleases.

And that’s her right.

He just wishes he could see her again, tell her all that himself. 

The leaves change colors, the humidity decreases, and the winds starts to pick up. Ben’s trunks reappear in his room and he has to prepare to leave. 

He’s to study business. Which is of no interest to him but they don’t teach carpentry and whittling at Cambridge.

Ben was attempting to drown himself in his studies and further from his shame and anger, and not succeeded in the slightest.

It is boring and frustrating and tiresome and that also goes for the company he finds himself often surrounded with.

Not to mention, he is made aware, early on, that Armitage Hux was something of a big name in the dorms. Ben had crossed his path a few times, around campus, through hallways. Once in the library.

They don’t exchange words although some glares might have been thrown. And not all from him so he can see the feeling is mutual.

Although that could very well just be the man’s face. 

However, it was Hux’s words that kept him from going home for Christmas. He overheard him bragging to his friends how he’d be seeing his betrothed over the holidays. Ben couldn’t bear to see them together again. So he wrote to his mother and lied about an apprenticeship he didn’t have. 

She was disappointed but supportive. Bazine was fuming. He didn’t care. Any anger against him wasn’t worth seeing what waited for him back home.

He wondered often if Rey would miss him, but she didn't even send him a letter on his birthday, which told him that she was done with him. 

It’s not until the snow melts when Ben and Hux finally do exchange words (if they could even be called that). And they were not easily forgotten.

He remembers clearly because it was Rey’s birthday. She was eighteen now. Something that unnerves him because plenty of betrothed women are wed far younger than that, so he wonders how much time she has left.

He had a letter written out and he was lost in thought, wondering if he would send it or set atop the stack of all the others. Even if he hasn’t sent any of his others and it would arrive days late. Even if she has never sent him a letter and it kills him to think of the ones she must be sending Armitage.

But it was pure chance Ben had gotten turned around (clutching the sweaty unsent letter in his hands) and had opened the wrong door only to find Armitage Hux and some girl draped over the edge of a desk in an otherwise vacant room. Moans and the creaking of furniture was the only things to be heard. 

They yelp when they see they’ve been caught and move in a flurry to separate. 

Ben slammed the door shut the moment he realized what he had walked in on and turned away. But as he started to rush down the hall, he skids to a stop. And considers the letter in his grip.

Rey hasn’t written him all these months. As wounded as his feelings may be, they remain unchanged in his regard for her. And to think that the man she might be writing her letters to is doing such lewd acts, betraying her, burns a fire in his core and he turns back around.

The door opens just as he approaches and Hux is haphazardly dressed as well as the girl behind him.

Hux just scowls. “Jesus, Solo, at least–”

Ben does as he has wished to do for months and strikes him in the face. The girl screams and runs off while Hux groans and holds his nose.

“Fuck! You absolute fucking–”

Hux takes a swing. Ben dodges it.

Then hits him again.

And again.

And again.

Ben sat across from Armitage as they waited outside the Dean’s office.

Ben had one bruise under his jaw and he suspects one beneath his eye as his range of vision seems to be decreasing.

But Hux was a bloody mess. Literally.

And they haven’t said a word since they were dragged out by their ears by the poor Professor whose classroom that had been.

Actually, they didn’t talk during the fight either.

So when Hux finally speaks, Ben flinches slightly, his fists ready to fly again should they need to.

“This is all over bloody Reyna Palpatine?”

Ben doesn’t answer. He’s starting to realize how much he has exposed himself. His feelings. Feelings that never ever go away despite how little he’s seen her in the past year.

“Because I know for a fact that the girl I picked up on the women’s campus was not your girlfriend,” he laughs like it’s a joke. “And I also know that you’ve been looking for a reason to hit me since Reyna introduced us.”

“She deserves better than you. Especially if this is who you really are.”

Hux scoffs. “I don’t care what she deserves. She’s not my wife.”

“She will be.” Ben’s stomach revolts at his own words.

“Not anymore.”

Ben wants to yell at him again but he’s trying not to look baffled by Hux’s answer. He wants to ask what he means but he doesn't want to hear him talk more.

But he doesn’t have to. Hux likes to hear himself talk plenty.

“She didn’t tell you?”

Ben shakes his head.

Hux laughs harder. “You really are pathetic. Starting a fight over nothing.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The arrangement is off. Palpatine was going to ensure that not a cent of his fortune would ever be passed to me even after the marriage, sneaky bastard. My father annulled the agreement immediately. Which is in everyone’s best interest really. I could see a marriage with her would not be as enticing as I had hoped, considering.” Hux bobs his head to the side, trying to crack his neck. Ben hopes he breaks it.

“Considering what?” 

“Considering she was more wild boy than young lady who despised my company and conversation. That and the one time when my father provided us with some much-needed privacy, she punched me harder than you did when I tried to kiss her,” he winces, holding a hand to his now purple nose. "Besides, she never shut up about you.”

Ben's jaw just hangs open for a moment.

This changes everything.

“I didn’t like her much anyway. She'd make an awful wife. Just imagine that thing as a mother, I mean, Christ."

"Don't talk about her like that," Ben snaps.

Hux just laughs. "Pardon me, I realized you'd prefer that animal for a wife. I have heard that Americans choose wives as delicately about as a hound chooses a bitch."

Ben erupts to his feet and launches for Hux, hitting him once more in the jaw just as the door opens and Ben realizes how much trouble he has landed himself in.

It earns him a short-term suspension. Two weeks away from his courses for disruptive behavior.

But he feels better than he’s felt in months.

Ben woke to the soft dancing light of a fire and closes his eyes again, preferring to sleep.

But then he recalls all that came before and he quickly blinks sleep away and groans, trying to will strength into his heavy limbs.

He sits up, instantly feeling dizzy again.

“Please don’t get up and pass out again. It was hard enough to drag your arse over here.”

He blinks to see Rey walking past him with a bowl in her hands. 

“And you’re heavier than you used to be,” she huffs, not looking at him. 

He grunts, holding his head as he sits up and sees that his shirt and socks were draped over a line in the fireplace, drying off. He looks down to see he’s wearing his still damp trousers.

“Here,” she sighs, offering him a bowl of what looks to be stew. “I take it you haven’t eaten in some time.”

She doesn’t look at him as he takes the bowl with the small slice of bread in it. She plops down on a stool and reaches out to feel the state of his clothes. They still seem fairly soaked so he takes he hasn’t been out long.

“You can sleep out here on the floor. Your clothes will be dry in the morning. You can leave when the rain stops.”

“Rey, I’ve come so far. I just want–”

“I’d have you sleep in the stable but it’s small and knowing Silencer there’s no space for you to not get stepped on.”

“Rey, wait,” he begs, still sitting on the floor and trying to ignore how the light shines through her chemise. He gulps, averting his eyes so as to not make a bigger ass out of himself than he has already. Even though it’s been so long.

He’s missed her so much and this is far from the reunion he had been imagining since the moment he left England over a year ago. It hurts to know she hates him, that while he’s been picturing their life she’s been diverted to another.

“I’m done waiting, Ben. I’m tired and I’m out of patience. I nearly burned that letter I got from you so many times. It’s words haunt me every day and now you mean to tell me it’s not even yours?”

Ben shakes his head, frantically. “Of course not!”

“Shh,” she urges, looking to the door of the nursery.

“Sorry,” his head hangs low. “I’ve never seen that letter in my life. I swear to you, I never–”

She holds up a hand, unable to look at him or to hear anymore.

She is clearly deep in thought. But Ben’s heart continues to crumble, picking up where it left off before he lost consciousness.

“You think me capable of saying those things? Of being so awful to you?”

“It describes instances only we would know, such as my visit to Cambridge.”

Ben blinks. He must have missed that part.

Frankly, he’s amazed he read as much as he did. It was overwhelming in the most disturbing of ways.

It makes him nauseous even when has little in his stomach and he knows he should be eating the food she offered him.

“But mostly it…I had assumed you had already read my letter and I was terrified. I knew it would change things but–”

“You wrote me?” Ben’s heart lifts slightly only to fall again. She had written him and he had not received it.

“Of course I wrote you,” Rey scoffs slightly. “The moment I learned you had left for the States...it was the only thing I could do. Honestly, Ben.”

“I never received…” Ben’s voice trails off, devastation heavy on his heart. But he thinks of his own letters from Palpatine’s office. 

He concealed them.

“Your grandfather was behind this then. That’s where I found the rest of my lett–Where’d they go?” He smacks a hand to his chest in the place where they were tucked in his pocket only he’s shirtless now.

“They’re on my table.”

“Did you read them?” Hope burns his eyes even.

“No…the parchment is too flimsy. I’d rip them if I tried.”

“I–I can tell you everything. All I did.”

“Ben, I can’t,” she sighs and she sounds so tired. “And as for my grandfather…he likely kept your letters from me considering how everything fell apart with your first one. Or…the first one,” Rey shakes her head like she isn’t sure what to believe. Even when he is here before her, she isn’t sure she trusts him.

He feels like crying.

“It is Armitage?” he croaks out pitifully, thinking of what the forgery had suggested to her.

She snaps her head to his with a scowl on her face. “Armitage?”

“Are you married to Armitage? He’s the father?” Ben has to know.

Rey’s eyes blow wide, her jaw dropping aghast. “Christ, no. Did you hit your head that hard?”

He sighs in relief but it is short-lived. Someone is her husband. Someone is the father.

“What an absurdly stupid thing to say, honestly. ‘Is it Armitage?’” she shakes her head but speaks like it’s mostly to herself. Mainly because she eyes him like he’s eavesdropping and scowls again.

“Eat your food, it’ll go cold and then it’s no help and then I’ll be stuck tending to another baby that can’t help himself if you get ill.”

“Rey, I can’t eat,” he admits in a half sob. “I feel sick just thinking of it all. I was traveling all across the States. To California and back. I checked every post office I walked by knowing there was almost no chance you could get a letter to me or that they were being forwarded. But I didn’t care, I always mailed the ones I wrote you. Dozens of them,” he shrugs, glaring towards the table to see the robust stack of letters reduced to separate piles to dry. He wonders if she plans to ever read them.

“I’ve thought of nothing else but coming home to you and fulfilling all the promises I made you. Only to arrive and discover you were gone.”

“I was gone?” She challenges. “You were the one that left Ben…You were gone! And you left me!”

“I-I know.” It was so sudden the telegram had arrived so late and alerted him that his father was gone. Ben rushed. He didn’t even have time to write anything coherent for her. He only made Mr. Threepio promise should Miss Palpatine inquire as to his whereabouts to tell her he would be back soon and to forward any letters to his home address in Maine. 

“You told me all these beautiful things,” her voice cracks for the first time. Her steel defenses beginning to fall. “You filled my head with such assurances and then you were just…gone. I was told at first it would be two, three months at most. It’s been a year, Ben.”

“I only just got back. It took longer than I thought. I got sick more than once, the train lines were a mess, and my father left everything in such disarray…” Ben shakes his head, unsure how he had managed it.

At the time he had done it with the knowledge that Rey was waiting for him. Knowing he would come out the other side of it all and together they could find what they always wanted.

If he knew what heartbreak was taking place…he doubts he would have made it through that first fever.

“When I finally made it back to the East Coast, a vicious storm delayed my venture back another month. I had been living in my childhood home in Maine. The cabin I always told you of. It’s about as big as this,” he chuckles sadly looking around the charming cottage. “I dreamt of bringing you there. Raising a…a family far from this society that has suffocated us for so long…”

He had so clearly envisioned her sitting with him by the fire, a cradle beside them. The ran and cold would have felt miles away in the sanctuary it would have been. Their home.

Rey dives into her hands, not looking at him. “I’ve spent so long feeling betrayed…trying to hate you,” she croaks. 

Ben has to accept that. Whoever has deceived them has tried very hard to ensure she has. 

He does not think her grandfather is innocent…however, maybe there was another suitor involved here too. Whoever Rey’s husband is.

“Why did you ask if Armitage is the father?” Rey asks as if she can hear his thoughts, her eyes focused in annoyed confusion. A question he is meant to hear this time.

“Because you have…a-a baby,” he sniffled, much as if he is also one.

“Yes, and I understand you didn’t get my letter but still you have to…I mean, honestly, Ben.”

He takes this as a chide for his shortsight in assuming only Armitage would be the father when likely any man would be fortunate to wed her.

Ben shakes his head, knowing he has to be stronger than his devastation. She has. But once again he is reminded that, of the two of them, Rey has always been the stronger one. Holding him up even when she is hurting herself.

“My apologies," he says weakly, his chin barely resisting a tremble. "Whoever your husband is…he is a lucky man.”

Chapter Text

Ben arrives home late that evening and his mother stands in the entryway in her night clothes with her arms crossed and a twist to her lips.

“Fighting…I can’t believe you, Benjamin.”

“Mother.” Ben tries to sound apologetic as Chewie tackles him, eager for undivided attention. At least someone is happy to see him.

“No, no. I don’t want to hear it.” She turns to head up the stairs. She must be really angry to leave it at just that. Or tired. Maybe both. “If you’re hungry you will have to make something yourself. All of the staff is in bed–” save Charles Threepio who is standing off to her side looking on in disapproval, “–and even if they weren't I would not have them help you. You know so much better than to get into spats at your age.”

Ben almost smirks as she continues to scold him even after she reaches her room.

“And I’m going to think of a just punishment for you but until then, know you will be accompanying me at Mon’s anniversary ball tomorrow night for starters!”

Mon Mothma. That works for him. Perrin, her insufferable husband, shares political views with Sheev himself. Sheev will be there. Which means Rey will be there.

“Fine,” he grunts, trying not to sound too pleased.

His mother huffs one final time before she shuts her door. Threepio attempting to give them space a few paces away flinches at the noise, holding a hand to his chest over his own nightclothes. A sight Ben would rather not have seen but he’s in too good a mood to be crushed.

And Lola, his mother’s headmaid, comes scurrying down the hall with linens in her arms.

“Master Ben, your room is not yet prepared. You will need to give me a moment,” she says but knowing her as well as he does he can tell she’s annoyed. He’s known her since he was a child. She is a maid in this house by name but hardly treated like one. She is one of his mother’s closest confidants. 

“It’s fine, Lola. I’m not tired yet. And you don’t have to do that, you know. I’ve been making my bed myself at school for years.”

“Hmm…I’m sure your mother would see it as a punishment. Which you deserve,” she teases. “And I have to wake up sooner than you. Seems only right you fix the bed you lie in. Literally.”

Ben holds out his arms. “Of course,” he chuckles when she places the sheets in his arms just as his stomach growls.

Lola frowns. “When’s the last time you ate, boy?”

Ben shrugs. 

“Ugh, shoulders,” she scoffs. “Speaking with his shoulders again,” she glances at Threepio still on the stairs with a candlestick. “I thought this university was supposed to be respectable.”

“Apparently not,” Threepio says and despite Ben’s disdain for the man, he laughs.

Both adults look surprised to hear him do so, their own eyes lifting slightly. And he realizes that it’s been a long time since he’s had a reason to even smile in this house.

“There’s some chicken and potatoes in the kitchen young master,” Lola tells him. “Help yourself.”

The two of them leave him to return to bed. He settles his sheets on his mattress in his room but doesn’t move to put them on.

Instead, he looks out the window. There’s no snow on the ground yet but it’s cold enough that there soon will be. It would not deter him from stepping out in his thin coat and walking the expanse of forest that consists between this manor and Rey’s. She was all he thought about on the ride home. He’s read through all the letters he never sent her and tried to think of a way to verbalize it all. Simultaneously trying to not seem too excited at the knowledge that she is no longer engaged to Armitage.

He can breathe again. Dare he say, he has an appetite again which explains the volume of his stomach. So he decides it’s smarter to wait until at least morning instead of sneaking around Palpatine Manor past midnight and risk getting shot by one of his watchmen.

Instead, he mosies to the kitchen and eats half his weight in meat and biscuits.

Naturally, a ball means that at the expense of seeing Rey he must endure also spending time with Bazine.

She lectures him on the absurdity of starting a fight with Armitage and how barbaric it is. But then she squeezes his arm and says, “at least your punishment means you get to come home and see me.”

The only thing amusing about her statement is that she aptly categorized seeing her as part of his punishment.

She drones on for an eternity about the dress she got for her father’s next ball. She goes on about the ribbons and embroidery on the corset and makes a point to tell him how easy it is to remove which makes him nearly wrinkle his nose.

No doubt she expects him to propose soon. No doubt everyone does.

He has no intention to. Obviously. And if he never does, then how can they truly be betrothed? He knows he will never marry her. He’s known that for years. There is no shortage of things he would rather do than meet this woman at an altar.

And in that respect, he supposes he feels sorry for Bazine. He will never love her (or even tolerate her) and yet she seems to have seen her life with him. Not that she loves him, he’s not sure she’s capable. 

“Oh look, Miss Tumbleweed has rolled in,” Bazine laughs and Ben sighs, any sympathy he felt for the girl flooding from his body as he knows she means Rey.

His mood is improved of course when he sees her himself. She’s already engaged in conversation with several others. And for a long moment, he just watches her. He’s always loved how she talks. Expressive and invested and bright. She’s nodding politely at something Miss Ko Connix is saying when her eyes suddenly find him in the crowd and she looks as if someone has suddenly dumped a bucket of water over her head. Baffled to see him there.

He can’t help but smile, treasuring her surprise.

Given the slight purse to her lips, he can tell she’s hiding her own.

“Hi,” he mouths silently which only causes her to roll her eyes and pretend to ignore him, focusing solely back on Kaydel. But he can see how she glances his way, or at least how she tries not to.

Needless to say, he bides just enough time to not appear as eager as he is before he crosses the room towards her.

“Can I have the next dance, Miss Palpatine?”

The girls in her vicinity giggle and whisper things he can’t hear. But Rey just bites her lip and looks to the ceiling, like he’s not interesting enough to hold her attention.

“I suppose.”

When he offers his hand and she takes it, Ben tries not to look too excited. Given how miserable he must have looked when he danced with Bazine.

“Happy Birthday, by the way,” he breathes out. She was eighteen. And were she still engaged to Armitage, no doubt they would have been married by now. He feels so grateful for the circumstances to favor him so much.

He would not consider himself a believer but it does seem like he’s been given another chance. As if fate intervened.

“Thank you,” she mutters, her eyes down. She’s clearly annoyed with him. He doesn’t blame her, but he is too happy to be looking at her again. After so long. He vows to never let it happen again.

“You look beautiful,” he tells her when the music is loud enough to give his voice cover.

“You look like a bruised peach,” she grumbles back, glancing at his eye.

He chuckles, uplifted at the tease. “Oh, I’ve missed you.”

“Have you?”

“I always miss you. Even when I used to see you every day, I’d miss you.”

He watches her brows twitch as she looks up at him. “What are you doing? Why are you talking like that?”

“Because I’ve wasted enough time not talking like this.”

“Oh,” she laughs. “I see, you’re concussed as well. Might I ask, what is the cause of your clear deranged state and unsightly wounds?”

“Your former fiancé.”

Rey’s face falls. “Hux?”

He pulls her closer to him. “I believe that is his name.”

“Ben,” she exhales, looking at him in a new way. “What happened?”

“I found him in a compromised position and took it upon myself to handle it.”

“You idiot.”

He continues anyway. “Only to discover I was defending the honor of his betrothed that he was no longer betrothed to.”

“No…I’m not.” She rolls her eyes. There is no sadness in this dissolution. If anything he reads it as irritable the match existed at all. It pleases Ben greatly. “But I do not want to think of something severe enough that gave you cause to act like such a fool.”

“It was the best thing I’ve done all year. Because he not only informed me of the broken engagement but also that you apparently punch harder than I do.”

His thumb brushes over the knuckles of her left hand. He remembers instructing her several years ago, showing her how to throw a punch (not that she needed much improvement). He recalls his palms stinging when he held them out for her to strike.

“And my only regret is that I didn’t get to see it for myself.”

“It is not your job to protect my honor,” she tells him.

“I know it’s not. But your honor is the only one I’m concerned with.”

“Is it? Is that why you scolded me last I saw you?”

He falls silent.

“Is that why you did not write me all these months?”

“I wrote plenty, I just didn't mail any of them,” Ben mumbles.

“Why not?”

“Because…”

There are many answers to this. None of which he can think of at the moment and thankfully his feet know the steps of the dance even when his brain abandons him.

“I wrote too…” she confesses when he’s left it silent for too long. “But I told myself I wouldn’t send you anything until you sent me an apology. And somehow it still made me feel guilty.”

“You did nothing wrong.”

“I didn’t…but I have felt wrong. Leaving things like that. I hated it.”

“I did too,” Ben would like to stop dancing and pull her closer.

“I get so few choices in my life,” Rey explains even softer now but he hears her loud and clear. Because he knows that feeling too. “You as my friend has always been the most profound to me. To think you were angry for something I did not choose was so… so frustrating .”

“I know.”

“Especially when you are betrothed as well,” she whispers softer then, half glancing in Bazine’s direction. “Not that it makes sense in the first place for you to be so upset. Why should it matter to you who I marry anyway?” she shakes her head to appear casual but he can see the shine in her eyes. Her pain is just under the surface as well.

“Because you’re not supposed to marry someone else. Just as I’m not meant to marry Bazine.”

“Meaning what, Lord Solo?” she looks up at him, just inches from his face. “What is meant to happen?”

“You know…just as I’ve known. You feel it too,” he breathes out, his voice hardly capable of much else as he tries to keep his own emotions at bay. Especially when he sees her lip tremble.

“It’s not possible,” she croaks. “You know that as much as I do.”

“It is possible. I know it is.”

“Where is all of this coming from? You want to marry me all of a sudden?” she narrowed her eyes at him before glancing around to ensure that no one heard her.

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. And she understands. Her eyes went wide, almost as if in shock.

“Why?” she grits through her teeth, nearly angry with him and damn him, the wild expression itself just encourages his following words all the more.

“Because I love you.”

The music ends and applause rings out in the room. But all he can see is her. And she looks at him as if he’s suddenly grown another head.

“Y-You–”

“Benjamin!” 

Bazine’s voice calls out over the crowd and he knows he’s held onto Rey too long. In reality, he has to let go, but he knows she’s never felt so close to his heart. She’s always been there. He’s just now realizeing the spot in his chest that picks up when she is near or when her name is spoken has always been reserved for her.

It always will be.

After his confession, he didn’t get to dance with her again for the rest of the evening. He didn’t get to sit at her table. 

He had to dance with others. As did she. It was expected. And admittedly, he only asked girls for dances if he saw men asking Rey. If only to get in her vicinity again.

For this reason, word soon spreads that he is not a favorable dance partner as he is miserable for small talk and conversation and appears to be in another world.

Which is true. Fair enough.

But tragically it means that he leaves the party without another chance to speak with her.

He returns to the carriage with his mother and it’s a quiet and bumpy ride home.

“I spoke to Bazine’s father for a long while,” she says, fiddling with her gloves. Instantly he knows where this is going and he rolls his eyes in the safety of the dark carriage.

“Riveting,” he mutters.

“He’s anxious to start planning the engagement.”

“Whose engagement?” Ben asks blankly, if only to spite her.

“Benjamin.”

“I’m not marrying Bazine.”

His mother sighs. This is no great shock to her. She knows how he feels and it makes him feel all that much worse.

“I’m afraid it’s not up to you, Ben.”

“Why shouldn’t it be?”

“Because this has been arranged for years now. It’s the way things are, I’m sorry, Ben.”

Ben's laugh is bitter, humorless. “You mean like how you married my father?" The father he hasn't spoken to face to face in years. It's been months since Ben has sent or received anything regarding the man. "That’s the way things are?”

He is relieved he can’t see her expression. “Because of my transgressions is why it’s all the more important that you uphold our promises.”

“Your promises.”

“Yes, my promises. But you are a young man who understands responsibility. Or at least you should. I doubt that however when I hear that you have been fighting and suspended from university for a fortnight like some schoolboy. It concerns me.”

“I agree. But you don’t know why I–”

“I know. Believe me, I know,” she speaks over him. “I know it was Armitage Hux and I am very aware of why you don’t like him.”

”Then it should be no mystery to you who else I do not like if you’re such an expert.”

“If you are referring to Bazine I think that’s just plain childish of you to say, Ben. You’ve had all this time to grow fond of her and yet you still resist.”

Ben gives a cynical sort of laugh, shaking his head and speaking before he thinks better of it. “On second thought, you’re right. I should try harder. Perhaps you should give me grandmother’s ring so I can propose.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know if I give you that ring whose finger it will go on, and that does us no favors.”

“It would to me…Not that it matters to you.”

The rest of the carriage ride is endured in silence.

Ben lays in his bed that night haunted by his mother’s words and yet bewitched by the look on Rey’s face when he told her.

He’s never told anyone that before. No one besides his parents and of course both of them are the reason he’s forbidden from telling everyone in town that he’s in love with Reyna Palpatine.

It leaves him restless. So he steps out of his room, quietly moving down the stairs and avoiding the steps that might sabotage him, working his way towards the back door through the kitchen.

It’s freezing outside and he wraps his thicker coat around himself before stepping outside.

He had felt so confident the night before. He dove head first into that party and confessed himself to Rey so blatantly.

Now he just feels like a fool.

All he can think of is the face she made as he walked away.

He wants to tell her he was too brazen. That he’s sorry for putting her in such a position because he hasn’t been thinking straight. Clearly.

Not that he can do much about it now. It just feels like he can think easier out here. Out where he and Rey used to meet and make forts and practice punches. It’s where he taught her how to fence. It’s where some of his happiest moments were formed.

It’s been a long time since they made a fort out here. He doesn’t expect to find anything.

Which is why he’s so taken aback when he finds her sitting there on one of the fallen trees.

Her hair is down. She’s clad in a green robe over what must be her nightgown. And she looks freezing. Her arms were tucked tightly around her body.

“Rey,” he breathes out. Almost like it was a dream. Like he managed to fall asleep after all.

“What are you doing here?” he asks as he comes to stand beside her and instinctively pulls his coat off to wrap around her. “You’re freezing. How long have you been out here?”

“Why did you tell me that?” she croaks out. He can hear now the emotion in her voice. She’s been crying.

The high Ben had been riding on the journey home, from the thrill of seeing her at the party to confessing his feelings somewhat crashed on the ride home with the discussion with his mother. But to find the girl he loves beside herself in the forest entirely because of him consumes him with shame and guilt. And he is horrified that his glee and hope stemmed entirely from assuming that she would immediately be receptive to his proposal. Or implied proposal.

“Rey, I…I’m sorry. I did not mean to upset you.”

“You’re such an idiot,” she scoffs but it comes with new tears and he scoots closer, reaching for her hands that were ice cold. He tries to warm them up with his own.

“I’ve ruined everything.” He says it more to himself he supposes because he can hardly hear it, he doubts she did. But he reaches up, attempting to brush her tears away. Her cheek is so soft and she gasps, likely from the cold. His hands aren’t much warmer he supposes.

“I….I don’t know why–?”

He doesn’t know what he was trying to say but he doesn’t need to. Her own freezing fingers move to cup his cheek. He gasps then too, realizing it had nothing to do with temperature. More from the realization that she’s holding him in a way she never has. The way no one ever has. “Rey?” he whispers, as if not to disturb something sacred.

Her only answer is to press her lips to his.

He is in such shock, that he’s not sure he registers what’s happening until she pulls away not a moment later.

Her eyes are filled with tears as she looks up at him. Her brows knit together. And she looks almost terrified as she tells him; “I love you too, Ben.”

Perhaps he had tripped on a rock and died. It certainly seemed more likely.

But no. He is here. She is here…

And she loves him too.

Rey loves him.

His heart seems to gallop in his chest, pounding louder in his ears than Silencer's hooves.

Her eyes seem to cross the expanse of his face and for a long moment, he just cherishes this. This which he does not want to forget for any reason. Probably too long of a moment because she starts to look worried.

“Be–”

He slides his hand behind her neck and pulls her closer. This time he is the one to silence her with his lips, precisely how he's always wished to.

Her hair still smells of flowers, but her lips taste like honey.

“Whoever your husband is… he is a lucky man.”

It is quiet, unsettlingly so after he says this. So he looks to the floor boards, trying to deny the sobs in his chest, at the refusal in his heart to accept that Rey is with anyone but him. But he knows he has always been selfish with her. And he supposes he should be fortunate that he got to experience being with her as much as he did.

He risks a glance at her but Rey just stares at him as if he’s speaking another language. 

“You’re actually hopeless, Ben.”

“I know,” he sighs. He should not assume that someone worthy of Rey’s love would have only earned it through deception. 

Rey is impossible not to love in his opinion. He would be naive to assume only he would have the privilege.

“Do I really look like a married woman to you?”

Her words confuse him. Why wouldn't she be? She had a home and a child.

Perhaps hearing her wrong, he looks at her only to see her face still scrunched up at him. He’s always loved that expression of hers even if it was most often utilized to tease him. But this is not one of their playful games. That’s over now.

“I’ve spent so long feeling betrayed…trying to hate you,” she tells him. "And you...you're still clueless."

Ben folds his hands over his arms, trying to accept that truth. But he sees his own tears hit her floors. He doesn’t bother wiping the bridge of his nose where likely more will escape. 

Circumstances are heartbreaking in this world. And he supposes he should at least be grateful that she is here. She is unmarried as well…they still have hope. And he could never hold any real grudge against any child that is Rey’s…and if the father is not around, maybe he could–

A clap of thunder interrupts his thoughts and the cries of the infant sound out again, wrenching in Ben’s own chest, reminding him he is not as noble as he would like to think. It just reminds him of what should have been his. 

Rey stands to tend to the child on instinct before she stalls, looking at him.

"Stand up."

Her eyes are narrowed enough that he thinks he's upset her to the point where she will throw him out regardless of the storm. 

"What?"

Annoyed that he had heard her and still hadn't moved and was deeply confused, she sighed heavily and marched towards him. Her hands seize his wrists and try to pull him up. He's at his feet now.

"Tell me you understand by now,” she demands. “I'm getting concerned."

“About what, Rey?” he reaches out for her hand, his heart lifting slightly when she doesn’t pull away.

"Oh, Ben, " she scoffs at first but her fingers tighten around his. When she finally does turn, she pulls him with her.

He follows Rey to the nursery where the child cries. As soon as they step in, he lingers by the door. Suddenly his earlier fear sinks in his gut, another one floating. Only this fear hurts possibly even more. Because given her odd answers and scowls...now he's feeling hope.

Hope that maybe...

“Shh,” Rey whispers softly to the little being in the crib. “It’s alright…I know you don’t like that noise.”

Ben’s eyes look around the room, around to the rocking chair by the window and the stuffed toys on the shelf.

The room is nothing exuberant like the nurseries that exist in manors, but there is something sweet and cozy about it. With all the love Rey has put into the space herself. He suspects the landscapes on the walls were painted by her.

There is also a chaise near the crib. Not a bed, but with the non-decorative pillows and blankets settled there, he suspects Rey sleeps in here most nights. To be close to the child.

There is a little poorly carved wooden rabbit perched on the dresser. A gift he gave her ages ago. Something a woman consumed by hatred for him should have tossed in the fire. Right?

Hope hurts. His hands begin to shake. And he knows better to hope for that now when everything else has fallen so far. And yet his heart pounds anyway. The little sounds of the infant tugging at his chest. 

"Rey?" he croaks out, desperate for an answer to an entirely new question. 

“She’s a girl,” Rey’s voice raps out when the child’s whines have gone quiet. He can see she's cradling the small bundle but he cannot see it himself. Her, he realizes when he processes her words.

Rey has a daughter.

Ben nods, trying not to let his lip tremble. “What’s her name?” 

“Beatrix…but I call her Bee.”

"Bee," Ben repeats, feeling the tug of a smile on his lips. “That’s lovely,” he manages with a clear of his throat. Thankfully it doesn’t wake her.

“Do you want to hold her?”

“I–” Ben clamps his mouth shut, feeling his emotions clog his voice. “I can't."

“Why not?” Rey looks wounded, the baby nestled sweetly against her. The little face is still unseen to him.

"I–I can't stop shaking," he tells her, hardly able to get words out. His hands trembling and even his chest seems to be vibrating. Like he's about to explode.

This time a few days earlier, he might have believed he could return to the way things had been. But he’s been wrong. So so wrong all this time and it hurts to be let back in with so much having changed. And to cling to this last hope seems like all he has left. If it backfires upon him now, he might not only collapse again but if he was holding the child, he might hurt them inadvertently. 

So he cannot hold her. Not now.

They are not the same people they were before all this. And he hates it. He wants to go back and make it right. He should have brought Rey with him before he had left in a rush for the States. She could have come along. 

Rey ignores his claim it seems, just stepping closer, already passing over the bundle to his unsteady arms. He tries to protest but she doesn’t hear it, settling an impossibly small weight in his arms before tucking back the blankets to reveal a tiny face swaddled in a soft blanket. 

What was hope becomes something else he doesn't have a name for. Perhaps...instinct. Whatever the feeling is, something sparks when he sees her for the first time.

Big curious dark brown eyes. Black hair atop her head. Big ears on either side. 

Ben looks to Rey, meaning to say something but no words materialize. But Rey just nods, as if she understands. 

“Your daughter, Ben,” Rey says softly, running a finger past her cheek, making the baby squeak. "She's yours."

Ben sobs out, enchanted by the little face looking up at him. It renders him speechless.

Almost speechless. "Mine?"

His.

His child. His daughter!

"She's five months next week."

"Five months," Ben cries. She's so tiny. He wants to know how much smaller she was when she was born, his heart seizing at the thought he did not get to hold her then.

“I’m a little offended you would assume she is anyone else’s. It’s only ever been you, you know."

Ben breaks his focus from Bee to look back at Rey. The glassiness of her eyes and the smile on her face. The child is his and impossibly...still is she.

Rey chuckles, tears spilling over her cheeks. "If I knew you were so poorly with numbers I would have–"

Ben presses his lips to hers for the first time in over a year. For him, the clarity of this kiss is not dissimilar to their first one from several years ago in the forest. A gesture he holds so dearly because it was the first moment where there was distinctly a before and an after. A moment in which so much became clear that they were not alone.

Rey presses to her toes as her hands gently cover his own over the infant in his arms, transforming the space between them into a sanctuary for the daughter Ben will never again let go of.

Chapter Text

It is peculiar how the awareness of love changes the perspective of… everything.

How inconveniences before that would have rendered him in dreadful lasting moods now roll off of him like water.

He sees her in everything. In the flowers lining the road. In every meal he eats. In the clouds overhead.

She is everywhere. For him she always was, but it always stung. Reminders of what he had lost. Even just as his friend. 

Now not only is he certain that their friendship was never lost, but something else was growing.

It was intoxicating. Meeting her in secret, not so different than they always have, but now when they met he greeted her by pulling her close, kissing her sweetly. 

They would cuddle close and talk. Express their frustrations that had transpired since their last meetings while their hands gently traced arms, faces… lips. 

But when he does not let his impulses completely take over his brain, perhaps his most cherished development is learning how much more they discovered they had to say to each other. Everything else left unsaid was finally shared.

Ben always knew Rey refrained from talking about her life at the Manor. He knew she wasn’t happy there but it was different to hear it from her. 

She told him while she has always known her grandfather, she didn’t quite know him. 

Palpatine wasn’t interested in her much beyond ensuring that she would be suitable enough to marry off somewhere. She always had a different governess or maid raising her. Her grandfather didn’t like the same people around for long. Although she explained that Phasma, who wasn’t much older than Rey herself, was by far the most intense she’d ever had and Palpatine has shown no sign of letting her go.

“I always wondered if that’s why my parents weren’t around. He never let anyone stay long…and I guess it scares me. Aside from him, I’m likely the longest-staying resident there. And I know that bothers him.”

“He’s your grandfather though,” Ben responded, confused as to why the man detested Rey so much for so little reason.

Rey shook her head. “I think that’s what upsets him so much. He never wanted to be.”

He learns that the rumors he had always heard of Rey’s parents are what she also believes to be true. But she isn’t sure. She has no memory of them. 

“Sometimes I wonder if they’re really dead…or if they just had to find a way to get out of here. Away from him. Away from all this and…sometimes I preferred to believe that.”

“You’d prefer to believe they abandoned you?” He had asked her with a voice left hoarse from intently listening, brushing hair from her face when the breeze attempted otherwise. 

Rey shrugged. “I don’t know…when I was younger, I used to hope they would get the help they needed…and then come back for me.”

“Do you still hope that?”

“I don’t think I do.”

“What changed?”

Rey turned to him, her eyes glassy. 

“Someone else came back for me,” she told him with a wink before she leaned over him, kissing him softly. 

It was tender and chaste and a promise of the future they would find once he married her. It was just a matter of breaking his betrothal but…he hated thinking about all that when his thoughts often just strayed back to Rey and how she felt in his arms. 

Months went by. Then a year. Occasional meet ups would be fewer and further between, as he had his schooling to attend to, but they were always worth it. The simple (or simple enough) kisses that their first encounters consisted of did not take long to… evolve. Sometimes he would give in and they’d end up a bit more frenzied than usual. Kisses grew far past chaste, a mix of tongues and heavy breath while her fingers threaded through his hair. 

The effect this left on him was difficult to hide for long. But Rey just clung tighter to him, attempting to press her hips against his through their layers of clothes. 

It was offering relief he desperately needed and it seemed he was definitely not alone in that. However, he told her that anything of that sort should be reserved for their wedding night. 

Rey always giggled at this. Her most memorable response was, “Are you telling me or yourself?”

Rey never stopped teasing him. 

“Myself, obviously,”  he had told her with a kiss to her jaw, rewarded with a soft laugh in his ear. 

However, it did not take long for his well-meaning values to preserve their virtue faded. 

Granted, she hardly plays fair and it had been weeks since they had seen each other. He only made it about two and a half weeks at University before he rushed home this time. 

But it’s as if he was helpless to it. Like something within them was desperately trying to mend the gap and Ben was all too pleased to let it guide him. 

They send letters of course. As time has gone by, he admits they were far less innocent than they used to be. Desperate and yearning for the other. And yet they knew it was a dangerous game.  Rey sent letters when no one paid attention. She couldn’t trust anyone in her house to mail them. She sent all of them herself. 

And she had instructed that he refrain from sending several every fortnight. An amendment to their arrangement after he did so on his first return after their initial confessions to each other. 

It was too risky that someone would take notice. Although Ben would argue that no one in the Palpatine house is paying Rey a fraction of the attention she deserves. 

Meanwhile, everyone pays him too much attention. He remembers his mother remarking how he had never come home this often but she was glad to have him home as frequently as he pleased. 

If she knew the true intention of his continuous returns she would probably pass out. Which was amusing for him. She’s made him so cross as of late.

But out by the pond, his mother’s remarks were the last thing on his mind. 

The long grass was thankfully a soft place to land. Although, in all honesty, even if Ben had landed on a rock, he doubts he would have noticed.

It was colder today. Ben had been wearing a longer coat but now he was desperately trying to wrestle out of it and Rey chuckled, sitting up to help him shove it down his arms. He smiles up in reverence, and the way she looks down at him makes him feel… well, she knows how he feels, teasing him with a roll of her hips against his and he can’t help the moan that leaves his throat. 

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, desperately wishing to continue the friction but warring with himself. “Sweetheart,” he groaned, bringing his hands to her hips over her dress. “If I go home with more stained britches, they’re going to–”

“What if we tried something else?” Rey interrupts him, kissing his ear, his cheek, the side of his nose, beneath his eye. “It won’t leave a mess.”

“Hmm?” Ben inquires through tightly sealed lips, restraint seeming wholly impossible when he looks at the devious glint in her eyes. 

“I read about something once,” Rey explains, scooting back, closer to his knees. Her arms still brace his sides but her face hovers low over his chest, then his middle, and then…

“Rey.”

She couldn’t be serious. 

He had been living with young men and boys his age for about half his life now and in various schools and academies. 

It is no great mystery to him what she must be referring to. 

“Where would you have read about that?” he asks in a half chuckle, even though he’s slightly shaking just from the implication.

Rey laughs, the soft press of her lips against his is brief before she answers. “Just because I don’t attend some big fancy school doesn't mean I’m not resourceful.”

Her hand moved between them, stroking torturously slow over his clothed member. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he grits out. “I don’t expect–”

“Believe me, I know you don’t,” Rey chuckles, rolling her eyes in that teasing way that makes his condition all the more apparent. He hisses as she squeezes slightly. “I just…I thought you would enjoy it. I’ve always been curious”

Ben initially was thrown off by the idea purely because of how he hears other men discuss young ladies when this act is…performed. He knows it is something some men expect.  And their discussions about it can be bawdy and just…unsettling. Dismissive. Even comparing subtleties between ladies, swapping stories, and all that. 

But…he’s not going to tell a soul. Since the first kiss they’ve shared, this secret in his life is the most precious thing he possesses. And it is theirs. No one else’s. 

“Only if you wish to,” he eventually concedes.

Simply put, she wished to.

Ben was grateful that they managed to trek a little further than their usual meeting place today given the noises ripping from his throat as he held her hair in his hands, watching how she moved.

How the pressure and seize of her mouth was worlds away from anything he has experienced by his own hand or by their sloppy, over the clothes, fumblings.

”Fuck,” he mutters to the trees above them.

Worlds away.

It must have been a fairly quick experience, although, for him, time seemed to be stopping and accelerating simultaneously. Like a supernova.

In a moment time freezes and he knows he could live there forever, instantly disputed by a sudden rush that threatens to end it before it begins.

So Ben is surprised he held out as long as he did. He did try to warn her when he felt that familiar feeling trickle down his spine but she ignored his warnings.

He was certain she would be horrified when she sat back up but Rey being Rey just had a mischievous and yet victorious smile on her face, her hair completely ruined by his hands.

”I told you it wouldn’t leave a mess,” she says with a smig smirk behind her lips.

“Re–”

“Lord Solo?!”

Threepio’s voice beckons through the trees. Too close and Rey sits up with a gasp while Ben fumbles to right himself.

“Shit, I–” Ben tries to articulate his feelings even if his very jaw seems loose on its hinges. She has undone him. And he wanted to do the same for her. “Rey, I was hoping to–”

“My grandfather is in France,” Rey sighs as she combs through his hair with her fingers. “And Miss Phasma is feeling poorly…I think she’ll be inclined to retire early this evening.”

Ben’s ragged breathing is too loud for his liking. Her words only increased the pace of his already ferocious heartbeat. 

“And my room always feels so muggy…I might sleep with my window open.”

Ben knows he has the responsibility to abstain. 

But who is he kidding, he’s not that strong. Even if she is not suggesting what she is, he would go looking for her later anyway.

Besides, as he quickly rushes off to find Threepio before he finds them, giving her no more than a hasty kiss, he quite looks forward to repaying the favor.

Mr. Threepio was insistent on finding him for the sole purpose that they were running late for dinner with the Ackbars and his mother wanted him to be in attendance.

Physically he was. Mentally, he was already crossing the forest at dark and scaling the walls of the manor up to her room.

Ben had also heard whispers throughout his years at school of more than just that of how ladies might pleasure men. While it was more of a rarity to catch, and scandalous to his ears the first time he heard it…Ben cannot deny he is grateful for his awareness of what to do (at least in theory) when a man assists a lady find pleasure as well.

Rey writhed under his touch and her hushed gasps and half whispers of his name filled the air. Each a little louder than the last as he tasted her. Her back arched against her mattress while her fingers threaded–no, pulled–at his hair. 

He had barely waited until the maids downstairs in his own home had retired for the evening when he snuck out and raced to Palpatine Manor to find her window open. Just as she said.

He was prepared for her to have changed her mind. When the heat of the moment passes, perhaps rationale would return. 

Instead, it seemed the separation only furthered the need. When he swung a leg over her window sill, he found her in a thin chemise and her green robe by candlelight.

For a man who recently returned from a dinner party, he was starving. 

After all, he was used to them finding comfort in long grass or against trees. With the soft bed beneath them, it already felt like such a dream. For two people who so often find themselves in a rush, it was everything. 

He could already see himself doing this often. The taste of her was unexpected but addictive, constantly drawing him back for more.

She tensed beneath his touch, only partly concealing her moans in the pillow by her head. 

“Ben,” she cries out a little louder then. Probably too loud. But…he revels in it, watching as one of her hands desperately grips the sheets beside her. Ben only increases his efforts to bring her to that same precipice she brought him to earlier.

As the wave within her rolls and then subsides, her legs loosen around his head and he hears her give a satisfied sigh as she slumps heavily against her pillows. 

Ben looked up at her as she caught her breath, an odd sense of pride (and a numb jaw) as he looked over her. Pride that he had relied on so little information and still managed to bring her to what seemed a pleasurable peak.

He watched her chest rise and fall as her body calmed. But his seemed to do the opposite. Throughout her movements, her nightgown had shifted, leaving expanses of skin previously unseen to him in the air of the room and illuminated by the meager candlelight beside them. Soft skin taunted him as he tried to remind himself he had only come to help her find what she had given him out in the forest that afternoon.

Now that he had, he should leave.

But he doesn’t move. And Rey looks up to see where his eyes stray.

He snaps his eyes back up. “Sorry,” he chuckles slightly at himself. His voice is hoarse even though he hasn’t spoken since he snuck under the hem of her chemise.

Rey gives him the barest hint of a smile. Soft and serene. “Don’t be.” And then she sits up, her nightgown falling further and Ben’s jaw clicks. “I want you to see me.”

“I want to see you, believe me,” he chokes, very aware of the state of himself. “…But I’m probably supposed go,” he says. However the cracked window behind him is likely the last thing on his mind.

”Do you want to leave?”

”You know I don’t,” he huffs, but feeling unable to move at all. His body won’t let him leave…and his dwindling morales keep him from whatever else.

Rey does move, but only her arms as they pull her chemise over her head.

“Good,” she breathes, fully bared before him. A sight he has never seen. 

True, they have had been meeting secretly in the forest for well over a year now. True, he has let desire get the best of him many times, but that was with plenty of layers between them. Or…at least before this afternoon, that had been true.

And the thought of clothes is so suffocating at that moment he is pulling his tunic over his head before he realizes it.

Rey reaches for his hand when he is as bare as she, kissing his palm softly and holding it to her cheek. His thumb brushes over her lips, amazed at the softness. The way her breath seems to imprint new designs on his fingertips. It is warm and safe and loving here with her. The way the outside world could never be. Even the world just outside her door in the hallway. 

Rey drags his hand further, down her collar to her chest, pressing it to her heart. He feels it race the same as his. He can’t help but smile. 

“Are you scared?” she asks him.

Ben is always scared. Always worried, always dreadful. With Rey though, that changes. And at that moment he feels no fear and shakes his head.

“Me either,” Rey beams.

“Why?” Ben asks even if he would be incapable of an answer to the same question. His other hand rises, tracing a line up her side.

“I know you’d never hurt me.”

And just like that, a small room in a house he had never stepped foot in before that night, became the absolute center of the universe.

“Oh, there is a new book in Jocasta's she is certain you will like,” his mother calls over her shoulder as he follows her through town.

She walks ahead with Mrs. Netal and Bazine who seem to be forging a war path of which shops to go to and when. Completely oblivious to his presence and he is grateful for it. Even just to be able to wander behind as his ankle still irks him when he does not step as carefully as he should.

A slight sprain, one he had caused while trying to get back to his own room in a frenzied rush yesterday morning.

Ben’s head had been spinning since he woke in Rey’s bed to the sound of staff walking the hallways in the blue early light of morning. She had still been sleeping when he pulled the sheets over her bare form, kissed her forehead, and dressed hastily to make his descent down the trellis where he suspected his jump from too high up resulted in his twisted ankle.

But as he trudges through town, hiding his slight limp, it is easy to take his mind off the pain.

Memories of her beneath him, of her voice low in his ear and her legs wrapped around his waist. The sensation of her around him was unparalleled to anything they had shared before and he was still reeling from it. Bewitched by it.

And almost beaten down by it.

There was a reason that act was reserved for married couples and now that they had indulged, he fears he may not be able to wait until they are wed to have her again, despite telling her as such when he collapsed against her pillows.

‘ Next time we do this, you will be my wife.’

She had just laughed at him, agreeing with a sarcastic ‘sure,’ as he pulled her over his chest.

“An adventure story. From the States,” his mother adds when he gives no answer.

He nods to be kind. But there was nothing a new book could do to preoccupy him like his thoughts could. Or that the written word could even compete with the visions that fill his head. He would be stuck on page one of any book given to him for days before he attempted to decipher what his eyes had skimmed over, his thoughts lost to her.

“Though she warns me it does have some romance which I know is not your preferred genre,” his mother rolls her eyes comically but only receives mind-numbing giggles from the Netal women.

It bothers him so much, he resigns to wait outside when they flock into the bookshop.

Until he peeks in and sees a woman in a yellow dress skimming over pages in a book.

His breath catching at the sight of her, he is quick to enter.

Approaching her slowly, he considers the line of her shoulders, the slant of her neck…the way her lips purse as she focuses on the words she reads.

And he chuckles. She clearly was doing better at keeping her feet on the ground than he.

“Miss Palpatine,” he greets her formally. Or as formally as he is able when admiring the shape of her body and wishing nothing more than to wrap his arms around her.

He hears the small gasp she gives before her eyes dart behind him and she bows her head in greeting.

“Lord Solo.”

It is odd to be settled and simultaneously incited by her words. Settled because he is relieved to finally see her. Incited because he wonders how he is meant to be with her and not think of everything the other night held for them. 

The pink of Rey’s cheeks tells him she feels the same as she tries to bury her face in the book. 

He did not see her yesterday. Which was not from lack of trying.

“My grandfather has just returned yesterday from a journey to France. And early at that,” Rey explains pleasantly in a tone and volume appropriate for two acquaintances to have in public. “Ms. Phasma and I came to town for groceries at his request but I can never refrain from doing a quick turn around Jocasta’s.”

Ben knew her grandfather had returned. The moment he was cleaned and fresh and ready to face the world was the moment he had gone to find her yesterday. 

Obviously, he expected a wait and knew better than to sit on a log all day. So he rode Silencer and gave him some much-needed exercise. Chewie ran alongside him, content to finally get the attention he would have preferred upon Ben’s arrival. 

But still, Ben wandered closer toward their spot as the day went on. She did not show. 

And after nightfall, Ben lost all restraint and had gone over to the Manor only to see Palpatine’s personal carriage was back. Rey’s window was dark and shut and light from the living room revealed where she was. Still sitting up and dressed at the late hour when that time not the day before, she was sprawled beneath him on the bed upstairs. 

Ben retreated to his house in slight defeat, desperate to speak with her but knowing he had to wait. 

And even now, with her so close to him in the small book shop, the waiting he must endure even if his collar suffocates him and his knees aren’t supporting his weight as they should. He quickly reaches out for the shelf, as if to help him keep his balance.

“I’m sure he is glad to be home. That can be a long journey.”

“Mmm,” she hums. “Long indeed.”

She is going to kill him. 

Clearing his throat, Ben tried to keep himself composed.

“Speaking of journeys, I am to return to Cambridge in the morning,” Ben states truthfully. He should have likely left earlier. His little trip home has put him behind on some coursework. But he was insistent not to leave until he saw her again. 

And he can see how Rey’s shoulders tense, and then slump at this confession. He wants to pull her close. To tell her he won’t wait long to come back. Not even do much with words but…

Damn him, he’s become a helion. He could hardly look at her without thinking of his name on her lips, begging for him to go faster as he drove into her. 

“I’m looking for a book to occupy my mind on the long ride back.”

“Yes,” Rey clears her throat. “I find a book is good company. Of course…it has to be engaging. Investing…captivating.”

Ben gulps, practically drowning in the bookshop between hundreds of dry pages. 

“Does that one…captivate you, Miss Palpatine?” He nods to the book in her hands. He has no clue what the cover says. But his thoughts are far and away from something as trivial as books. 

“It does…I think you would enjoy it, Lord Solo.”

“Perhaps…If you are so kind, you can lend it to me when you’ve finished reading it?”

“I’m–”

The bell above the entrance rattles drastically as the door slams open and a tall woman, Phasma, shouts from the threshold with arms full of groceries.

“Reyna!”

Rey straightens instantly, creating a convincing distance between them as everyone in the shop looks to the aisle where they stand. Ben keeps his focus on the cover of the closest title in front of him as he hears Rey settle her book on the shelf and rushes for the door.

He feels her dress brush past the back of his boots as she goes, making his heart pick up but then slump when he hears Bazine’s voice.

“Good afternoon, Reyna.”

Ben does not look. He knows better. But he can feel the tension from here.

“Good afternoon, Bazine. You’re looking well.”

“Perusing through town with one’s family and friends does wonders for the complexion. I would suggest you try it but your grandfather rarely seems to take enjoyment from town society.”

“Well, it must be your warm friendship and greeting that leaves my skin feeling refreshed, Miss Netal.”

Ben presses his lips together almost painfully to keep his laugh from escaping.

”Have a good day,” Rey says quickly as she leaves. 

He hears the huff Bazine gives when the bell rings once more but he is more focused on Rey walking past the window, holding her dress as she rushes to catch up with Phasma.

When the ladies he came with insist it is time to move along to the next shop promptly, Ben snags the book Rey had been skimming through. Jocasta seems surprised at his selection, as is his mother.

Ben didn’t realize he had purchased a Jane Austen novel until after he had left the shop.

But he had read through the first quarter of it with vigor by the time his mother and the Netal’s had finished. Wandering back towards their estate, finally, Ben was convinced that romance was very much his genre. 

Ben felt the first raindrop on his head when he was only halfway down the side of his own house. 

He lands with a thud in the dirt and he hopes it is not too loud but thunder follows moments later and he’s sure if Threepio was inside, he wouldn’t think it was anything but. He really just has to hope Chewie does not start barking and give him away.

He began his journey only then and did not make it far before he heard a twig snap. Initial panic and several hasty excuses were ready on his lips before he realized it was Rey herself approaching him.

She had come to him that evening.

Unfortunately, the storm increased before he even reached for her. 

Fortunately…the stables were open. And aside from Silencer and a few other horses that pull his mother’s carriage…there was not a being in sight. 

The sound of heavy rain and rolling thunder was a gracious cover for the sharp gasps and frenzied moans as that same thrill overcame them. 

She was as impatient as he was, if that were possible. 

He had lifted Rey onto a ledge where Ben had sat plenty of times and read over the years. His wildest fantasies could not compare with the sudden reality as found himself within her again. And how she pulls him as close as possible.

But he does see the proud smirk begin on the corner of her lips when the bolt of lighting illuminates the space between them. 

“I thought you said next time we did this, we’d be marri–”

“By the next time. I mean it this time,” he grunts, his movements only increasing. 

Rey’s soft laugh is intoxicating in his ear. As are the words she whispers. “I’m glad you didn’t mean it. I’ve thought of nothing else but th-“

“Me either, my love.”

“I wish you had done this in the bookshop. Pressed me against the shelves.”

“Believe me, I wanted to.”

“But I’ve been thinking that about everywhere now…every table, every surface, every opportunity…and I wish you were there to–”Rey’s brows knit together as interrupts her own thoughts. “Ben!”

“I feel it too,” Ben hisses, desperately clenching his teeth as if that will assist him. 

It does not. 

Ben chases something he fully admits has now consumed his life. Especially when her nails sink into his skin and she calls his name and he calls hers, the storm overhead generous enough to let them.

He lets it consume him enough where he nearly doesn’t have the conviction to pull out, but he manages just in time.

”Fuck,” Ben rasps out, “We should be more careful.”

Rey kisses the tip of his ear before she tells him, “There is a tea I can drink that will assist with that…if we were too reckless.”

“Really?”

“I had it yesterday…just in case. I have it hidden in my room.” She nods assuringly and it’s good enough for him in that moment.

Spent and exhausted, Ben’s face hides in the crook of her shoulder. A mix of rain and sweat mingled to make him almost dizzy as she holds him together, keeping him whole.

He already knows not another storm will pass in his lifetime when he does not think about this moment. Her fingers thread gentle traces through his hair. He wants the moment to last as long as he can make it. 

He wants her forever. 

“I bought that book today. I…I was going to gift it to you but I started reading it instead.”

Sense and Sensibility. 

Rey chuckles, brushing his hair over her ears. “I’ve read it many times. Phasma just likes to hide all the good books. Apparently, my grandfather thinks the only book worthy of reading for a young woman is the Bible…which is hardly stimulating for my massive intellect.”

Ben hums a smile against her shoulder. “I’m sure.”

“Granted, had I read it religiously, I think I would have been more inclined to kick you out of my room the other night.”

“Rey, I–”

“But I couldn’t wait any longer, could you?”

“No.” He kisses her to prove it. Softly but sloppily in his shakiness. Rey gives him a small laugh, untangling them just enough to sink down to the fresh hay beneath them and wrap her arms around him.

 “I know we should have waited…but I don’t regret it. I don’t regret this.” He tells her, shaking his head. “You’ve bewitched me,” Ben tells her with a smirk.

“Then perhaps I’m more devil than angel.”

“I’ve been thinking that for years,” Ben chuckles, kissing her sweetly.

For a long moment they stay like that, huddled together, strewn tiredly over hay as they watch the rain pour down. Stolen kisses and lazy touches. But Ben has to stay awake, knowing how disastrous it would be should they fall asleep only for someone to find them like this in the morning.

Ben hardly thinks that would be the worst thing.

"It's sad, isn't it?” Rey says suddenly and Ben pauses, realizing how long he had closed his eyes. And then registering her words.

He thinks she means the fact they have to do this in secret when it should be in his room. A room they should share as husband and wife were everything up to him. But he knows that will happen soon. And he means to tell her that before she clarifies;

“The book? Isn’t it sad?”

Ben nods. It would be hard to refute that. Everyone has so much longing, so much hurt, so much disappointment. For a book long ago published...sometimes, Ben thinks nothing has changed. At least not in their society.

"It has a happy ending, right? Don't spoil it but...does it?"

Rey nods. "I wouldn't let you read anything too tragic. I know how heavily that affects you."

He recalls when she had found him crying after finishing Wuthering Heights. Damn, he hated that book. It was too close to reality for him. it haunted him and the thought makes him hold her all the tighter. Something he doubts she misses.

“You’re leaving in the morning? That was true?”

Ben nods against her throat. She seems to always know what he’s thinking. 

“When will you be back?”

Ben pulls up to look at her. He brings a hand to her cheek. 

“Soon.”

He thinks of her admission to him. Of her parents and how she once thought they’d come back. But now she doesn’t. Because she told him…she waits for him.

But if it were up to him she would never be left waiting. 

“I will always come back to you...you are my home. You always will be.”

Her lips are soft by his temple, his forehead. He cranes his neck up, kissing her in return and hoping this storm never passes and the sun never rises. 

“And you are mine.”

Ben isn’t sure when he moved to sit on the small chaise by the crib. In fact, maybe Rey had guided him there.

But as his daughter wakes further, becoming more aware of the world around her, he is incapable of paying attention to annything else.

Beatrix is so beautiful.

And more aware of him than he would have expected from an infant. Granted, he doesn’t know much about infants and children. He’s never even held one before now. 

She babbles, sweet little coos and gurgles that make Ben instantly laugh although he still sniffles, tears blurring his vision. But they are different tears than before when it was just devastation in his chest.

“She makes a lot of noise,” Rey tells him. She sounds amused but still quiet…overwhelmed.

“I love it,” Ben croaks, his own voice still tight with emotion. “I love her.” Ben presses his lips to an impossibly tiny hand curled around his thumb. 

“She looks like you, don’t you think?” Rey says softly, her fingers reaching out to brush over Beatrix’s round cheek. 

“She can’t look like me…she’s too pretty.”

Rey flicks him and rolls her eyes. And it’s almost like nothing has changed even if he’s holding their child in his arms. But it helps remind him they can be like they always were. They can heal together and find what was always there.

“And you’re not?” Rey counters. “You can’t deny you see yourself in her.”

Ben gives a soft chuckle, his hand trailing to trace over her ears.

“I do…poor thing.”

Rey flicks him again and Ben melts at the contact. But still, he pulls Bee closer, lifting her up to kiss said ears. The baby gives a sweet little chirp that makes him feel like he could fly. Her little feet kick excitedly and Ben is certain he will never leave this spot.

“She’s got your nose though. Your lips,” Ben observes in the limited light of the room. But he can clearly see the features that are imprinted in his soul. Rey’s features. “She’s so beautiful.”

The rumble of thunder rolls overhead and Bee’s lip curls over, upset by the noise. 

The instinct to pull her close and kiss her head, shushing her gently seems the right thing to do. Mainly because he saw Rey do that same thing. And to hear her cries soften as he runs a hand past her back solidifies something in his chest.

Everything he had thought he lost has not only returned but exceeded. 

Sadness still lingers, to think of all he missed. He wishes he was with Rey during her pregnancy, that he got to see her, that he got to meet Bee when she was born. And that nearly makes his tears start anew but he tries to focus on the future ahead now instead of the tragic past behind them.

“She smells so good.”

“Mmm, I know. They tell me to savor it. As she grows it fades.”

“The smell?”

“Baby smell,” Rey chuckles, her fingers brushing over the wispy hairs on Bee’s head.

"You said nearly five months," Ben whispers as if the full volume of his voice will shatter this sweet sanctuary, safe from rain and thunder and arranged marriages. 

Rey nods. "I did."

“It was that night in Cambridge then…” Ben says, although looking to her for confirmation.

Rey chuckles at his expense, patting him gently. "You do know your numbers."

"I was beside myself. I wasn't thinking. I don't know," Ben shakes his head, trying not to think of his headspace not even a half hour ago. "But it was Cambridge. When you came to visit me...that's when we..." he looks down at the little girl when she gurgles sweetly. "When we made her." And at Rey's nod he sighs. “I was so careless.”

Rey rolls her eyes a little and shrugs which he takes as indifference.

“I was. Admittedly, I…I expected to elope with you the following morning and so I think that got the best of my intentions distracted.” 

“You were distracted plenty of times before that and I never got pregnant," Rey says with a wink.

”That’s true. And I think I always figured…I don’t know, you always said that tea…”

”Phasma had tossed out half my luggage at the inn. As if she knew precisely what she was doing. I didn’t get to drink it until almost a week later which…even then, I don’t think it’s some miracle thing that works every time. I was too reliant on it. Pretending as if it was some net to catch me whenever I went to far…”

”I was the one that-“

”Ben…” Rey interrupts gently, motioning to the baby in his arms. “She’s here. It hardly matters now.”

“Still, it wouldn’t have been as scandalous if I had eloped with you that morning. At least then we would have been-“

“Ben, I’ve tortured myself enough with all the what ifs in the last year to drive me mad,” he hears the tightness of her voice. The emotion there.

He has been distraught the past two days but she’s been dealing with heartbreak for well over a year.

“You’re here now,” she says with a clear of her throat. “Let’s focus on that. Let's just...let's just enjoy this for now. You're here and...you still want us. I've spent so long living in bitterness and I just want to be glad it’s gone. With just you and her."

Ben has a million questions. He wants to know about how she got here. How her grandfather must have abandoned her. He wants to know more about the letter she received and who wrote it. He wants to know everything.

But he also knows she is right. They have time for all that later. For now they should enjoy a sensation that they have all been deprived of.

Ben admires the said baby smell as he tucks the little girl under his nose. Rey leans against his other shoulder, her face inches from Bee’s. He lifts his arm slowly, wrapping it around her and pulling her close, enjoying these first moments together–the three of them–as a family.

Because that is what they are. But maybe he should not be so surprised. 

After all, he has shared many other firsts with her. And he finds he can only hope for more.

Chapter Text

Ben does not usually go with the other men to the pub. 

And he wasn’t planning to. When he wasn’t busy with schoolwork he was hunched over a bench at Baze Malbus’s workshop. But the shop was closed for the night and this close to the end of coursework (though there was still plenty to get done in the final weeks), the pressure of his peers was so insistent that he begrudgingly agreed to one drink.

One drink became an easy two. And just as he was prepared to deny a third, the door to the pub opened and Ben was certain he might have been already drunk. After all, he doesn’t drink much. 

But no, he was not mistaken. There before him, in walked Rey. 

He was at a loss for words as she winked at him. His limbs couldn’t carry him fast enough through the rowdy crowd, oblivious to his destination. 

He envisions walking up, pulling her close, holding her tight. But even in his surprise, he knows to be cautious. 

“Miss Palpatine,” he nods courteously, keeping his distance. 

“Lord Solo,” she does the same before offering the seat beside her as she may any acquaintance. She takes it, trying not to give in to the impulse to reach for her hand.

“What a surprise to see you here. What brings you to Cambridge?” She had mentioned nothing in her letters. 

“My grandfather has sent me to visit the Duchess Sly Moore up north. Unfortunately, our carriage experienced some trouble along our journey and we were forced to stop here for repairs. And it doesn’t seem we will be ready until the morning.”

Ben’s jaw drops at the beautiful opportunity. The slimmest chance the universe has afforded him. Until he catches her smirk and he already is certain how this misfortune upon the carriage likely occurred. 

And she had done so to see him. Or so his ego assumes.

“Rey, I–”

Rey holds up her hand, urging him to play along. To remain vigilant and he doesn’t blame her for it. She glances back towards the door. He doesn’t recognize anyone, and neither does Rey but she seems to think that will change. She begins to rummage through her small handbag at her wrist.

“Sorry,” he huffs softly. Naturally whoever her chaperone is won’t leave her alone for long. “It’s been–”

Rey cuts him off by pulling something from the bag and placing it in his hand. “Second floor. Fifth door on the right. Be quiet,” she says quickly before she all but rises from her seat and leaves without a second glance.

Ben is at a loss for words as he watches her leave. Until of course, she is too far to hear him, and after he looks down to find a key to one of the inns across the way.

He makes his way up the creaky steps of the inn, trying to be silent as he finds the door with the number that matches the key.

His instinct is to knock but…that defeats the purpose of giving him the key, doesn’t it?

Opening the door, he ducks in quickly in case anyone was watching before he shuts the door behind him. 

Once inside, light is soft and it’s quiet and it smells like her. And while he can’t see her, he can hear her. Humming to herself. 

He rounds the corner, marching for the powder room and not missing what lays out on the bed. Thin and lacy fabric waiting there. 

He pushes the door open to see her submerged in bubbles. Her hair atop her head in a messy bun and her skin was shiny. And she seems to enjoy ignoring him and acting oblivious to his presence. 

Pulling off his coat to hang on the hook by her dress, he sighs. 

“We finally get a real room of our own and you’re in a bathtub,” he huffs, pretending to sound annoyed even if he’s very very pleased at this surprise.

“You’re early,” she remarks, almost sounding bored.

“No, I’m impatient,” he corrects, pulling his boots off. 

“Ah, of course. Well, maybe I suspected as such.”

“Suspected,” he laughs, looking to the mirror as he pulls his tunic overhead, now just standing in his trousers. “Sweetheart, I was ready to defile the pub.”

Her eyes find him in the reflection. He practically shivers. Damn, he has missed her. 

“You’ll just have to defile the bathtub first.”

Ben smirks, “I’m flattered you think that I’d fit in there with you but I think you’ll have to wait.”

”You’ll have to wait,” she tries to say menacingly but she is all bark as he moves to sit in just his trousers beside the rim of the tub. He rests his arms around the edge, admiring the lines of her face and the warmth of her gaze once her attempt at teasing him eases slightly.

She brings a hand to his hair, running it back with a wet hand before she laughs at him. ”You can look so grown up sometimes but other times, it’s like you’re no different than the day I met you.”

Ben smiles, taking her hand and allowing himself to revel in her touch as he settles her palm against his cheek.

”Only you can have that effect on me.”

Her thumb brushes over his lips. “I know.”

Ben huffs a laugh as he kneels forward to kiss her before leaning back, holding her hand tight.

”How are things at home?”

Rey rolls her eyes. “Forgive me, but I thought you claimed to be impatient.”

”That bad, huh?” 

She scoffs. “It’s…the same. And you’re not there.”

”I will be soon,” he assures her. “The night I get home is the night I confess to my mother that I am going to marry you. It’s something that needs to be done in person.”

”She doesn’t like me.”

”She doesn’t like your grandfather. She hardly knows you. Besides, my mother's opinion is the last thing I’m concerned about.”

Rey sighs a little like she doubts that. And…perhaps she was right to do so. After all, they have been open with their affections for three years now. Three years of secret letters and hasty couplings and endless-endless-yearning.

But it gave him no shortage of thrill. In fact, after their first time(s) on that fateful and sudden visit home, he was rendered so useless when he returned to school that he knew he needed to find something to occupy the time between his classes and studies. Or else he would either be making weekly visits home or rereading over the endless scandalous letters they were so keen on exchanging.

Anyways, he supposes he could make the excuse that his temptation and lust actually served to his benefit. In trying to distract himself from it, he went out and secured himself a part-time apprenticeship with a gruff carpenter in town that reminded him a fair bit of his father, Baze Malbus.

It left him ragged and his hands rough and calloused and tired. But never too tired to read or write a letter to his beloved.

In a way, the excitement that built in his chest either counting down to the days he saw her or receiving a letter from her is what gave him energy for it all. Even if he woke early and stayed up late to finish his coursework (or otherwise).

And when he believed it could be delivered with discretion, he perhaps occasionally sent her little knick knacks he crafted from the shop. Tiny things only of course. There were some bookends he was rather proud of he wanted to send her but they were too big.

But time and location or hidden letters and endless longing don’t matter here. Not now. They have until tomorrow. And it’s just them.

And while it is a fair point to discuss what will soon fall into place, he finds that for this lovely surprise, he hardly wants to spend it worrying over what his mother or anybody else thinks.

“You are my life. And if she does not approve and tosses me from the house I will build us a new one.”

He expects her to smile but he is surprised by the slight furrow of her brows.

”You would have nothing if you chose that with me.”

Ben nearly balks. “I would have nothing without you.”

“Is that why you waited so long? So you could finish school before she may not pay for it?”

”No,” Ben blinks, bringing his hands on either side of her face. “I have to finish school if I ever hope to be smart enough to compete with you, my love.”

It earns him the smile he was so eager for and he quickly steals it from her, leaning forward to plant his lips over hers. 

Her protests are squeaky and playful as he submerges his arms in the water, sliding beneath her body and holding tight as he lifts her up. 

“Ben!” 

“‘Patience,’” he teases, trying to withstand from shaking as he feels her weight against him. It’s been too long. His last visit home was brief and rushed and their coupling had been very much reflective of that. Both of them still clothed as he pressed her against a tree.

Now she’s here. Until morning. And he will not let it go to waste. But he does recall his initial shock and reminds himself to ask her. 

“When do you leave in the morning?” He breathes out, his voice weaker than he expected. 

“As soon as they fix the carriage I broke. I tried to be ruthless but, unfortunately, it’s well crafted. I was lucky enough we got to stop here.”

He is the lucky one. 

“You sabotaged the carriage just to see me?” Ben beams as he settles her on the wide bed. His heart hammering as she looks up at him. That mischievous glint never faded from her eyes.

But a blush spreads over her skin, even when she rolls her eyes. “Shut up.”

“You missed me,” he boasts, gently pulling her pins out from her lopsided bun, watching it cascade gently around her face. Around her collar, drawing his eyes down.

“Of course I did,” she yanks his chin up as she moves to her knees, leaving them nearly nose to nose. It is not overly bright but it’s brighter than the meager candlelight they are used to working with on their nightstands.

“You missed me,” She states teasingly, her hands trailing up his sides.

“Such sass” he mutters, his hands sliding around her waist. 

“Such an idiot.”

Ben gives a deep laugh, having missed her tangible company. Her wit and sneakiness and everything that only Rey can seem to be. 

And he responds to it with ease, slotting his lips against hers once more, sighing happily at the familiar taste of her. 

He had accepted he would not see her for at least until school finished. To have this now seems like some reward he does not deserve. 

Her hands find her face right before pulling him the rest of the way down until he joins her on the bed. 

The laugh they share at the sensation is almost sad. Or it should be. They’ve been together many times now. Not a single time escapes his memory and yet this will be the first time close to what she deserves. A soft bed in a warm room that does not feel as secretive as he knows it still is. 

And even then, it is still unfair. The ring he longs to give her, tragically still intended for another, does not reside on her finger.

Yet. 

“We should elope,” he mumbles against her lips. 

Her voice is raspy when she answers, “We should.”

It’s nothing they haven’t said before. A beautiful way to solve their problems. A fantasy easy to indulge in when they are already taking more than they should.

He means it this time though. He really does. And he means that with complete clarity even as his hand moves between them and she moans in his ear.

He could find someone to officiate it, surely. He could get one of his annoying classmates to witness. Far from his mother and her grandfather, it’s the first real chance that actually makes sense.

And he meant it. He would build her a house if his mother threw him out.

Or better, take her back to Maine where one already stands. Far away from all of this. 

They could do it all now .

“Ben,” she gasps beneath him, her nails digging in his shoulders.

Not now, no…tomorrow, then.

“We’ll elope in the morning.”

“Of course,” she breathes out as he resumes with the task at hand. She still thinks he’s playing. 

“I mean it,” he insists. “I’m gonna marry you.”

Rey pushes his shoulder, landing him beneath her and the smug smirk she gives him.

"I know."

The morning comes without his knowledge. And with a stern knock on the door. 

That makes him stir, forgetting where he is until he hears the locks click and the creaking sound of wood on wood. 

Ben snaps up to bright light coming in through the windows. He doesn’t recognize it until he recalls how it appeared much more sympathetic when it was dark and a sanctuary that afforded him a chance he’s never had. 

That time has passed. 

“Reyna!” A voice from the door calls out loudly.

Rey shoots up from the bed with a gasp. “Shit,” he curses under her breath as she also looks to the door. It creaks, and whoever is on the other side, wars with the friction of the chair wedged under the handle. Given their strength and the sound of their voice, he suspects it must be Miss Phasma. 

Rey must have put the chair there at some point. He certainly hadn’t. But it’s good she had the foresight to. They would have been exposed by now. 

But as Rey is up and tossing him his clothes he left in the powder room, he wonders if that would have been better. 

If they were found, surely they would be forced to marry. Something he was planning to do this morning anyway. 

“Reyna, open this door right now or I’m getting the police!” A deep female voice shouts through the wood. 

“Shit,” Rey curses again, stuffing the lacy fabric he did not get to see her wear somewhere deep in her luggage before pulling a modest nightgown free and slipping it over her head. He only catches sight of the small marks littering her body before they are sadly hidden. “One moment!” She shouts back.

“Five!”

Rey goes all the faster at this, rounding the bed to where he has done little else than put his undergarments back on. 

“Four!”

Rey is quick to open the window for him. 

“There's an escape down the side,” she kisses him quickly.

“Three !”

“I’ll see you when you get home. I love you,” she says with a final sloppy press against his mouth. 

“I love–”

The window shuts and he watches as she frantically fixes the covers before rushing for the door. Ben pulls back as it flies open and he sees a flash of blonde. 

Phasma, he realizes. 

He stands there, on the narrow edge of the second floor, relieved that it’s fairly sparse in the alley he has suddenly appeared in. He can hear movement on the street not far down though. And he knows whoever Palpatine hired would not be above checking the alley if she didn’t buy Rey’s story.

Or if she checks the sheets. 

So Ben is quick to hop into a generous barrel that gets him to ground level, dress himself hastily, and then take off back towards his dorms. 

He’s hardly made it a hundred feet before he understands that he would not be marrying her this morning. Which hurts but…he has been unable to give Rey everything else she has deserved. Maybe a hasty elopement would just be another in the long list of things he has rushed them into. 

She deserves a beautiful wedding. And despite his continued betrothal to Bazine, Ben was certain that this time when he returned home to his mother, she would see reason. Maybe he would even write to his father, inviting him to the wedding. 

Maybe they could move to America once they were wed. 

And maybe if her grandfather learns of it all, he’ll simply keel over in shock instead of prohibiting it. 

Ben smiles, enjoying the thought of it all. 

Soon he will call Rey his wife. And they will be free of all that had attempted to pull them down. 

A disastrous days-long thunderstorm kept Ben from traveling home once his courses were finished.

Not even in the time after when the storms let up slightly but the flooding was heinous. Ben had spent hours trying to salvage furniture pieces and tools in the woodshop. The weather was too deplorable. And when Mr. Malbus asked if he could stay and help repair the structure of the shop, Ben knew he could not refuse. Even if he was late to meet Rey back home and he liked to think he could make it back by then, he knew it was the right thing to do.

It’s what Rey would want him to do. As insatiable as they are she is a compassionate person who cares for others. It is  quality surprisingly sparse in people of their society.

And in the end, Ben finds he is more capable than expected. Not just in building but in his fortitude to know this time will not change much for him and Rey. If anything, he thinks of how sweet their reunion will be.

And most importantly, how he will keep his promise to her. The day he returns is the day he admits to his mother of his love for Rey and he will marry her regardless of her feelings on the matter. Even if it means she sends him away without a penny.

When the day came to return home, Ben didn’t think he had ever managed the journey so slowly. Everything took forever and challenged all of his remaining patience. 

Had she not visited him all those weeks ago he’s sure he would have combusted long ago. He would have walked through that flood himself.

But he finally arrived in the late afternoon to the Organa manor and Ben practically leapt from the carriage.

But before he could even go five steps, his mother was calling out with glee, racing down to meet him. 

“Ben!” She cries, wrapping her arms around him. 

“Mother,” he smiles, hugging her back. 

“Oh, you seem bigger every time you come back,” she tells him when she pulls away, her neck craning up to look at him.

You seem shorter every time I do, nearly leaves his lips but he manages to hold it back. However, he wishes he didn’t when her next words register in his ears. 

“Bazine is here,” she does what he knows to be a false smile before turning back towards the front steps where Bazine Netal stands with her permanent sneer twisting her features. Although it is upturned on what he suspects is also her version of a smile. Though Rey has remarked that it always appears as if she is smelling something foul. 

Probably all the gas sneaking up through her dress, Rey said once, which still makes him laugh. 

He hardly refrains from rolling his eyes. All he manages, he thinks, is a polite bow. A wordless greeting which is far more polite than should be expected of him, honestly. 

Now he registers Chewie barking in the stables. Which only makes sense. Anytime Bazine was over, she requested the “mutt be put with the other animals” after he once got mud on her hem.

“We weren’t sure you’d be back today,” his mother says, looping her arm through his and guiding him up the steps to meet Bazine. “We were just discussing arrangements for this evening.”

“This evening?” Ben relays cautiously, already wishing he had delayed his rush. He forgets that returning in daylight is seldom helpful to him. 

“My father is holding a small gathering. But now that you have returned it will likely be quite a party,” Bazine says, holding out her gloved hand. It hovers there too long, going noticed by likely even the driver behind him. But he takes it, quickly kissing the back of it before releasing it gently. 

“Lovely. But if you excuse me, I’ve had a long journey. I’m going to freshen up a bit.”

As he ascends the stairs, he hears the ladies behind him whispering about something. Which was never a good sign. 

The Netal residence appears as opulent as ever. And it’s hardly a small gathering that accumulates before it. 

“I thought this was supposed to be just a few people,” he groans, his head falling back against the cushion in the carriage. 

He had been home for nearly five hours. He had not seen Rey. In fact he likely would have feigned an illness to avoid attending but he came on the chance that Rey had been invited. 

And he’s only frustrated because he’s seeing just how many people are flocking into the Manor. Which will make talking to her impossible. 

Bazine did not even leave their estate until an hour ago, giving him no opportunity to speak to his mother. 

And then her maid dragged her away to get ready while Threepio did the same with him. 

He told himself he would do the courtesy of appearing at the function, not to embarrass her if they didn’t show up. But in the carriage ride home it would be all over and she will have to think of how to explain it to her society friends.

“Word got out you got home…everyone is happy to see you again,” his mother says but it sounds too tight. Strained and not as natural as it should. 

“Nobody likes me. Why would they be happy to see me?”

It’s fairly true. Ben had few that truly approved of him. Even at university. At home, his mother likes him out of obligation. 

Bazine likes him because she thinks it will get her the title as the Lady of the Skywalker-Organa Estate. 

Rey loves him for him. But they are discouraged from socializing considering their feuding families. Only it’s a little too late for that. 

“Because you are a wonderful young man, and you’ve…you’re going to do great things.” His mother croaks and he is startled by the sound of her emotion. The woman is tough, hardly shows her feelings in times of weakness. It’s almost jarring. 

“Mom? What’s wrong?” He asks warily, reaching to cover her shoulder in comfort.

“I just…” she holds her handkerchief to her face as she nods quickly. Unconvincingly. “I’ve only ever wanted the best for you. And I’m so proud. I hope you know that.”

Ben shrugs, uncertain where this is coming from. “Of course,” he says more for her sake than his. He knows she’s proud of him, but not as proud as she could be. But…he supposes he appreciates the sentiment anyway. 

Because she won’t be so proud when they get back home.

Ben couldn’t find her for the first hour, sulking as he accepted this whole evening out had been a waste. 

He is subjected to dance with Bazine and a few of her socialite friends that he is familiar with throughout the years. He doesn’t approve of any of them. Mostly in how they talk about Rey when they think she can’t hear.

Since Rey’s engagement to Armitage dissolved several years ago, socialites take the opportunity to try and impugn her reputation as it it’s already ruined.

Granted, he has done more to ruin her than Armitage ever did but… no one seems to know about that. And he would argue she has ruined him but only in the respect that if she isn’t around, then there seems to be no point in being out. 

She’s ruined him for anything else. He is miserable company without her and after waiting so long to see her, everything is on his nerves.

She has ruined him in all the ways he wants to be ruined and hopes that never changes.

He is distracting himself with these thoughts well enough that he manages to finish a dance and claim he will get a drink for some semblance of a break in forced conversation with overly giggly ladies.

But it lands him in direct contact with Bazine’s father who seems far too happy to see him. Which is rare. In his efforts to evade proposing to his daughter (which Ben will never do) he has upset the man who likely expected to marry off his daughter ages ago.

Thankfully an old friend of the older man appears and excuses himself. Ben takes the opportunity to hide in the powder room for a while. But he does pass by the room, the nursery, where he first met Rey. It would be poetic to find her there then but he doesn’t.

He smiles to himself as he makes it to the dining room with everyone else, recalling the first time she made him smile.

But it’s when he was halfway through his miserable dinner, listening to Bazine tell yet another story of how many dresses her father got her for the summer season and all the occasions she plans to wear them at when he catches sight of her. 

Rey sits down at the opposite side of the room, at a table that had been too crowded for him to realize she was there until now. 

Which is odd. He would boast one of his greatest talents is finding her, be it in a crowd or a forest. And if not, she always finds him. Their night in Cambridge was a perfect reminder of that.

He represses a wide grin as he finally looks at her, only because Bazine will ask him why he is smiling suddenly. But the longer he looks, the more he wonders…why she has not looked at him.

She looks…tired. Pale and perhaps even a little too thin. Something seems off and already he is looking for Palpatine. Likely the man responsible for any unease she must be feeling. He’s not above punishing her with limited meals or being contained to the manor.

Fucking prick…

But just then, her attention rises, and her eyes find his. For the first time in nearly two torturous months. 

Something settles in his chest when she manages a small smile. Sweet and hopeful and too far away for his liking.

“Excuse me,” he mumbles to the table, though it seems to go unnoticed, drowned out by the noise of the party.

Except for his mother it would seem. She grips his hand and tries to anchor him to the table. 

“Where are you going?”

“Call of nature, mother.”

She shakes her head, glancing at the others at the table. At first, he thinks she prefers he stay for the illusion they were conversing with each other. Even though it’s considered rude for them to socialize at a party when they can at home. But he usually doesn’t talk much. And now that he thinks of it, he hasn't heard her voice much this evening. Which is rare. 

He’s always been able to discern that she did not actually enjoy the company of the Netals and perhaps her energy to put up with it this evening has run out.

“Is that a problem?” He blinks down at her. She’s not acting herself. Which is obvious for her because normally she doesn’t miss a beat, and doesn’t let a hair out of place.

But she lets him go. “Try to hurry back,” she whispers. And he won’t stay around to dissect why. 

He tries to be subtle when he glances at Rey as he steps out of the room. But she had seen him. She knows. 

He walks further through the halls until the sounds of the lively dining room are distant enough that he can hear his thoughts better and he ducks into what appears to be a study. Finding it empty, he waits. 

He knows her steps well. She walks faster than most women. And she prefers boots. Old pairs of his compared to the slippers he hears on the marble. But she had been trained as a lady of society and seemed to make do with anything. 

He opens the door a crack, seeing her and the flow of her dress. He would love to catch her by surprise, pull her in by the wrist, and press her against the wall. There is something about having her in this place, in the Netal house, that stokes his ego a little too well. Where they met and where he hopes he may never have to return to after this evening.

But instead, she enters quietly and shuts the door behind her. Leaning against it with her hands tucked behind her.

So he goes to her. 

“Sweetheart,” he melts, leaning forward to envelop her. Her arms do find him, wrapping around his shoulders and he relishes the feeling. 

They had to separate in such a rush last time, he took a long inhale of her hair. She smells sweet and real.

But then he notices the tenseness of her body. She hugs him back but it’s rigid. And his earlier observation remains true. 

Something is wrong. 

He pulls back, bringing his hands to her face, and pulling her chin up to look at her. Really look at her. The glassiness of her eyes was a heartbreaking sight. 

“Rey, what’s wrong?”

Her countenance nearly betrays her. He’s studied her long enough to tell. She nearly collapses but she catches herself, tightening down and biting her lip. 

“I missed you,” she answers as if that was the issue. He knows that’s not it. 

“Rey, tell me,” he insists, his nose pressed against hers as he holds her close. 

Her eyes dart back and forth with his own. Her worried brows are not softening, it’s still there. But something about her does seem to ease a little. 

And at her wordless response, he admits he grows can’t wait any longer. 

He presses his lips to hers, taking not as much as he would like but enough for now. He hums against her mouth, content to be home. And thrilled at the potential of never being apart again.

He had written to his father after Rey’s visit. 

He confessed his love for Rey. Someone his father would remember fondly even afree all these years. 

He told him he wished to marry her and that a visit from him would surely help him convince Leia that he would not be marrying the girl whose father’s study he’s currently kissing his beloved in. 

He never wrote back but his father rarely does. He’s a man of action. Maybe he will show up any day and ben will finally have an ally on his side. After all, he would hardly expect his father to honor a betrothal.  And perhaps, in asking so earnestly, practically begging, his father would see it as an opportunity to mend the rift between them.

Because he knows his father would advocate for love over any arrangements. As distant as his parents have grown, he knows they still love each other. 

And Ben would lay all his gripes aside with his father if he could do this for him. Vouch for him or assist him or…anything.

Ben forgets where he is though when he slides his hands down her back, prepared to lift her up and sit her on the small shelves to his right. 

But the sound of people passing by, laughing and chatting and likely drunk makes them both pull away. 

For a long moment, all he hears is the echo of their heavy breath as they catch themselves from something that is hard to stop once started. 

“I’ll um..” he clears his throat when it doesn’t work for him. “I’ll meet you tonight. Our spot,” he promises with a kiss to her cheek, just below her eyes that look too tired.  

“Ben,” Rey sighs. 

Ben holds her arms tighter, confused by her reaction. She almost looks defeated. 

But she bites her lip and nods quickly. Her eyes going glassy again. 

“Okay, tonight. Our spot.”

“What’s happened?” He shakes his head, lost. 

“We…we’ll have a lot to talk about. I’ll go back first, I think you should wait a few extra minutes,” she says all in one breath just as she wipes her eyes, straightens her dress, and slips from the room. He is quick to grab the handle and call her back but there’s really no point to that is there? He will see her soon enough m. But clearly she is barely holding on.

Sudden fears that she has been arranged with someone else in his absence strike hard and fast and cruel. 

Memories of Armitage and how good it felt to bury his fist in the bastard’s face flood his vision. 

And he marches back a little sooner than he should have, desperate to see if the next man he intends to strike is sitting next to her. 

Thankfully she seems unaccompanied but that doesn’t entirely answer his question. And he will sit uneasily until he sees her later and they can-

TINK TINK TINK TINK TINK

Ben’s thoughts are interrupted by Bazine’s father who stands at his table with a butter knife clinking his champagne flute. 

“Excuse me, everyone. If I can have your attention.”

Ben refrains from rolling his eyes. Cornelius Netal never missed an opportunity to get eyes on him or to highlight whatever new rug or chandelier he splurged on. But he frowns when he sees Bazine gaze up at her father, smiling wide and batting her eyelashes. 

“This day has been a long time coming and I am so pleased that it is finally here to be shared with all of you.”

And a glance back at his mother shoves the strained smile she wears at its most uncomfortable. It almost looks like a wince.

And then almost apologetic when suddenly Ben’s name is being called.

“Benjamin, if you would join us, please,” Cornelius smiles, gesturing to the space on the other side of him.

He hears gasps and whispers around him and he understands that suddenly everyone is now looking at him. 

His mother’s worry, Cornelius’ jovial manner and approval, Bazine’s pride, her friends snickering during dances, and finally, Rey’s unease all collide and he understands only after it’s too late.

“I am very very pleased to announce the long-awaited engagement between the young Lord Solo and, my beautiful daughter, Bazine.”

Claps and more taps against glass fill the air as Ben feels his heart sink to his feet.

“Please raise your glasses as we toast to the happy couple.”

A glass is handed to Ben, meant for the toast but he holds it limply before him in shock.

“Here's to hoping their engagement is much shorter than their lengthy betrothal.”

Glasses rise as everyone throws out well wishes. Bazine launches herself against his side. His mother claps but looks guilty.

As she should. She led him into a trap, his defenses down.

And worst of all, he looks up to see Rey no longer at the table.

She is gone.

Ben doesn’t speak to his mother on the carriage ride home. She is expecting his anger. And he wants to express it but honestly just feels in shock. Horrified at the choices that have been made for him. Choices and promises he will not honor. She has to know that.

And yet he has no way to say he hasn’t said it before. She knew his opposition and yet she still did it anyway. She knew how much he didn’t want this. In fact, she has always suspected his fondness for Rey though he doubts she understands the depth of his feelings.

She should know how she has hurt him and is expecting him to yell at her.

Instead, he just sits, feeling empty and betrayed and broken in ways she would never understand.

“Say something, Benjamin, anything,” she finally says about a mile from home. 

Ben scoffs, his throat closing up on him. Choking him at the situation at hand.

“However angry you think I am…likely isn’t half of what I truly feel.”

“I know.”

“No! You don’t know! You don’t know what you’ve done.”

“Ben, you told them years ago you wanted to finish school first and now it’s only honorable for–”

“Honorable?” Ben blinks. “Was sending me to those bastards blindly honorable?”

“You always knew this was going to happen.”

“You never should have forced this on me. You have no idea what you’ve done.”

He opens the carriage door.

“Ben!” she screams. “I’m sorry, Ben, but please think rationally!”

He moves to the edge of the step, not even looking at her when he says, “Carry on. I’d prefer to walk home.”

She protests but he’s already making the big step onto the road. He stumbles a little but the carriage is moving slowly enough there is no real obstacle to getting off. 

And away from her and the stifled air of the carriage, he can try to find his breath. 

And think.

He needs to think.

Ben sits on a log of a fallen tree. Part of what has become their sanctuary. Where they used to meet as children. He would hand her old trousers that no longer fit him and she would wear when her grandfather was away on business.

Or sometimes just books banned in her household. 

Where she would teach him how to launch a rock from a slingshot. She was always a wild thing. It’s why her grandfather tried so hard to socialize her properly. And why it never worked.

Here he learned the meaning of a true friend. He learned to confide in someone who wasn’t the dog.

He taught her how to shoot. She taught him how to love.

She was perfect.

And she was late.

Ben had been there for over an hour. He told himself that she likely has to wait until her grandfather’s staff is asleep. He did tell her in a letter he got about a week after their time in Cambridge that Phasma suspected she had someone in her room but wouldn’t have known who.

Restrictions have likely intensified for her. So he is resolved to wait.

And when she does arrive, he has made his decision. They are going to run away and get married like they should have done that morning in Cambridge. He cannot be legally married to Bazine if he is bound to another. 

He should go to prepare Silencer but he’s afraid he will miss her if she arrives and he’s already left. He needs to assure her he had no knowledge of that party or announcement and it changes nothing.

In the warm air, he tosses his jacket and cravat over the log. He paces in the dirt, kicking rocks and chucking unlucky ones against barks. Rage only slightly veiled behind his hope that she will be here soon. He will feel better when he sees her. He will be more certain that this disgust will evaporate when he has her before him.

But then he hears the distant barking of Chewie. Likely still in the stables. But from the sound of it, it is agitated. Persistent and frustrated. But even then, Ben can hear it. The sound of an incoming horse.

Concerned something or someone was headed for the house, he rises, rushing back to the house when Chewie’s barking continues. It is not someone the dog recognizes.

Ben steps out of the tree line to see a man ride up, prepared to hop off his horse and march up the steps.

“Excuse me!” Ben calls out, getting his attention.

The man seems startled to see him approaching from the forest. But he holds up some parchment anyway. “Telegram!”

“Telegram?” Ben blinks, jogging forward. “For Leia Organa?”

“Lord Benjamin Solo,” he corrects. “That you?”

Ben nods frantically, taking it in his hands. “From who?”

“America.”

It’s a ridiculous answer but it’s clear enough. It’s from his father.

Furthermore hope bleeds through his chest as he rushes inside to candlelight where Threepio and his mother are coming from upstairs to see what the commotion was about.

Ben ignores them to rip it open and hopefully have someone aside from Chewie in agreement with him about the ludicrous manner of their situation. His father has disappointed him before but he has to believe now he would see things Ben’s way.

And maybe this telegram is here to halt his mother’s insistence to marry someone he does not love.

“Ben, what is it?” His mother calls out at the same moment he reads the first line. And his stomach drops, realizing it is not from his father.

It is from a man in California, named Tobias Beckett, whom Ben has never heard of.

And he is relaying his sympathies and what seems to be…a request.

Deepest regards. Father loved you. Spoke often. Debts owed. 2,000.

“Ben! What is going on?” His mother demands louder now.

“I think…I think Dad’s dead.”

It’s not until he says it that he fully understands the meaning of the words.

His father is dead.

He looks over to see his mother fall to the closest chair and erupt into tears. But all he can hear is Chewie’s constant barking.

Ben wakes up, his head rolling forward to empty arms. He feels panic rise in him before he even knows what is missing, his mind still half asleep.

But he calms when he leans forward to see his daughter resting peacefully in the cradle before him and he is reminded instantly of all he has learned since he last time woke up in this cottage. 

He is a father. 

Bee’s features are soft and tranquil as she sleeps and Ben is mesmerized by her little face.

But the spot on the chaise behind him is vacant and he frowns, stretching his neck as far as it might allow to see where she went. But she must have moved Bee to the crib when she did.

Ben pulls up the blanket from the corner to cover her legs and for a long moment just watches as her little chest rises and falls while she makes the softest little noises. 

Bee is perfect. And she is his. 

An odd noise, the sound of pouring water pulls his attention away. Remembering his intent, he leaves the nursery to find her. He wonders if there was a leak in the roof and she was clearing out a bucket after the storm. He no longer heard the rain. 

But he leans over, kissing the top of Bee’s soft black hair.

“Sleep well, little love,” he whispers. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

It is hard to pull away at all but he knows he’s not going far.

Ben leaves the nursery and rounds the corner, looking past an open curtain off the side of the kitchen to see Rey testing the water temperature in a tub with a swirl of her hand. 

The boards creak under his weight and she only half looks at him before sitting up to reach for a bar of soap and a washcloth on the shelf above her. 

“This is for you.”

“The bath?”

“You smell,” she tells him flatly. “Like horse and sweat and who knows what else,” she mutters.

Ben lifts his arm a little to take a whiff. 

And “smell” was putting it kindly. 

He prides himself on being a hygienic person. At least more so than other men he knows, though that isn’t saying much. But after his journey home and devastation upon arrival, he did not freshen up before getting on his horse and looking for her. 

“If you’re gonna sleep on my furniture and stay close to Bee, you need to be clean.”

She sits up from the ledge of the tub, wiping her hand on the fabric of her nightgown and walking right past him. She leaves to step through the only other door besides Bee’s. Ben watches for a moment but when she doesn’t return he looks to the water now filled nearly to the rim.

Undressing, he lays his clothes out on the small hutch and slowly gets in, relieved to feel the soothing temperature. Cupping his hands in the water, he brings his palms to his face, his shoulders loosening as he already feels better. Even more so when Rey returns with a bowl he uses to pour water over his head. She sets out a thin glass bottle. Likely soap for his hair and a towel folded over his clothes. 

“Thank you,” he tells her with a sigh. 

“Thank you ,” she snorts, moving behind him to the small kitchen. “You were making my eyes water.”

Ben huffs a laugh as he scrubs at his hair, his arms, even under his fingernails. The next time he holds his daughter he wants to be absolutely spotless. 

After he pours another several bowls of water over his head, rinsing out the suds, he opens his eyes to see Rey has moved to sit on the small wooden stool by the edge of the tub. 

Ben slicks all his hair back so he could look at her without obstruction. 

And she laughs at him. 

“What?” He smirks, uncaring if she teases him, he just loves to hear that noise. 

“Nothing, you just…you’re the same as always.”

“An idiot?” He chuckles, recalling her favorite name for him.

“Well, yes.” Rey rolls her eyes a little but moves to rest her arms on the edge of the tub. “But you still look at me the same.” Her hand reaches out, tracing over his ear, the edge of his jaw, his chin. 

Her response is meant to be light, reminding him of the last time they spoke between the edge of a tub, only their positions were reversed. The last time he spent the night with her.

The night they made Beatrix.

It makes his heart ache. As much as he has remained the same and unknowing of the reality he left behind, Rey has endured…well, he’s not even entirely sure.

“Rey…I can’t imagine what you’ve had to go through.”

She avoided the subject before. But now with Bee asleep, she already leans back a little. Shaking her head, with no excuse to give. No time to stall. 

“Ben, I–”

“If it’s too painful to recount, you don’t have to tell me. I just can’t help but think the worst.”

“Well…not to sound dramatic but it felt like it was.”

“When Bazine’s father announced the engagement,” Ben starts and Rey rolls her eyes at the mention of it. He squeezes her hand tighter. “I realized that I had been tricked and everyone knew it. I thought that was why you seemed so upset but…” Ben shakes his head, feeling so naive. “You were going to tell me about her, weren’t you? That you were pregnant?”

Rey nods. “I told myself I was going to tell you in person. I was so terrified and your journey home was delayed back and my symptoms were worsening. It was more coincidence I discovered you were going to be at the party at all. I didn’t know it was meant to be your engagement party. Or else I would have suggested we make a run for it in her father's study.”

“When I went home that night I waited at our spot in the forest. I told myself that when you arrived I’d suggest the same thing. That we just leave …but then the telegram arrived and…”

“Your father, Ben.” She runs her thumb over the back of his hand. "I"m so sorry."

Ben shakes his head. “He had left it a mess. He always said he wouldn’t get far without my mother. The further they got from each other, the less they seemed to remember who they were. But the further I got from you the more determined I was.”

“Even when you hadn’t heard from me?”

Ben nods. “I knew it was unlikely your letters would reach me. I had never considered you hadn’t written me…not until I got home and spoke to my mother."

"And she told you I had been married off and had a baby?" Rey frowns.

"Yes, I...she said something about the North. I got on my horse and rode. Asking if anyone knew of a Reyna." Palpatine had concocted a story to save their name but doubts he would have been as generous to provide this cottage for her. “Did… does anyone else know she is mine?”

He considers his mother. How quick she was to tell him Rey had been married off and had a child. It was known she had been with child and considering what his mother has implied about his feelings for Rey in the past, surely she would at least suspect the child was his. And that goes for any speculation or rumors that spread around town.

“My grandfather and Phasma found out,” she admits before shrugging her shoulders. “I…I’ve had no idea what anyone back home thinks until now. I left suddenly. But the midwife in the town nearby who helped me deliver Bee knows. Rose. She comes over to help sometimes and I've told her all about it. She is about the only person I talk to besides Bee or Kira most days.”

She stares off, back towards the fire in the living room as it dwindles. 

“Rey…I don’t how you could have managed–”

“It’s over now.” She shakes her head again before she laughs. “And until you started talking nonsense in my living room, I thought it would always plague me. Because…it always felt wrong. I had trusted you so completely and the letter I got just never left my thoughts. It never made sense but it was hard to dispute.”

It hurts but more on her behalf than his. Even if it is odd to him that Rey has tried to hate him all this time.

“How did your grandfather–”

She nods before he can finish. “He opened the letter before I did. He’s yelled at me all my life but I had never seen him like that…It was terrifying.”

He holds her hands, hating the thought. Rey, alone and with child and under the assumption he had abandoned her. She takes a deep breath, her eyes looking anywhere but him. 

“I felt like I was living someone else’s life until the night she came…I felt stupid and like I didn’t know myself but when I held her for the first time, I just knew. No matter what had happened, or would happen, I wasn't going to let her grow up like we did, controlled by arrangments and expectations. I'm going to protect her no matter what."

Ben leans forward, pulling her hand to his lips even if his face is still wet. "We both will."

Chapter Text

Rey arrived to their spot in the forest to find only pieces of him. She took his cravat, folding it neatly in her fingers and inhaling deeply. She had missed everything about him. Especially now when all she is present enough to feel is fear. 

Thankfully she had found a physician in town who would be discreet, but they had only confirmed what Rey had feared for weeks now. 

She was pregnant. 

Pregnant with a now engaged man’s baby. 

She knew Ben would keep his promises though. He was too honest and too genuine not to. 

And the one thing she has known, in all the time she has known him, is that he has been betrothed to Bazine. This shouldn’t feel as devastating as it does but to have seen everyone wish them well as they stood together just made her feel sick again. She could not watch

Rey sits in the log next to his jacket and waits. It’s better out here than back home anyway. 

Home has been tricky. Trying to conceal her illnesses in the morning and have her appetite seem unaffected even though there has been something about the smell of eggs that makes her want to wretch in her lap. 

She rushed from the table the other morning and Phasma had been very cross that she had not excused herself properly.

But she needs to keep pretenses up until Ben helps her come up with a plan. 

If her grandfather finds out, she doesn’t know what will happen. 

And if he finds out it is Ben’s…she fears for his life if that were the case. 

So she needs to stay calm and think clearly. That’s how she’s made it this far. 

And she doesn’t have to hold out that much longer. Ben will be here soon. 

But when Rey wakes at dawn, using Ben’s coat as a pillow, doubt gnaws at her insecurities.

She hears the news of Ben’s father passing in the town. Her heart aches instantly, knowing how highly Ben thought of his father even if he mostly recalled how complicated the man was. 

Ben loves Han, despite his flaws and long absences. He missed him dearly and now he was gone. His absence suddenly makes more sense. 

However, in her case, it pushes things up. She doesn’t know when Ben will return. So she knew better than to wait for him to return. 

She writes a letter revealing everything to him. Her hands shook as she told him of the child and how it wouldn’t be long before she starts showing. She tells him that she is terrified and asking what she should do. 

Should she take a ship to America and meet him? Or wait where she is?

Ben loves her. He won’t let her down. 

Rey slides it in her pocket and briskly walks to town to mail it. She even wrote letters to Leia and Bazine’s mother to conceal Ben’s in the middle. If anyone stopped her, it wouldn’t appear too odd. 

To Leia, she offered her deepest condolences. Even if they were not often penmates and Rey was certain she didn’t approve of her.

And one to Bazine’s mother… congratulations on her daughter's engagement. Even if it killed her to put it in writing.

She ducks out quickly when she realizes that Leia and the Netal women are just next door in the stationery shop looking for elegant wedding invitations. Bazine boasts about some stationery she wants to gift Ben to write her plenty of letters since he'll be gone for a while.

"It's simple, his favorite."

"My dear, it's practically still on the tree it's so plain," Bazine's mother laughs.

If Rey was not nauseous before that, she would have been.

Rey expressed to Ben in her letter that she would mobilize on her own if she did not hear from him within a month or so. But with every day–every week–that passes, Rey tells herself how her letter could have flown loose and landed in the Atlantic. And she was trying to gather the courage to follow up on her own promises to herself but she had no idea where to start. Does she just take her horse and a bag one day and head for the docks? That seemed rather stupid.

What would Ben do?

It is on a morning where she is lounging in bed, trying to think of a solid plan of action when she hears the beginning of the commotion. And Rey knew what the approaching footsteps meant before her door was even slammed open. Palpatine manor was meant to be eternally silent and collected. So it was the first sign to Rey that she had run out of time.

Still, she scrambled to pull her covers over her as protectively as possible.

Her grandfather barged in exhibiting more anger than she even thought him capable of. His face was red and his lips curled in disgust as he tossed the blankets she was clutching to reveal the modest bump beneath her nightgown. 

He didn’t have to even ask…he seemed to already know.

“You’ve ruined us!”

He shoves her dresser and it hits the ground with a thud. 

Rey scoots back, hunching her head as if that would help her.

“All the fucking trouble I went to. But you insulted the Huxs, you refuse to cooperate with any other suitors I suggest, and all this time you’ve been fucking Solo.”

Rey is quick to deny it, shaking her head. “He’s not the–”

He hurls something at her and she flinches before it even hits her. But she sighs in relief when she realizes it’s just parchment and it falls to her lap. 

The sight of Ben’s penmanship gives her pause. He had written her.

And her grandfather had opened it.

She doesn’t get the chance to read a word before her grandfather is shouting again.

“You’re leaving.”

“What?” Rey looks up to see him yanking her curtains down. Pulling her clothes out of her wardrobe and tossing books aside.

“Right now. You are getting out of my house.”

Phasma walks through with one of her luggage cases and places it on the end of her bed and wordlessly starts piling items in while her grandfather rants. As if this is no different from what they do every morning. Even if she can’t recall the last time her grandfather had ever been in her room.

“Useless as your father, as big a whore as your mother…fell for that fool of a boy and was stupid enough to let him touch you!”

“I’m not stupid!” Rey croaks out, her eyes too blurred by tears to attempt to read the letter in her lap.

“Well, I hope it was worth letting him get what he wanted!” Grandfather spins around to shout at her, finger pointed.

“H-He loves me,” Rey had cried, trying to keep her voice steady and her arms protectively wrapped around her middle. “He’s going to marry me!”

Her grandfather barked a laugh, a sinister and insulting noise. “Evidently not…”

Rey is about to shout back and tell him how wrong he is when suddenly Phasma reaches over to tap the letter in her hands.

Rey looks down at the words briefly and then up at Phasma to see the smirk she’s hiding behind her lips. She feels her gut plummet and it has little to do with the nausea that’s been plaguing her lately. 

Dear Rey,  

I sympathize with you and think of you still as a dear friend, however, I have made longstanding commitments to Bazine. You and I both know this.

Any promises I might have made to you were done so in feverish moments of lust or to appease my growing needs as I matured into adulthood. I had supposed you were doing the same. With the dissolution of our meetings, now we can both move forward grateful for such experiences. 

The night you came to visit me in Cambridge is one I will hold dearly in my life. Our moments together in the forest between our homes will be cherished. Our friendship has always been a solace to me in our lonely world. But we’re not children anymore. Not lustful teenagers or foolish adolescents. We’re adults now. I’ve reached a point where I’m tired of being treated like a child. My father acted like one all his life and his death has made me realize that I need to handle the responsibility that is asked of me. 

I wish you the best in your endeavors and that this letter does not find you too heavily impacted by my confessions.

Perhaps Armitage would still be open to the arrangement that had been earlier rescinded.

Apologies, 

Ben.

She was given a small sum of money. Cash. Half of her annual allowance which her grandfather had already minimized greatly. 

But it was made clear, this was last she would get from him. 

And he suggested she take it to someone who would know how to relieve her of her condition. And Rey cannot say she did not consider it. 

The letter was so cruel and she would refuse to think that he had written it. But…there was too much there to refute. Things only they knew.

But Rey didn’t know what to do now. She could hardly fathom the thought of him at all, how drastic her feelings had swung that she forgot she had to consider there was a child involved.

She never saw herself as a girl foolish enough to end up like this. But maybe she inherited more from her parents than she thought. Maybe her grandfather was right about that.

Rey hadn’t made up her mind by the time night fell. She just knew she was scared out of her mind just the same the morning she woke up in a hostel and had to get back on her horse.

She couldn’t eat anything. Even if her stomach didn’t reject half she put in, she was too rattled to try. 

And she had already spent more than she should’ve for the room.

So she rode on. Rode on until nightfall again. And this time the town’s inn was at capacity.

She was trying to make arrangements to at least just stay with her horse in the stable, arguing with the rat bastard of a man who told her that if she was so desperate for a place to stay, she should have stayed in the last town on account that they had a brothel.

Rey grabbed the reigns of her horse and left.

She had no destination in mind. She had no plan. She only had so much money. She had no shelter. She had no family. No Ben.

She had her horse and Ben’s baby.

And she was determined that this would not be the end of her.

Just because Ben didn’t want her didn’t mean she was worthless. Or so she tried to tell herself. Or she will keep trying to tell herself. She has to keep moving forward. To keep moving. 

Because she’ll need to be a good mother when this child comes and while she has nothing to base that off, she was going to try.

That was more than she could say for some.

If Ben boasted so much about responsibility but was running from it, she would prove how to be responsible.

It was a chance opportunity that Rey figured it was best not to squander.

But she didn’t see any other women going in. 

It was a fairly small town though, Ach-To. Smaller than Chandrila. And she doubted there were many pregnant women around anyway. Besides herself.

And she wasn’t from there. She could tell everyone she and her husband were riding through but he was busy today and that’s why she was attending herself. And the sign seemed harmless enough.

FREE Midwife consultations. Wednesday 8-5 p.m. Expectant mothers inquire inside.

She entered and found it to be more or less someone’s home. Mortified, she turned to leave.

“Oh, are you here for the consultation?”

“Um,” Rey starts, ready to lie and bolt. But this is greater than her fear or her shame. She promised herself to be a good mother. And it starts before the baby even gets here she figures.

“Yes.”

It seemed like she had lept over a ten-foot wall. 

Perhaps being responsible still meant she needed to ask for help.

The woman’s name is Rose. She explains that she is a midwife, back from schooling and had yet to be hired by a hospital so she was living with her family until she decided upon a place to practice. 

“Come and sit down for me and I’ll ask you just some routine questions.”
Rey looks to the chaise in what must be her parent's study. It was hardly professional but the girl seemed nice, looking to get some experience on her own and Rey knew she didn’t really have any other option.

“You can set your luggage down.”

“Oh, sorry,” Rey excuses herself, setting the object down and out of the way. 

“Are you just passing through?”

Rey doesn’t know.

“Uh, well that will be up to my husband. He’s…he’s still making up his mind.” The lie comes less from ease but more from desperation. Which seems to be the intention behind all her actions lately.

“Oh, of course,” Rose rolls her eyes. “That’s husbands, I gather. They get to make all the decisions.”

Rey lays down in just her underthings and Rose first presses her hands on different points of her abdomen before pressing a cold stethoscope below her navel.

“Do you know the date of conception?”

Rey tries to not think about Cambridge or Ben lately. She gets too mad and hurt and teary. And she has to be strong. And she can’t think about how stupid she was to visit him then.

“About four months.”

“Four months?” Rose asks, her tone worrying.

Rey tenses instantly. “Is something wrong?”

“No, it’s just…you’re experiencing morning sickness I take it. You’re so thin.”

“Y-Yes. I can hardly keep anything down.”

“Oh, I’m afraid that’s common. Although you should be getting to the point when that’s nearly over.”

Rey sighs in relief. “Good.”

“First baby, right?”

“Yes.”

“I can tell. Above everything you seem so tense. Was a baby husband’s idea as well?”

“I…” Rey can’t think of an answer. She nearly says it was no one’s idea, it just happened. But that would give her away, wouldn’t it? “Yes,” she finally answers stiffly.

“Are you experiencing any other symptoms? Unusual exhaustion, tenderness in your breasts, mood swings?”

Rey has felt all those things. But even if she weren’t with child and traveling on horseback from town to town, she would guess she would experience those anyway.

“Yes.”

“Well, if you have a husband that listens, I’d tell him that you’d be much more comfortable if you stayed put for a while. Countryside sightseeing is hardly enjoyable while expecting.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t have the title of Doctor before my name, I have yet to find a place to permanently practice, but if it helps I can put it in writing and give you something to help with your nausea to pick up in the pharmacy.”

“Oh that’s…a prescription would be lovely. Thank you,” Rey sits up, already trying to guess how much that would cost, and then focusing on her main concern. “And you think everything is okay with the…the baby?” She hadn’t said that word aloud before. Suddenly it was much more real. 

She had chosen this path and she was committed to it. But the revelation leaves her shaking anyway. 

Rey knows it does not escape the attention of the woman determined to observe the state of her.

“I think you’re doing quite fine at this point. If you stay in town I’d have no issue checking over you weekly once you get further along. And I do house calls if you find a place to stay.”

Rey feels to keep going now would be a step backwards given this is the first sign of hope. And the place was nice. Isolated but family oriented, it seemed. “How much are accommodations around here? Modest ones?”

“Depends…does your husband have a set budget?”

Rey knows it’s stupid but if this is the chance she has to get help from someone, she had to take it. Reaching into the waistline of her undergarments, she unfolds the money and shows it to Rose.

“What would this get me?”

Rose reaches but then pauses. "May I?"

Rey nods, watching her count out the bills. "Ach-To is modest but..."

"I know it's not much."

"Is this all you have?" Rose’s eyes look down at the money and then her luggage. She’s given herself away it seems and Rey knows she is past the point of no return. 

“Rose?” Rey croaks out, feeling the words on her lips and hardly able to hold them back when they slip out. “I’m not waiting for my husband.”

And to her surprise, Rose nods. “I've gathered that.”

Rey balks. “Do… should I leave? ”

“Of course not. I could tell when you came in.”

“How?”

“You look terrified," Rose says softly, passing her back her money and sitting on the edge next to her. "You’re stressed and you seem exhausted. All those things can be dangerous for mothers. For babies.”

Rey’s lip trembles and tears flood over her cheeks. “I am scared. I don’t have anywhere to go.” Her voice is hardly audible but Rey can't speak any higher. Thankfully, Rose nods in understanding. 

“Are you running from the father?”

Rey feels sobs she’s kept at bay for days, now threatening to leave her body.

“Or…he ran from you?”

Rey nods, trying to catch her tears with her hands.  “I’m sorry. This likely won’t help your business.”

“Rey, mothers are my business. You are my business. Just because you’re not married doesn’t mean you are any less deserving of efficient care.”

It was hardly appropriate for Rey to embrace the young midwife but she could not help herself. 

It was her first feeling of safety in so long.

Rose explained to her that her family had a small seaside cottage. It sat above the cliffs, and had ‘horrible’ drafts but Rey thought it was adorable. Rose said it was their guest house for years but now sat empty. She said that after she had left to study medicine and her sister had left to study abroad, her father claimed that they had no extra money to maintain it. If Rey put down some money for basic repairs, she would be able to stay there as Rose's guest. As a friend.

It was a half mile from town.

It was close to the ocean, the crashing waves a soothing sound at all times.

She knew how to fix some things herself, saving herself some money. Other projects she needed supplies for and Rose said were unfit for an expectant mother to even try. In town, Rey was able to haggle modest prices for other amenities. Groceries, most importantly.

She took on sewing work from mothers in town with too many children to keep up with. She was able to get unused secondhand furniture from houses looking to sell at modest prices. 

She got seeds to grow carrots that Kira devoured while Rey felt not so different as her “cravings” (as Rose called them) increased.

She even procured an old farmer’s rifle when she spent too many nights unsure if she was hearing people circle the house. It was always wind or creaky boards she had yet to replace. But it’s hard to rationalize that in the middle of the night when you’re an unwed pregnant woman who lives alone. At least on the nights when Rose could not stay over.

She hates to say the gun made her feel safer as well as the lessons Ben used to give her. She doesn’t particularly the things but it’s a necessity for her practically living on this cliffside.

But overall, she had to give herself credit. She had survived. She had made a home. Creaky a small and some would say less than modest but it was hers. And after everything had been taken from her, no one was going to take this. 

But even through all the adversity and hardships, she still felt the sadness. The pain. And she started to suspect she would always carry it.

She was sure rumors circulated about her as her presence in the town as her stomach grew wider. 

Rose told her that if anyone asked, to claim she was widowed just months ago and that she was looking to settle somewhere new without painful reminders of her late husband. 

And Rey hates to say she liked the story. So much she wished it was true. On her more hormonal days, she prefers to think that a dead but loyal Ben was better. Instead of a live and lying one. 

It still felt awful though. It felt…torturous. 

But Rey knew she had always relied too heavily on him. Ever since he had admitted his feelings to her that night when he was suspended from school. She would have grown out of it, had he not confessed that to her. She would have watched him get engaged with a heavy heart but wished him well and never thought about him again.

But she knows what a lie that is. 

Even now, she finds it hard to outgrow him. He is always on her mind and she despises herself for it. She wants to forget him. 

But having the baby of a man you want to forget is perhaps impossible. She is about to be reminded of him every day for the rest of her life. 

And that should alarm her more than it does. 

Rey knew she would never let anyone touch her ever again. 

The pains had begun at dusk the night before. Now, as night comes again and she is still in agony, she might be cursing Ben’s name more than she ever had. Which was saying something.

Rose had spent hours with her, helping her bear her weight as she paced the length of the cottage and tried to use gravity to her advantage.

And Rose made the mistake of admitting that this would be the first delivery that she was doing on her own without an advisor to witness. It took several hours of panicked contractions for Rose to assure her that she knew exactly what to do and that if anything went wrong she would go get help.

But nothing went wrong. At least Rose said it didn’t. To Rey, everything felt wrong. It felt like her body was trying to evacuate itself. It felt like hell and she acted like it. Furious and grumbling under her breath that ‘the bloody bastard’ was going to pay for this. He was probably already married to Bazine and redecorating his family manor with a portrait of the two of them.

She hated him. She hated him so much and he had done this to her.

And then she knew she just wanted to hate him.

All her writhing and suffering and pushing finally comes to an end when little squealing cries overpower her own exhausted ones and Rose deposits a squirming creature on her chest, covered in goo. Red-faced and screaming and more startled than Rey was.

But in an instant, everything drowns out. All Rey can see is that she has a daughter and she is beautiful.

And cursing Ben’s name is the last thing on her mind.

It was late. Or now it was early, Rey figured. 

Ben’s knees were pressed against her own as he listened intently. She had spent the duration of her story looking at her hands or leaning back against her pillows. 

And Ben didn’t say anything. He just listened. 

His expression was tight though. And she could swear she heard his jaw clicking. She’s nearly at the end and she imagines that it hurts for him to hear how she thought of him. That she would think him capable of all that. 

However, he just sits with his legs crossed, his hair now dry and all of him smelling a lot better than he did an hour ago. His head was heavy as he listened. Often his hands move to cover his eyes or his mouth. When he looks at her he looks broken, like he is experiencing the moments she is portraying himself. 

But that was always Ben. Getting so swept up in stories. So much so she’d find him teary if one affected him too much. 

And she will admit that in the months– the year – since she last saw him, she’s thought of him as more of a Willoughby. A man who got what he wanted and left her compromised.

Which always felt wrong, considering how much hatred Ben had for the character when he finally finished the book and gave her his animated review. His reverence for Brandon and sympathy for Marianne, Elinor, and Edward.

People with too many feelings in a society designed to repress them.

Which really was them, wasn’t it?

But…that time was over. She knows going forward now that they won’t hide their feelings. They won’t cater to the world around them or hide from it anymore. They couldn’t if they wanted to. Or Rey couldn’t since the moment she started to swell under her dress. But…now she chooses it. And so does Ben.

Reaching over her own folded legs, she grabs his hands, trying to keep him from deconstructing. As much as the tragedy hurts, she has to remind him that this story has a happy ending. 

“I cried when I held her for the first time,” Rey tells him earnestly when he finally looks at her again, sniffling and teary. Guilt radiating off of him in waves. 

“She had this beautiful little face and ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes…and it hurt at first to know how much I loved her when she looked so much like you.”

Ben’s lip trembles and his head falls again, his chin falling to his chest. Rey keeps going though.

“But I knew, as long as I lived, no matter how much I tried to hate you, I could never loathe you completely.” She reaches for him, pulling his chin up until he looks at her again. “Not when you gave me her.”

The strangled sob that leaves his throat should not surprise her.

She has always loved this about Ben. His ability to express himself. Unashamedly. 

She can’t think of any man, regardless of age, that would risk the vulnerability of crying at all let alone in front of someone else.

But Ben cries. As he does. And she leans forward, wrapping her arms around him, hiding her own smile. She had missed him and his big tears. Further proof he is the furthest thing from the helion she had tried to hate for the past year.

“Thank you…” she breathes in his ear, brushing over his hair. “Thank you for giving her to me.”

Ben coughs another sob. “I-I’m sorry, Rey. I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Fault is an intriguing topic though. Just one for tomorrow. At a time when she has the energy to be bothered about anything beyond these walls and whoever might have caused them this.

“I should have…I should have waited for you. I should have brought you with me. I was so frantic from the party and fearful of an engagement with her, I thought the best thing would be leaving but I didn't think it would take as long as it did." He shakes his head. "America is too fucking big and I...I assumed nothing substantial would change in my absence like the fucking idiot I am."

Rey shrugs. “You came back in the end. You came back for me. Even when I had stopped waiting for you.”

His eyes shut tight, pained at her words and she realized perhaps this was too much too soon. She has felt all these emotions spread out over many months. They are hitting him all together and all at once. 

But he also has the reminder of the good that came from it all. He was here. And this sadness would soften soon. And she would hold him until it did. 

Because for her, dawn had already come. Dawn after a long night. And she could not help but feel the weight of her own eyelids press on her. How odd to have this much commotion in her life and feel tired. She is always tired but seldom gets to rest it seems.

But she can now.

She pulls at her covers and pulls Ben with her. No longer crying, he follows her and pulls her against his chest, holding her like he used to. In a way that she had not forgotten but had feared she misunderstood the tenderness of. She is glad to know it is the same sanctuary as it always was. Glad to know she was not mistaken in the love she had found, but reinforced by it.

This bed is smaller than the one they were used to sharing at her Grandfather’s house or at his own. She had it shoved against the wall on the nights where she brings Bee in and corrals her in with her body and pillows against the wall to keep her planted safely. And in that respect, she supposes it will keep Ben from falling off as well.

But she quite likes having him here, as tight as it might feel. She reasons he’d be this close even if they did have more space. 

Foolish of a girl she might have been, she is certain now that her memories are as fond as they always felt. Ben had not deceived her, she was not used or ruined or forgotten. 

He kisses her temple, sniffling one more time in her ear as he cuddles her close and she extinguishes the small candlelight on her nightstand.

“Ben?” she yawns, sleep pulling her under.

“Yes?” he answers instantly, his arms tensing around her.

Rey places a palm over his knuckles, smiling when she feels him relax.

“I’m really glad I didn’t shoot you.”

He gives a breathy chuckle in her ear, and her eyes close on instinct. Ready to finally rest.

“Yeah, me too.”

Chapter Text

Rose woke early, as she often does. She never eats much in the morning so she has some toast and a little juice before she grabbed her bag and told her mother she was off to see Rey and would be back soon. 

Her parents adore Rey and Bee and Rose is glad for it. The poor woman had been run out of her town because of what happened to her. Thankfully her parents were not the most traditional and did not seek to ostracize Rey from society. 

Most others didn’t know the full story and believed Rey to be a widow but that is purely just to make it easier on Rey and sweet little Bee from how awful people can be. 

Like Bee’s father. Despicable, awful man. Abandoning Rey like he did when Rose can tell she is still nursing a broken heart. The biggest salve being her daughter of course but Rose imagines Rey will have to bear that pain for the rest of her days. 

As a midwife, Rose can see that. But as her friend, she hopes she can overcome it. 

Walking along the path to the cottage, Rose grumbles at the mud the storm left for her to trudge through. She’s grateful it’s not a long walk and at the very least it’s scenic. The sound of the waves a calming sound after so much bloody rain. 

But Rose can’t hide the rock in her gut as she counts the steps until she sees them Rey and Bee. She feels guilty even though she has done nothing yet.

A letter yesterday from one of her professors from school, explaining that a position had opened up as a medical assistant to Dr. Kalonia at one of the hospitals in London. And that Rose had been highly recommended for the job.

It was overwhelming. Mainly because she wanted that job. Desperately. But it felt wrong to consider when she knew it meant leaving her first real patients behind. Bee was the first baby she ever delivered on her own.

And Rey was her friend. Not just a patient. But it wasn’t as if she could ask Rey’s thoughts on the matter. Because Rey would tell her to go, to not think twice about it. But it felt wrong. Unless, of course, she could find someone she trusted to look over Bee’s health. Or negotiate time off to return home and tend to her patients in Ach-To.

No, that didn’t sound very professional.

Rose doesn’t bother to look up as she walks through the gate and enters the little cottage without knocking. Rey urged her to break the habit months ago when she kept waking up Bee from much-needed sleep and to just let herself in, claiming they were the ones in her family’s cottage anyway. 

So Rose doesn’t notice a single thing out of place as she has placed her bag on the chair by the door and removes her coat before stepping over to the nursery to check on Bee. As is her first order of business every time she arrives. But it’s while she’s already pushing the door open when she hears not just Bee’s soft little babbles but another voice. Not Rey’s but…a man’s. 

The sight of a large shirtless man standing at the edge of Bee’s crib while he holds the infant to his chest is instantly chilling. And Rose can only scream. 

“AHHHH! REY!”

“Whoa,” the man flinches, holding the baby closer as she breaks out into sobs at Rose’s screams. 

“Who are you!? Put her down!”

Rose grabs a broom, the closest thing in reach, and holds it purely to keep him at a distance. Clearly she knows she can’t strike him, he might drop Bee or she could hit her. 

“It's okay,” he claims quietly while bouncing Bee gently in his arms and kissing her face before telling her the same thing. “It’s okay,” except in a lighter tone.

“Don’t you dare–”

“Rose!”

Rose snaps her head to see Rey rush to her side and lower her aim of the broomstick. 

“It’s okay, this is Ben.”

“Ben?”

“Bees’s father. He arrived last night.”

“Bee’s father?!” Rose keeps her grip on the broomstick. “Rey, have you gone mad? This man–”

Rey pulls her out of the nursery and closes the door behind them. “Here we’ll talk somewhere else.”

Rose can hear the man shushing Bee, speaking softly to tell her everything was fine. 

But Rose is adult to know everything was not fine. The bastard was here! And Rey was letting him hold her daughter!

“He betrayed you– abandoned you –and when he waltzed up you just let him in? I don’t care if he’s biologically her father, he has no right to her after all he’s subjected the two of you to.”

“No, err yes. That was true. All of that was true and believe me, I did not let him in easy. I aimed the bloody rifle at him for a good while. I hated him !”

Rose knows that’s not entirely true. Even before whatever lies he fed her. 

“But he’s explained it to me now…and I believe him.”

“Explain what?”

“He just got back from the States a few days ago. He’s been searching for me. He never got my letter and had no idea I was even pregnant. He thought I had been married and it wasn’t until he saw Bee that he realized she was his. He was oblivious to everything I hated him for.”

“You’ve shown me that letter a thousand ti–”

“It was forged. Believe me, that was the first thing I showed him. He didn’t even read the whole thing before he passed out on the floorboards. I think he left a dent!”

Rose sighs, not liking how convenient all this sounded. Ben could be claiming all that, acting ignorant when in reality maybe his conscience just got the best of him and was taking advantage of Rey’s forgiveness. 

“You’re already letting him close to Bee?”

Rey’s brows knit together, in sympathy for the big man. “He’s so good with her. And you know how she is with strangers, she’s not like that with him. And he loves her.”

Ben watches from the nursery window as Rey and Rose speak in the front yard. Rey trying to ease Rose from walking back in the house and probably committing murder. The shock quickly bled to anger when she realized who he was. 

However, Ben finds himself grateful for this woman’s anger. Grateful that someone has considered how valuable Rey is and how disgraceful it would be for him to lie his way back into her heart. It’s always baffled him how people seem to write her off but here, seemingly at the edge of the world, she has found a friend that looks out for her and his daughter.

Bee’s whines soften as he bounces her gently, kissing her cheeks and holding her close.

“It’s alright…that was a lot of noise wasn’t it?”

Bee gives a little grunt and Ben melts at the sound.

In the light of the morning, her face is bright and her eyes have a shine that reminds him entirely of her mother, as well as the dimples on her face when she smiles.

“Look at you,” he breathes out, her hand held around his finger. “So tiny.”

“Gahhh,” she gurgles, her other hand brushing past his face. Ben beams, uplifted by her little squeaks. 

He didn’t sleep much last night but not from discomfort. More just feeling in shock of his surroundings. Or perhaps new awareness is the term. Odd surroundings are not uncommon to him now. Endless nights of sleeping on thin cots in anywhere from dusty to damp and flooded rooms across America.

But last night, on a thin lumpy mattress in the middle of essentially nowhere, he felt at home even if he had never been to this cottage before. 

And even then he still felt shaken by all Rey had shared with him. Everything she had faced and endured was mortifying. Perhaps the main reason he didn’t really sleep. Overwhelmed with grief of all she had to endure when she believed he did not love her.

He is amazed by her though. He doubts anyone, regardless of gender, could be as brave as Rey was. Even if she admitted to feeling terrified, she kept moving forward. She ensured that when their daughter was born, it was to a warm little house, into loving arms. 

He hopes he can prove to be half the parent she is. 

He still feels a great sadness from all he’s missed and overwhelmed at what he suddenly walked into but he’s trying to feel… optimistic.

When he heard Bee cry early this morning, Rey stirred in sleep but he was quick to tell her to lay back down as he rushed back to the nursery.

He enjoyed sleeping next to Rey but he was eager to see his daughter again. However, he does wonder if there will ever be a time when he can share a bed with Rey and not leave it in a rush.

But rushing to greet his daughter is by far the best interruption he could imagine. No Phasma, no encroaching daylight, no sound of angry footsteps.

From here on out, his life resides with these two. It always belonged with Rey but he finds there is room for more, to his surprise. Enough room for the little girl who weighs far less than the saddle on Silencer’s back. 

And if anyone had issue with it, well, Ben didn’t really care.

Rey reintroduced Rose and Ben after Rose begrudgingly agreed to it.

Ben was very understanding and even thanked Rose for her concern. 

Rose was quick to ask him about the sicknesses that Rey told her had partly delayed him and suggested he perhaps be cautious because babies are sponges to any germs. Something that made Ben go pale but Rey knew Rose was just trying to give him a hard time. 

Bee didn’t seem to catch on though, erupting into cries and Ben looked panicked, unsure to hold her closer or comfort her in his crisis. Rey rolled her eyes.

“She’s just trying to scare you,” Rey chuckled as she took Bee back in her arms. “And this one is just hungry.”

“Oh…of course,” Ben sighs in relief, running a hand over Bee’s hair. 

It’s been two days since Ben arrived in the storm.

Two days since Rey has felt that ache in her heart begin to mend. 

Ben has adapted quickly, but she knows he has always been a quick learner. And patient too, because when Rose scolds him for changing a nappy wrong he stays calm and asks for instruction on how to improve.

Rose told him to perfect it because he had five months of them to catch up on.

Ben eagerly accepted the task. The second Bee needs changing, Ben scoops her from her arms and tends to it.

Which Rey could get used to.

She has tried not to imagine what Ben would be like as a father because she knew it would hurt too much when it seemed he had retreated from all the gentleness she knew him to be.

But she can see now, the instincts she tried to bury were right.

“He is a good father.”

The words don’t surprise her but to hear them in Rose’s voice does. 

“I know,” Rey smiles as she looks to Rose sitting beside her on the blanket they laid out on the grass (finally dry enough). Their eyes were honed in on Ben as he held Bee up to sneak a peak at Silencer in the stables. 

“I…I’m not sure I’ve witnessed a father be so doting. Especially to a first born daughter. Most men find it disappointing.”

Rey rolls her eyes, not at Rose but rather how true her statement was. 

Although, were Rey born a boy, she’s sure her grandfather would have been just as miserable with her. Had Bee been born a boy, Ben would be acting no different than he is now. It made no difference to him, she can see that.

Ben reaches out a hand to pet Silencer’s mane making the stallion huff. The sound makes Bee erupt in a fit of giggles, waving her arms and kicking her feet against her father.

“Not Ben…He loves her,” Rey says, her eyes welling with tears. “The moment he saw her, he was gone, I saw it.”

“Well, granted Bee is easy to fall in love with.”

“True,” Rey smiles, wiping at her eyes. “But he is so loving. As I always knew him to be.”

“Is he…staying?”

“He’s made no mention of returning to Chandrila. I know he won’t leave us now but I do wonder if someone will come looking for him.”

“His fiaancé you mean.”

“Rose, come now, I’m in a good mood.”

“Sorry…but, I mean someone forged that letter, didn’t they? If it wasn’t Ben, whoever wrote it went to great lengths to keep the two of you apart. Now that you are, what is the next move?”

Rey sits up a bit from her comfortable lounging as she considers this

Someone could come for him, couldn’t they? He wouldn’t go but…the last thing they need is more drama.

“Do you have a suspect?” Rose asks when Rey does not answer after a long moment.

Rey swallows. “I…I’ve been considering my Grandfather’s head maid, Phasma. She seemed so pleased that morning packing my things. Pointing to the letter that my grandfather was practically spitting over. And she could have deduced it was Ben with me in Cambridge.”

“Have you told Ben?”

“No…he’s in such a good mood. Even when she falls asleep he just sits in that chaise and admires her.”

He asks her every night to tell him about things he has missed until she gets too tired. But if Bee so much as sneezes he starts pacing.

“Oh God, he’s a nervous mother already.”

Rey chuckles. “He’s always worried too much, that’s all. He can’t help it.”

He can’t, and as defensive as Rey may be for it she can admit it’s getting tiresome for herself as well. He spends every moment that Bee rests asking her questions from her pregnancy up until moments before his arrival. Rey gets so tired she falls asleep mid-story and he asks for the rest when she wakes up.

And Rey loves talking about Bee but there are some things that she would prefer they do while the baby is sleeping. Even if she swore to herself she wouldn’t let anyone touch her amidst her labor with Bee, clearly Ben being here is enough to sway her on that front.

She’s wondering if he is going to make her have to spell it out though. Even if it’s been over a year since they were last truly together.

“But you don’t help trying to tell him of every possible disease he could be giving her.”

“I’m letting him hold her in the vicinity of the horse, I think I’m showing great restraint.”

“You are, thank you.”

“But you on the other hand…”

“What about me?” Rey rolls her eyes, waiting to hear her next criticism on Ben will be.

“I have to ask…and I’m not trying to make you feel bad when I say this only–”

“Only what?”

“Given how that man speaks to you, looks at you, follows you even, then…what made you believe that letter so fully?”

Rey is surprised by the question, it was not what she expected. “What was I supposed to do, Rose? I was thrown out of my house and all I had with me was that baby and that letter. I was so vulnerable and terrified and I could only think of trying to keep my head above water.”

Rose nods her head, in silent apology.

“And he was in the States having never received the letter I sent. Had I sent another letter even if I did suspect foul play, even if it didn’t get lost or if no one intercepted it a second time, it may never have arrived to him.”

“I knew you were heartbroken but after seeing how much he loves you, you must have felt like a dead girl walking.”

Rey doesn’t want to think about that now. She doesn’t want to live in those moments anymore or be haunted by them. They were false.

“I had to keep moving… for Bee .”

Bee giggles as Ben bounces her in his arms.

Rose scoffs but not dismissively. Almost in disbelief.

“I don’t know how you did it. And if you believed you were betrayed by a man that you believed loved you as much as he does, I don’t know how you had the restraint not to shoot him when he showed up.”

“I almost didn’t.” Rey just shrugs, her eyes focused on the little noises of her daughter being overjoyed by her father.

“Besides, he found us. All that can be over now. And I would have carried on and kept her safe no matter what but…I’m relieved that the Ben I always loved never changed.”

“Well, let’s hope he makes it official soon before any of these villains show their faces.”

“Where do you propose we get married? I told everyone in town my husband was dead.”

“They don’t need to know he’s your first husband.”

“He looks too much like Bee. They’ll know.”

“Then who cares? He already broke enough rules getting you pregnant in the first place.”

“As out of wedlock as Bee is, I consider Ben a perfect gentleman.”

Rose gives her a look.

“A perfect enough gentleman. Or at least the best one on this bloody continent at least. If anything, I’m the wicked one.”

“Somehow that does not surprise me.”

Rey hides a smirk, grateful they had the chance for all this to fall into place.

But she does consider her friend beside her all the same.

“You are taking that position.” It’s not a question in the slightest. If anything, it’s a demand. 

“I haven’t made any commitments yet.”

“But you’re taking it.”

She hears Rose give a long sigh. “How am I gonna leave my first baby.”

“By promising to visit. And by ensuring that you’ll be ready if and when I ever need a midwife again.”

“You who chanted you would become a nun all through labor,” Rose laughs.

“I don’t recall that at all,” Rey lies. “And with Ben back I can admit…I’ve always liked the idea of a big family.”

Rose snorts. “Luckily, he seems the type that needs little convincing then.”

Ben had little money actually on him and the American money he had left wasn’t viable in town. Rey told him that she has bought many dinners on her own and he didn’t need to bother but he still felt guilty.

He went to town with her to pick up some ingredients for dinner after Rose left for house calls. But Ben did not miss the looks they got as they walked along, how people seemed to scratch their heads when they saw them together. Rey with the basket in her arm and he holding the baby.

Ben felt defensive, ready to snap at anyone who made any sort of ill implication towards her or their daughter but Rey just snagged his hand and pulled him along. And then he just didn’t care how people looked at them. He was glad to finally have the chance to walk with her in public, undoubtedly bound to her and he didn’t need to waste time by feeling preoccupied with other people’s words.

One woman did comment though, “That’s Bee’s father then? He’s got to be, just look at ‘im.” Her eyes flitted back and forth between him and the little girl in his arms. 

Rey gave a small chuckle before nodding. “He is.”

“Thought you said he was dead.”

Rey just shrugged, unbothered, as she hands over her money in exchange for the vegetables. “Not anymore,” she smiled as she grabbed his arm and guided them out. 

He smirks when they walk back through the open street, his question unspoken but understood.

“A widow with a baby has a better chance of getting work than a single woman with one,” she explains.

That was true. In their society, tragedy of a social nature does not absolve anything. Death is easier for people to accept than showing compassion to someone experiencing cruelty. 

“And in my defense, in all my grief, you might have well been.”

“Did you prefer that?”

“No…but it was easier than what I feared to be the truth.”

“I don’t blame you for it.”

They returned home and prepared dinner. They ate huddled at the small wooden table with creaky chairs that Ben’s hands were itching to replace or at least repair. But not as much as he wished to cherish the evening with his family so he ignored it.

Rey told him it would be a few more weeks before Bee tried some solid foods. But after the last two nights of eating half his meal and unable to cut it properly with Bee sitting on his lap, Rey insisted she be put in the bassinet right beside them while they ate.

And at that table, he finds himself living in a vision he imagined while living in the Maine house for a few weeks. The only difference was Rey had a ring on her finger and they were sitting at a proficiently made table but those are the easy things to change.

After dinner, they moved over to the rug laid out by the hearth where Bee’s few toys were, playing. Ben already thinks of all the toys he would like to try to craft for her. Or at least buy for her. She has so few but the ones she does are clearly loved.

Beatrix is strong and Rey boasts about how quick she pushes to her hands once on her belly. Something she says Rose claims to be very impressive for an infant at her stage. 

Ben is convinced, no matter what or how she progresses, he will be immensely impressed for the rest of his days by her. 

As flames in the fire dim, so does Bee’s energy. Her expressive reactions to tickles and energized kicks start to subside and her eyelids grow drowsy and soon enough he knew she was sleeping. And with his legs numb from sitting on the ground as long as he had, he reluctantly got to his feet, heading for the nursery.

He settles her in the crib, Rey’s hands reaching in to adjust her little nightie and the blanket over her legs.

But even as she is settled for sleep (at least for the next few hours) Ben cannot pull himself away. After all the time he missed, he feels guilty when he is not with her. He has so much to make up for, even if Bee has no memory of it.

Rey’s hand covers his on the wooden railing of the crib as they look down at the beautiful culmination of their love.

As many regrets he has with Rey, and as much as he curses himself for how careless he has been throughout their relationship, he can never regret Bee. 

“She loves you, you know,” Rey whispers softly.

Ben feels her thumb run over his knuckles, her words bringing him hope that could strangle him. 

“How do you know?” It’s only been a few days.

Rey just snorts, her other hand slowly spanning around his middle, holding him. “Because you show her how much you love her. Young as she is, she feels it. She will keep feeling it if you’re here to stay.”

Ben snaps his eyes from Bee’s sleeping form to look at Rey. “You know I am,” he insists, squeezing her fingers.

“Clearly someone has gone to great efforts to ensure you were never here. Who is to say if you’ll get forced to–”

“No one is forcing me away…unless you get sick of me.”

Rey tuts, pulling him out of the nursery, back towards the fireplace. “Ben.”

They haven’t spoken much about this. Ben has preferred to live in the present and dream of the future than dwell on the past. The pain.

But he knows to go forward they must address what has happened. Whatever it was that happened.

“I mean it, no one can come here and try to pull me away. Whoever tried to deceive you clearly didn’t go to such lengths to do so with me. They did not forge a letter in your hand declaring you no longer loved me. I was oblivious to all of this until my arrival and you were the one suffering from the machinations of… whoever this was.”

Ben’s bones are grateful to sit on the cushions rather than the floor but he is ultimately more focused on the expression on her face.

“And who do you think it was?”

Ben sighs, hating the thought that someone was working so maliciously against them. And unnerved that as secret as they tried to be, clearly they did not succeed. Someone found out.

“Because I was thinking…the morning I left and how pleased Phasma looked. She could have deduced you were with me that night in Cambridge. That would make sense.”

“It would.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” Rey says flatly and Ben smirks.

“Would you prefer I sound excited when we discuss who attempted to ruin you?”

“No,” Rey rolls her eyes.

“How would Phasma be so familiar with my penmanship? Could she have found my letters to you?”

“It’s unlikely but…it would explain how she could have replicated it if–”

“I thought you said that Phasma never encouraged anything remotely artistic. That she couldn’t teach anyone to draw if she wished to because she was so poor at it.”

“I did.”

“Then how could she have been so accomplished at a forgery?”

Rey opens her mouth as if to answer but she instead, offers a new question. “Then who could have done this? Who could have orchestrated all of this?”

Ben sighs, trying to conceal the doubt he has in his heart but knowing she will get it out of him anyway. He has never been very good at hiding from her.

“I fear my mother might be responsible.”

“Your mother?”

“She took me to that party knowing what it was. She appeared remorseful but we argued on the carriage ride home. And with my father dying suddenly, and in debt, maybe she discovered you were with child and deduced–”

“How did she know about my being in Cambridge then?”

“Maybe she found one of my old letters. I didn’t bring them all with me to the States, and I know you mentioned it at least on–”

“Do you really think your mother capable of doing that though?”

“She’s smart. She knows everyone. And she’s the one that first taught me calligraphy. She would know how to replicate my hand with ease.”

Rey shakes her head. “I can’t imagine your mother–”

“Rey…” he sighs, his hands squeezing hers. 

She looks to him, concerned.

“I admit I don’t know her very well but–”

“I think she always suspected how I felt for you. Meeting with you, speaking with you, she…well I think she feared it would be some kind of encouragment. Or it would at least look bad when she had made promises to the Netals.”

Rey’s lips tense at the name and he kisses her knuckles in silent apology.

But she gives a sigh. “Can you imagine her doing that?”

Ben tries to think of his mother hunched over in her study, writing a letter in his hand with the knowledge of what she was subjecting Rey to. Her then unborn grandchild to.

He hates to think she is capable, but she was capable of creating a betrothal to Bazine when he was a child. Capable of leading him into the lion’s den unknowning. Capable of ignoring how miserable he was in every new venture she insisted a respectable young man needed to experience.

“I can,” he croaks. “And she knows how cruel your grandfather is. She knew he wouldn’t let you stay, effectively ridding you from town before anyone else could cast any assumptions.”

Rey is quiet for a moment. A long moment as she studies his palms, gentle touches over lines before she looks back to the fire. The reflection of the flames reveals the unshed tears welling there.

“I always liked to think that if…if the arrangement was never in place and you were free to choose who you pleased–”

“I did,” Ben asusres her, kissing her temple.

Rey continues, “–that maybe she would have approved of me, separate from everything my grandfather is.”

Ben sighs, his fingers in her hair. “Maybe…but whoever she was when she met my father, whoever she might have been in a life where she did not make the betrothal, she’s no longer that person. Whoever she was when my parents fell in love was someone so detached from a society she thought she could be done with. But she’s become the worst parts of the society she ran from and I don’t know it it’s guilt for leaving in the first place or disdain for letting it happen at all. For letting me happen at all.”

“Ben…”

“No, I…if this is the truth then I can accept it with ease. Because I know now she was wary of me finding happiness the way she did once. She thinks she’s keeping history from repeating itself but…I know I’d never subject Bee to anything she’s forced upon me and my future.”

“If what you suspect is true then…even knowing she has a granddaughter isn’t enough to sway her. Even if we were to marry.”

“We are going to marry. If you still want that.”

Rey presses her lips together, hiding a smile. “I do.”

Ben smiles back, moving to sit up a bit straighter. “Then to hell with everyone else. Let’s just do what we want. Who gives a damn about propriety or expectations?”

“You know I don’t but–”

“Then what’s stopping us?”

He can hear the swallow she gives before he takes notice of the shine in her eyes.

“You’re certain you want that with me? Me and Bee?”

“Of cour–”

“I mean a life with little respectablilty. Little money, little–”

Ben surges forward, pressing his lips to hers.

She hums against his lips, her arms folding around his neck. And he is quick to pull her as close as he can, bringing her across his lap.

“Do you even have to ask me that?” he breathes out, his hands rising to cup her cheeks.

“Did it have to take you two days?”

“Such sass,” he exhales as he pulls at the ties on the back of her dress.

She is lifting his tunic up his sides. “Such an idi–”

“An idiot. Believe me, I know.”

She’s right, he realizes as they rise from the small couch to get rid of the rest and he nearly throws his socks into the dwindling fire. 

Everything Rey takes off floats to the ground by her feet…except for her thin chemise. She begins to pull it up, but the hem stops at her upper thighs where she holds the fabric tight in her hands. He watches in near agony, looking up at her from the couch.

“Ben?”

“Yes?” He croaks out, ready to stand to shove off his trousers but he waits. Waits to see what she will say.

Only she doesn’t say anything. 

But she looks almost nervous as she bites her lip and then wordlessly pulls her thin chemise over her head. And he suspects why when her hands quickly move to cover places of herself.

He covers her hands with his own, laying flatly over her lower abdomen, before easing them away.

At first, he notices nothing but in the light of the small fire he can see the shimmer of silvery marks around her sides and below her navel.

“Rose says they may never go awa–”

Her words halt as soon as Ben’s lips press against her skin. Beside her hip where he sees those little marks, beneath her navel, on her side. These marks are what remain of her pregnancy he wishes he could have witnessed. He wishes he could have seen her, helped her when he could have, been with her when she was in labor, and met Beatrix when she was born.

He cannot get those moments back. He cannot change anything now. He can only assure that going forward, he does not miss anything else.

Rey relaxes under his touch, tension leaving her when she understands this does not deter him, but incite him further. She huffs a small laugh, her hand rising to his shoulders, to his hair, and then his cheeks, bringing his eyes back up to hers.

“It was very hard to hate you when I knew how good you really are.”

“I’m not that good. When I thought you had a husband, I was considering murder.”

Rey laughs, sinking down to his lap. “If I had a husband that wasn’t you, I think I’d hope you would consider murder.”

“You–”

This time he is cut off by her lips and Ben is convinced whatever he would have said is far less important.

Rey wakes up to the smell of something heavenly. 

Pancakes.

She rises in her bed, stretching her arms and reaching for the clothes Ben must have brought in from the living room. Thankfully so considering she thinks she hears Rose’s voice.

Pulling on things to look half respectable, she steps out into the kitchen to sure enough see Rose, sitting with Bee in her lap while Ben worked at the counter, producing a hefty pile of pancakes.

“Morning,” he smiles, leaning over to kiss her and she tastes the sweetness of the syrup he’s using.

“Good morning!” Rose greet with a smile.

“GAHHH!” Bee announces to keep up, her arms waving in the air.

Rey clenches her teeth together just to keep herself from crying. Because that would be a very foolish reaction to such a lovely morning. 

“Good morning,” she finally manages, the corners of her eyes wet with tears.

Because it was. It was a very good morning.

Rose was prepared to be on the defense that morning when some of the townspeople saw fit to invite themselves into the chapel. But surprisingly, there was little criticisms made toward the happy couple.

Rey’s dress some might consider plain but it’s as good as Rose’s mother’s old curtains, the fabric of an older cream dress, and a whole night of sewing gets you. And Rose is rather impressed even if she only did the bits nobody will see. Thankfully. 

Rose held Bee as she bounced in her lap. Rose looked out at the small crowd that had gathered to watch and saw only smiles. The biggest being probably Rose’s own parents.

Rose feared that news might carry fast, even if this is far out in the country. But it had been about a week since Ben arrived and she suspected that someone would have come to find him by now. They might try to interrupt the ceremony and separate them for good.

But then the man declared them man and wife, and there is nothing anyone could do about it now. 

Rice and flowers and applause flow. And Rose would do more if she wasn’t trying to keep hold of the wild infant in her arms, desperately trying to reach for her father.

Her father who is just as impatient. As soon as he and Rey pull apart, he is rushing them over to pull Bee into his arms.

Rose isn’t sure what becomes of the (now official) Solo family next but she knows nothing would separate them now.

Chapter Text

Rey woke in the shakey carriage to see Ben with his side of the curtains drawn and Bee in his lap. The two of them are quite a sight as Bee drools and Ben admires the sleepy countryside.

It’s the first time she’s ever been in a carriage with him. It’s not as fine as the ones he is used to riding in or the ones she used before she was cast from her home, but it gets the job done. And the main inconvenience is purely that there is little room for Ben’s legs, resulting in sporadic breaks for him to stretch them out. Though, Rey would guess they would need to do that regardless of the quality of the carriage.

It was a beautiful journey. And quite healing as well. The last time she had traveled these roads, she was a devastated woman, running from everything. A single woman on a horse and little hope she would make it through the night. 

Now she can hardly contain her happiness.

They were going to Maine. To the house Ben spoke so fondly of growing up. Considering their aversion for society in the circles that plague the towns and cities and their refusal to let Bee be subjected to it, they decided to take the risk. To travel to the States. 

But only after they saw Rose off to London, ready to start her new position and with the promise to see each other again within a year or two. Which is difficult but realistic considering how long travel takes. Saying goodbye to Rose was difficult. More so than Rey anticipated. 

But they would see each other again. She was certain of it. Especially when Rose mentioned that she could potentially be transferred to the States if things go well in London.

Rey is ecstatic to start their new life. She knows it would be sensible to be nervous. Atlantic travel with an infant but she finds herself more than confident that they will make it there. Happy and together and ready for a bright future. 

But then she sees their surroundings for what they are. 

Too familiar. 

Chandrila. 

“Ben?”

He reaches over for her hand. “I just want to get a few things. Before we leave.”

“Like what?” She asks, wondering what could be important enough to delve back into this nest. 

He shrugs. “Aside from some money I have stashed in my room for the remaining travel expenses, I wanted to get Chewie.”

Rey opens her mouth to oppose but stops. She knows she can’t argue with that. 

“Well, in that case…” she smirks. “Though apparently, he’s going to have to sit on my side because you take up your whole bench,” she chuckles. 

Ben just leans forward, moving Bee to his other knee. “I was originally planning that you stay with the carriage in town and I will go get him but now I know better than for us to separate. Especially in Chandrila.”

“If you think I’m letting you walk off in this place now then–”

“I know,” he interrupts softly. “I know better now than to take it for granted.”

“Then I’ll come with you.”

“Well I was considering that as well but–”

“There is no third option in this instance, Ben.”

“No,” he agrees, nodding his head once before tucking his chin to kiss Bee’s head. “There’s not.”

“So…we go in together then.”

He nods once more. And she hears the heavy sigh he gives before his eyes find her once more.

“If it’s true. If my mother really did orchestrate all this, then…then I want her to see that she could not break us. That she did not win despite her efforts. And while she can stew here in her misery and bitterness, we can live free and happy in the open air. Where Bee can grow up without all this.”

Rey squeezes his hand and holds onto Bee’s foot with the other. Her little family.

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

“I don’t want you to do this if you feel–”

“No…I’ve hidden long enough. And I know we’re safe now. There’s nothing she could try to convince us of at this point” Rey smirks, fiddling with his wedding band. “We unspun the lies and found all our truths remain.”

“Bahhhbah,” Bee babbles, reaching for the ribbon on Rey’s sleeve. Untying it, Rey pulls it out and lets the baby’s eyes follow it, transfixed by her little face.

“I would have expected her to cry throughout this journey. She’s been so good,” Rey says softly once a tiny fist snags the fabric and immediately drools all over it. "Granted we have a ship ride to get through."

“She’s perfect,” Ben says, as he often does.

Rey giggles. Beatrix has an unbreakable hold on him. She knows he still feels guilt weigh heavy on him but she is also certain it does not overshadow his absolute adoration and love for the little girl.

Rose was right. It is not often you see a father affectionate with their own children, at least in their society. 

To see Ben dote so well on Bee is all Rey could have hoped for. 

“Is–”
She looks up to see Ben’s expression furrowed as it tends to look when he is looking for words. The familiar landmarks that pass them by tell her they are approaching a nearby turn-off that she tries to forget. 

“What?” she asks, determined not to see anything beyond the two faces before her.

“Do you need anything from your grandfather’s house?” he manages, looking ashamed to even mention it.

She just shakes her head. “I doubt they kept anything anyway.”

Ben winces. “I shouldn’t have–”

“It’s alright…I mean of course there are things I would like to get but it’s just not worth it. Not when my new husband is going to build me anything I need.”

He gives a smile at that and he seems to relax but only slightly. “She might not even be home. We could get him, tell Threepio the news and be off. Or not tell him anything.”

“No …no. You’re right. She tried to throw Bee and me away like refuse. She should see she did not succeed.”

It had been over a month since Leia saw her son. Since he made his sudden arrival and just outright demanded where Reyna Palpatine was.

She has not seen or heard of him since.

And it’s terrifying.

She had missed him so dearly and she was so proud of him for taking such responsibility. She knew how hard it must have been for him to travel all that way to only arrive at the location of his father’s death.

She should have gone with him. True he is a man but in many ways, he is still just a boy. And besides he is her son and he is a lonely one at that so she should have accompanied him to the States. She should have tried to mend the gap between them, especially after completely violating his already strained trust in her.

Nothing had been handled ideally for Ben. He should have grown up with two parents around him at all times. She was so resentful towards her husband for making the wrong choices and she thought that making the opposite ones would make it only better for Ben.

But he resents her all the same.

And clearly, her instincts about the Palpatine girl had been true. He had loved her and now she was gone. And she is uncertain if he will ever return once he realizes Rey is gone.

Leia has lost her son and she knows she must take that responsibility.

Threepio has been wise to stop asking her daily if she has heard any word. She’s tired of fleeing a room subtly enough just to break down and cry in private.

She has no husband. No son. And the only person that comes around here anymore, only making her more aware of such facts, is little Bazine Netal. 

So when she is nearly back home from town (she’s preferred to get her own groceries lately, looking for chances to clear her head by walking) and sees a carriage out front of her home, she is steeling herself the energy to receive Bazine and possibly even her mother.

She just isn’t in the mood and is tired of trying to find excuses or answers sufficient enough to satisfy them about where Bazine’s fiancé is, as they call him.

She is debating if she will walk back to town, pretending as if she forgot something when she realizes it is not any of the Netal’s carriages. She doesn’t recognize it at all. But she drops her groceries then and there when she sees the man waiting on the steps with Chewie sat in front of him, eager for scratches.

“Ben!” she gasps in relief, rushing up the rest of the way until he is not five feet in front of her. Her arms are open wide and she is ready to squeeze him tight.

But he steps back, his eyes on the ground and not willing to meet her face.

“Mother.”

“Ben, where have you–?”

He holds out some papers between them. 

She frowns, taking them. “What’s going on? What is this?” She unfolds it to see fine penmanship in a letter expressing condolences and reminders of facts. And her stomach drops.

“This is the letter that Rey received, seemingly from me, not long after I left for the States. This is the letter responsible for her grandfather removing her from his manor just across the way,” his voice rises as he points to the trees that lead to Palaptine’s property.

“Ben–”

“And you knew of this the whole time. You knew what you were subjecting her to.”

“What are you talking about?” Leia blurts, looking at him in horror.

“You know this because you wrote this letter.”

Leia blinks, looking back down at the writing again, just in case she was mistaken. But no. “Ben, I have never seen this letter in my life.”

Chewie jumps up, trying to keep Ben’s attention but he is focused on her. His features furious.

“You don’t know how much pain you caused her. You don’t know what you did by–”

“Ben, if you are suggesting that I interfered somehow in making that vile man kick his own granddaughter out of–”

The sudden sound of something stops her words, something coming from inside the house and it takes her a moment to distinguish the sound as small cries… of a small child.

Leia’s attention diverts solely to her front door and instinctively steps forward. But Ben moves to block her path.

“Oh my goodness,” she gasps, covering her mouth with her hand. “Rey is here?”

“We’re leaving. I only came to ensure you knew that all of this is over. And that you were made certain you did not succeed.”

“You’re lea–What about her husband?”

“I am her husband,” Ben says, holding up his hand to reveal a silver band on his finger.

“You–” Leia’s brain is trying to keep up with this information. “You got ma–?”

“You know, right now, I don’t think you and he are that different.” He nods again to the trees but intending for the Manor beyond them. 

“You mean Palpatine?”

“He sent away his granddaughter...and so did you.”

“I did not send Rey awa–”

“No, I’m referring to your granddaughter.”

Leia’s jaw drops. “M-My granddaughter?” she croaks, shaken to her core as she looks back to the door. To where she heard the cries of an infant in her own house.

Ben’s child…her granddaughter.

“Rey was with your child? That’s your…?”

Ben looks at her, his features confused. “Of course.”

Leia pushes past him and through to her own house and sees Rey in her sitting room holding a beautiful round-faced, black-haired little girl. Chewie’s tail wags excitedly as he rushes over to sit at Rey’s feet, looking up at them just as transfixed.

“Mrs. Organa,” Rey springs up when she sees her walk in, the baby high on her hip. The baby who reminds her entirely of the son she used to carry everywhere just the same way.

“Th-This is–” she steps forward, her arms already stretched out, reaching for the infant. Her granddaughter. But Ben rushes to stand between her and Rey. 

“No…you’re not gonna touch her. Not after all you did to abandon her.”

“Ben, I…I cannot begin to comprehend whatever it is you think I’m guilty of but if I knew that Reyna Palpatine was pregnant with my grandchild, I hardly think myself cynical enough to try to banish her.”

“Well, I do!”

At Ben’s shout, the baby erupts in a new fit of tears. Leia hears how Rey tries to soothe her with a soft voice. 

“After everything else you put me through. The engagement, Dad, ignoring my wishes when I did everything you asked, and then you–”

“Ben, I would never–”

“You knew how I felt for her.”

“I did not know the two of you were– that you had already– ”

“You told me she had been married off to a man her grandfather arranged with her. That she had had a child.”

“Ben, I had suspicions that the two of you felt something for each other but never once did I think that the child Rey supposedly had was yours.” She cranes her neck, trying to catch another glimpse of the now quiet baby. “I am not going to hurt her, Ben. Please, I just–”

“No…because you hurt me. And I can’t trust you won’t hurt her. Not after everything.”

“I–I’d never. Ben, I’ve been wrong about many things, I know that now, but–”

“No…you don’t know.”

“Ben, I did not make up that story. Everyone is under the belief that Rey was married off up North and I’d have heard rumors by now if anyone thought otherwise.”

“Who said I had been married off?” Rey interjects, gently. Her tone was far from the accusing one Ben was using. When she speaks, Leia sees Ben’s shoulders loosen. When Reyna steps out from behind his figure, the little girl comes into view and Leia is certain she stops breathing.

She has Ben’s ears too. Leia tears up at the sight. Undoubtedly her grandchild.

“My grandfather?” Reyna asks, her brows furrowed in concern.

“Um…” Leia croaks, bringing her handkercheif to her cheek. “I hardly recall.”

“Ahhhhgg,” the little girl babbles and Leia can’t help but sob.

“Ben…she’s beautiful,” she breathes, unable to keep from reaching out to him. His arm is tense and does not reach out to her but she needs to keep hold of him to prevent herself from falling over. She is completely blindsided. “What is her name?” Leia finally manages, unsure if anything has been said since she last spoke. She can hardly hear over her own heartbeat.

“If…if you did not orchestrate this, then who did?” Ben asks, ignoring her question.

“Baaaahhhhga.”

“Shh, love, it’s alright” Reyna hushses softly to the infant, the little girl looking just as confused as the rest of them.

Clearly something has been assumed and misunderstood on every side.

Ben turns his head to look at Reyna, walking over to her and the little girl watches him, her little legs kicking as he scoops her into his arms.

“Who else would know my hand? Would know of us ?” he asks Reyna softly as the little girl looks at Leia over his shoulder.

“Uh, ma’am?”

“Not now Threepio,” Leia huffs, his being the last voice she wants to hear right now.

“Miss Netal is here, she is insistent upon entering.”

Actually, Bazine is the last voice she wants to hear right now...except...

“Bazine!” Leia gasps. Suddenly her attention diverting back to the letter Ben had given her. And suddenly it clicks. “It’s Bazine!”

“I’m not speaking with that woman ever again. And I have Rey’s and I’s marriage certificate in case you think you can sti–”

“No, I mean this stationary…I was with her when she bought it. She said she was going to send it to you.”

“What?” Ben exclaims. “Bazine?”

“And…she was the one that told me of what had become of Rey. I had heard from town she had been married but Bazine was the one that told me she had a child…I haven’t heard anyone else–”

“But others could have used that parchment if they bought it,” Rey poses the statement as more of a question.

“How can we trust you?” Ben is quick to toss out. “You could just be covering your own tracks.”

“Ben, I would never interfere with someone’s well-being, especially that of the mother of my granddaughter. If I had any idea–”

The door opens and in walks Bazine. “Mrs. Solo, you’re finally home. I wanted to drop in. I have some excellent sources that indicate we can get those tablecloths for the wedding,” she rejoices to herself, more focused on pulling her gloves off correctly than seeing what she was walking into. Until the dog barks at her…and the baby gurgles.

Bazine’s eyes snap up as soon as she removes her hat, looking directly to Ben and the child, then to Rey, and then to Leia.

Her eyes are wide and she looks perfectly shellshocked. And as a woman technically engaged to the man holding the baby that is clearly his, she does not looked shocked for the presumptive reasons.

“Bazine?” Leia croaks out.

“Uh…” the young woman’s voice wavers as she kicks her own fallen hat while trying to retrace her steps backwards. “Oh second thought, I think my mother is expecting me and I see now you’re rather busy so I’ll just…see myself out.”

Ben, 

I can only hope this letter reaches you swiftly, that is, if it reaches you at all. 

I first need to express my deepest condolences. I heard of your father’s passing in town and I cannot imagine what you must be feeling in this moment. Han may have been distant but I know he was proud of you.

I’m proud of you for going to settle whatever must be done to ensure that he is laid peacefully to rest.

But I must admit, despite it going against the best intentions I’ve had for months now, I cannot prolong telling you what I meant to disclose the night of that party. Something I told myself to do in person but I’m afraid I no longer have that convenience as time works against me.

Ben, I don’t know how to say it. I could hardly think of the words I was going to use when we were planning to meet that night but at this point, there is no use in speaking delicately.

I am with child.

You must know as well as I do when it must have happened. I can’t tell you how often I think of that night in Cambridge and how it only makes me miss you more. 

I hate to think how you must feel to read this news so far from home. I don’t say it lightly though when I tell you that I am beginning to fear what will happen now that you are gone. I have half a mind to hop on a ship and come find you. I think that would be favorable to whatever awaits me here once my grandfather discovers.

I fear that may be soon.

And while I cannot recall a time when I was more scared, I must say that I do feel joy beyond comprehension at the thought of having a family with you. That has always been my wish and while I think it’s sooner than expected, it can be a good thing. I want it to be a good thing.

But mostly, I just wish I was with you. I know fear would not distract from my elation if I had you by my side.

I’ve decided if I do not hear from you in a month or so, then I have no choice but to come look for you myself. By then, my condition will be difficult to conceal from the town let alone the staff in my grandfather’s house. A feat already increasingly difficult as my symptoms seem to worsen. But maybe coming to see you is what you wish as well.

I love you so much. You know how dearly I always miss you but at present it is a need I’ve seldom ever experienced.

Please, please let this letter find you.

All my love,

Rey.

Bazine skims back over the passage, feeling the desperation through the paper it was so pathetic.

But it’s laced with fear. Sealed by it. And every time Bazine has seen her in town she looks noticeably green from a half mile away. 

It was just the other day when Bazine saw her try to skirt through town unnoticed. But was too obvious as she kept checking over her shoulder for onlookers. Only to arrive to the small clinic. 

It wasn’t hard to deduce the rest. 

Still, she figured it best to have it in writing. So when Rey dropped off her letters a few days later, Bazine was quick to charm Plutt at the front desk. His easy distraction brought her to victory as she snagged the three letters. 

One to Bazine's own mother, one to Leia, and the third to Ben himself, detailing the truth. 

Frankly, Bazine is not surprised. She’s been aware of Ben’s infatuation with Rey for years. But it’s not as if Bazine has always found herself enamored with Ben. Other boys have caught her eye and have been fun to fool around with. After all, if they were betrothed, clearly they would get around to marriage eventually and it seemed a waste to let all the cuter boys pass her by. 

She allowed Ben the adolescent fling knowing Rey wouldn’t get much better. And it was always a great generosity of hers, she figured. To allow Rey Palpatine a chance to break in her future husband. 

Something she heard for herself once when she took a stroll through the forest and saw them…intertwined. And again when she saw Ben repel from Rey’s window one morning when he thought no one was looking. 

But Reyna, foolish girl, went and got herself pregnant and was now practically begging Ben to keep his promises to her. Promises he had no business in keeping when it was publicly understood that he was to be Bazine's husband. 

At least as soon as he returned from wherever the hell it was his father left in disarray when he keeled over. They were engaged!

She does visualize the options before Palpatine now, knowing how limited time was for her. And giving Ben a month to respond to her was already too late it seemed. 

And letting her secret get announced and speculated in town certainly wouldn’t do anyone any favors. Including Bazine. While Ben’s reputation could still be repaired, especially once connected with her family, Rey was ruined. Which Bazine can’t help but feel amused by before continuing her deliberations.

Rey would need to move along…before anyone speculated who the father was.

Because at the end of the day, Bazine was to become the lady of the Organa-Solo manor and regardless of what she thought of the old bag and her awful decorating, she did very much want that title and house. And Ben was handsome enough.

Why he has never fallen for her affections has always frustrated her, but as soon as he returns, only to discover that…oh perhaps Rey had been married off having not waited for him, he will fall into her arms in his distress and finally it will all be settled.

Returning home, she rifles through the few letters she has from Ben.

Dear Bazine,

Thank you for inquiring about my coursework. It is manageable. Hope the weather is agreeable in Chandrila and that your parents are well. I imagine your schooling is going well and that matter with your friend has resolved.

And thank you for being such a consistent guest to my mother. I’m sure she very much enjoys your company.

Regards, 

Benjamin Solo.

And that was one of the longer ones.

But she should have enough to refer to as she takes out the stationery she never gifted him and starts to draft up the kind of letter that would eradicate this issue and simultaneously give Rey an answer to her query.

It may not be the answer the girl prefers but she’s doing her a favor, really.

Ben won’t be back for a long while and there was no chance of that letter ever reaching him. The girl just would have gotten lost in America.

Now she can get lost somewhere else.

Bazine arrives at Palpatine Manor with the letter tactfully torn at the edge before Miss Phasma invites her in.

“I am so sorry to bother you at such an early hour, Miss Phasma. But it seems there has been a mix-up with the post. I get so many letters from Ben, they must have assumed it was mine and I began to open it.”

“I see.”

“It appears to be addressed to Miss Palpatine.”

“It does,” Phasma answers flatly before looking back at her. “Did you read this letter?”

“Nothing past Dear Rey and I noticed the mistake.”

“Very well…thank you, Miss Netal.”

“Of course.”

She waits behind the stables of the house and she quickly understands that Phasma must have taken it to the old man first given the shouts she hears.

Needless to say, a servant comes to the stables to prepare Rey’s horse and Bazine takes that as sign enough to leave.

It was only a week later when Bazine crossed paths with Phasma in town and they told her that Rey had been married off up North. Which was not very imaginative but likely all the mental willpower Palpatine was willing to afford to the granddaughter he was so disappointed by.

Regardless, Bazine still went to tell Leia the news and scope out her rugs in the studies. Bazine needed to know if they would need replacing when she became Lady of the House.

She may come from money but Ben comes from legacy. One that needed an evening out which would never happen if it accepted a connection to an unwed woman’s bastard child.

Frankly, if Leia knew what Bazine had done for her, she would bequeath her the Estate then and there.

Or at least, in Bazine’s opinion, she should have.

“Bazine!” Leia shouts behind her.

Gratitude, it seemed, was not an Organa-Solo trait.

Bazine is rushing back for the door, further away from the manifestation of a girl and a baby she thought would have gone too far to find.

Perhaps she had underestimated the depth of Ben’s affections. He stands, his features slack with shock while he holds a fussing child in his arms. One that sure enough looks a hell of a lot like him. 

“I really should be getting back home.”

“Oh no, you are staying right here, young lady,” Leia snaps, marching towards her holding the cream parchment with Bazine’s words on it but Ben’s name. “Do you care to explain how the hell this arrived to Miss Palpatine when my son did not write it?”

“I–”

“You, always boasting about how you could repaint a copy of the Mona Lisa and no one would be the wiser!”

Bazine gives a nervous laugh, seeing how Ben’s features twist darkly but how he remains gentle to the child in his arms. “I never said–”

“You have said plenty. I want you out of my house. Now.”

The filthy dog that shouldn’t even be in the house corners her just the same as Leia herself, barking at her.

“Le–Mrs. Solo,” Bazine flinches, fearful she’s about to be torn to shreds by the hound. “I think you misunderstood entirely. I am as ignorant as you are to this and I’m sure some arrangement can be met if we all just sit down and talk.”

“You tried to banish the mother of my granddaughter and because of you, my family was nearly separated for good! Now I said I want you out of my house and I meant it. Threepio!”

The thin nervous servant that always follows Leia around intercepts, trying to guide her back towards the door.

Bazine pulls her arm away. “No! This was to be my house. You made arrangements with my father that cannot be broken now. Had I not been betrothed I’m sure I would have received many offers but I kept my promises to Ben. And I am courageous enough to accept him even if he has not kept his promises to me.”

“I have no promises to you,” Ben says, his voice deep and his eyes not even looking at her as Rey takes the child from him. “I never have.”

“Then who the hell am I supposed to marry?”

“No one in this house, young lady,” Leia steps not a foot before her, her teeth bared and eyes wild as she tosses the letter at her feet. “Now…get out!”

The door shuts in her face and Bazine is left outside of the house that was meant to be hers.

Leia leans against her own front door, feeling foolish and ashamed and everything her younger self would be appalled to have become. 

She has been so wrong and kicking Bazine out of her house feels like, oddly, the first step forward she’s had in…years.

“Ma’am?”

“A moment, Threepio,” she croaks, her tears unrelenting as she now knows how wrong she was trying to influence Ben’s heart when she has only ever failed at trying to sway her own.

What right did she have? And for who? For people like the Netals?

Han was an odd man but he was right about so much. 

She should not be so surprised that Ben would have so much reason to suspect her of this. After all, she has forced him through everything else. And he was right, he had done it. He had done everything. The only thing inconvenient was Rey but…that’s hardly the word for her now.

Leia hears footsteps and she expects it to be Ben, ready to yell at her the way she just yelled at Bazine. But when she turns, it is Reyna standing before her. With the little girl in her arms.

Leia is bewitched by her little face and further uplifted to see traces of her late husband there as well. 

And just as she accepts that this may be the closest she ever gets to the little girl, Rey steps forward and passes her over.

Leia’s eyes blow wide, looking to Ben standing near Threepio in the archway, no refusal or anger in his features. At least not towards her as she now holds her granddaughter. A beautiful healthy little girl and Leia is overcome with emotion as she meets her.

“This is Beatrix,” Rey tells her with motherly pride as she looks over her daughter. “Beatrix Solo.”

“We call her Bee,” Ben adds, offering what moments ago he told her she had no right to. And had she been responsible for all this, Leia thinks that would have been just.

“Bee,” Leia sniffles, kissing the girl’s hair. “Oh, she is just perfect.”

Reyna gives a soft chuckle beside her, looking at Ben with a teary-eyed smile.

Leia takes a moment just to cherish her but she cannot ignore the face of the young mother standing there. And Leia is quick to reach out to her, for her hand. And feeling her slender fingers, she sees the modest silver ring there. There is an emerald at its center and detailing that resembles a flower. Unconventional but that’s a fitting word for all of this, Leia would gather.

And all she can really do is smile and glance at her son watching her curiously.

“It’s prettier than the one I was saving for you.”

The small smile her son gives her is one she has not seen in years.

Chapter Text

Ben was so focused on getting just the right finish on the table leg he was working on that when he glanced up to check on Bee where she was playing he panics to see she is gone. Instantly he drops everything and rushes out of his little workshop.

“Bee?!l

When he doesn’t see her and hears no sound of little feet pattering to meet him, his heart starts to thud in his ears. 

“Bee?!!”

Ben has felt genuine fear throughout his life, but he swears there is no fear that matches when you don’t know where your child is. 

And there is no relief like finding them safe and sound. 

So when Chewie barks, directing Ben’s attention near the dunes where the beach starts, he sighs in massive relief. 

Chewie is a fierce protector to Bee. Just as he was when Ben was younger. He is loyal and loving. And he put up with Bee even after he was used as her personal railing when learning to walk with tiny but mighty fistfuls of his fur. 

Walking closer, Ben watches as Bee has sat herself in the sand, playing with it between her fingers. 

Chewie’s tail wags faster as he gets closer but Bee does not notice, her eyes busy watching her hands in the sand. 

So it makes it easy to sneak up behind her and scoop her up in his arms in surprise, leaving her to erupt in a fit of giggles as he tickles her sides. 

“Don’t scare me like that, baby,” Ben says, his mood lighter after hearing her laugh. “Daddy can’t take many more scares.”

“Dada.”

“Nope, not one more scare,” Ben agrees, kissing her cheek before sitting her in his knee as he sits on the little bluff. “But you do have a way of reminding me to take a break.”

“Ewwie wen go ahh,” she babbles her explanation, pointing to Chewie who lays down next to them. 

Bee knows many words now. It’s just a matter of putting them all together and making sense of them. But Ben and Rey have gotten pretty good at it. 

“Blame it on the dog, huh?” Ben chuckles, kissing the top of her head. “You really are a Solo.”

Ben doesn’t make a rush to get up or get back to work. He instead takes a moment to savor the daughter-imposed break by watching her scrunch fistfuls of sand or by looking up to watch the waves on the beach ahead of them.

Family life here in the house his father built is more picturesque than he could have dreamed of. As complicated his relationship was with his father, he will always be grateful for the man and all he made here. Ben did not get to say goodbye to his father. Didn’t even get to see him before he was laid to rest. Something that always bothered him but…he knows now that the man is not gone. No one ever really is if you choose to remember them.

And to live here the house they never should have left, he thinks of his father every day. How grateful he is to have learned a trade like carpentry from him, the basis of Ben’s new business that is doing very well. Or as Rey puts it, “probably the best in America” unaware of how big the country really is. But having traveled across it twice, Ben knows now that there is a lot of woodworkers from here to California that are far better. But Rey chooses to ignore him when he makes this point.

“Mama,” Bee chirps up. 

As if she can hear his thoughts, Rey sure enough is walking out from their little house and towards the workshop with some parchment in her hands. Reading, it seems and unaware that they have relocated.

And Bee calls out to her before Ben can.

“MAMA!”

Instantly, Rey’s head perks up to the side to see them, and even with the distance, Ben can see the grin she gives. He can feel it in his chest as if there are strings attached between them. Sometimes he thinks there could be. The chances of finding her when he returned to England with no direction other than North reminded him how they always seemed to find each other despite everything.

Ben watches from the bluff as she approaches. She wears trousers today, and a flowy shirt that used to be his. Her feet are bare and her hair is down and wild in the wind as she approaches.

It is another great favor the coast and small society have done for them. Fewer expectations. And while few women here walk around in anything but a dress, Rey feels free enough to do as she pleases. To have her hair down and breathe easy without a corset and Ben absolutely loves it.

She seems happy here and Ben would not settle for anything less.

As soon as Rey steps onto the sand, Bee is up and holding her arms up. Rey sits, making Bee just fall into her lap, getting sand all over her but Rey doesn’t protest in the slightest. Instead she just greets the little girl with a kiss on the head like he did minutes ago.

“Bee gave me a scare, wandering off. Thought she’d get me out of the workshop,” Ben tells her before he leans over and requires a kiss for himself. Adult he may be, he does like Rey’s attention.

Rey scoffs, rolling her eyes but hiding a smile. “Oh I wonder where she gets it from? Trying to get someone’s attention in the most dramatic way poss–”
Ben pulls her the rest of the way until her lips meet his and she hums, her teasings ceasing.

When he pulls away, he admires the color of her eyes, the rosiness of her cheeks. She looks beautiful. 

And she looks happy.

She’s happy here. That’s the main reason Ben loves this place. He always knew she would love it here but it’s different to see it for himself. After growing up in Palpatine Manor, a humble cabin by the sea might as well be a palace to her, she told him once. 

Because here you can breathe. It feels free, she explained.

“Mail came?” he assumes, reaching for the letters she set aside.

“Yeah,” She nods, hugging Bee in her arms as Ben peruses the letters himself. “Rose is being transferred to that hospital in New York after all. Promoted, actually.”

“New York?” Ben gasps. “That’s amazing. We’ll see her soon then.”

Rey nods. “That’s what I was thinking.”

Ben skims through the rest of it, shuffling through pages before he realizes other pages have a different hand. He stiffens at first on instinct but know better now.

“My mother wrote?”

Rey nods, hiding a smirk as she takes the pages from him and flips to the page of interest and reads.

“‘I’m in the process of looking for a suitable buyer for the house as I hope to reunite with you three soon with some money to procure a house of my own if not pay you to build one for me.’”

Ben snorts, doubtful he could build a house grand enough for his mother in a few short months but maybe that’s bitter of him. Not when so much has been mended since that day she turned Bazine out of their house and defended Rey and Bee.

He thinks of her much differently now. And knowing she plans to live closer to them actually sounds… hopeful. And he only wishes his father as still here to share it all with them.

“Wait, wait, this part listen,” Rey nudges his arm, ensuring he was paying attention. “‘I did have an offer from Bazine herself who was so invested in her previous engagement because of the Organa Manor–’”

“Ugh,” Ben rolls his eyes, not wanting to hear Bazine’s name of all things when he’s in such a good mood. He finds himself pulling Bee into his arms out of instinct, reminding himself that woman did not succeed in separating him from his family like she attempted to do.

“No, I know, but it’s worth it,” Rey assures him, reading on. “‘However, her new husband who resides so closely to our home, made it very clear he would not spend a cent on anything that Skywalker had inhabited.”

Ben scowls at first, but his face slackens when he registers her words. And how it seems to imply only one person.

“What? She can’t mean–?”

Rey nods, her eyes returning to the parchment.  “‘As of earlier this month, the new Mrs. Palpatine seemed very disappointed to learn that her husband would not budge on a brighter palette for her new manor. To the point where she was heard publicly complaining in town about how as soon as the old man keeled over she would be painting the house herself and buying the pink curtains she wanted so badly.”

Ben’s jaw drops, considering her words for a moment before he nearly gags. “Oh my god,” he shuts his eyes tight, trying not to visualize anything about either of those awful people. “That’s just vile.”

“Believe me, I know,” Rey’s nose scrunches. “This way, Bazine is my step-grandmother.”

“UGH! No, don’t even think about it,” Ben waves his free hand in the air in surrender. But Bee just laughs, watching his face squished in repugnance.

And it’s then he realizes Bee isn’t the only one laughing. Rey has a hand over her mouth and is in near hysterics at this news.

“You aren’t horrified?” Ben asks, genuinely confused at her reaction. Perhaps she is just in shock.

“Well,” Rey shrugs, lowering her hand and looking at him as seriously as she was capable of at that moment. “I know, it’s disturbing and upsetting and all that but…Honeslty, does it not seem like a fitting punishment for both of them?”

Ben didn’t think of it that way but suddenly, his aversion to the news seems lessened at the suggestion that as torturous as it is to hear, it is far more tortuous for both of them to now spend their days together. Or at least in Palpatine’s case…until his final days. Which does sound like as fit a punishment as he could hope for. 

“I suppose since no legal action could be executed that’s as close as I can hope for,” he nods in reluctant agreement, hiding a smile.

Rey’s hand frame his face. “They are no longer our problems but they will remains eachothers problems and I do find that rather poetic.”

“And you are an expert on the matter.”

“I am,” she nods, kissing his chin. “Just as I’m your problem for the rest of your days.”

“You’re the solution. I am the problem.”

“Agreed. One I quite like solving.

Rey kisses him, her hands framing his face and he sighs in content, received that any drama in Chandrila is so far away it’s nothing more than a story in a letter and has no bearing on their daily life.

“There’s also more letters, more people requesting orders of custom furniture since you sell out so quickly with the pieces you give to Maz in the store.”

“Ehh,” Ben shrugs a little, “If I make too much for other people, I won’t have enough time to make everything for us. Time is sneaky,” he kisses her cheek, his hand moving to rest over her abdomen, under her shirt. “I spend too much time on tables and chairs already. I prefer cradles and toys.”

From what he understands, Rey is not even two months along, but he is hyperaware of everything. He missed so much with Bee and he is devoted to ensuring that his main focus is her and his families health. And he cannot wait to see how he changes. He can’t wait for the baby to come.

Although he needs to childproof things a little better since Bee keeps sneaking off on him.

“How are you feeling?” He asks because he has seen first hand the illnesses that affect her in the morning. It was how she discovered she was pregnant in the first place. She said it was the same with Bee.

“Fine,” she tells him.

“Have you eaten anything? Can I make you something?”

“Most husbands expect their wives to inquire about food.”

“Well, I try to be a good wife,” Ben teases, enduring a loving smack on the chest she gives him.

“I was going to cut up some turkey and fruit for Bee and make us some sandwiches. If you wanted one.”

“I’ll make the food, you stay here with B–”

It’s just then he realizes Bee is no longer beside him and they both snap their attention to further down the beach.

“BEE!”

Both parents rush up to catch her before she reaches the water and he snags her, lifting her up in the air in victory, sending her into more giggles.

“I think we’re gonna have to put a bell on her or something, she wanders off so suddenly.”

“I think I’ll just have to tie her to a string. Keep her where I can see her,” Ben hugs her to his chest. 

“You’d love that. Just wait ‘til the next one comes and you’ll have a bunch of toddlers tugging you in all directions.”

Ben beams, pulling Rey to his side with Bee high on his hip, “I hope so.”

Leia rejoices when she finds the linens and blankets in the cabinet. True she had only just moved into this house but she was not used to finding her own items. A very fine home, built not long ago but not by her son’s hands. 

“Madam Leia, I cannot find–”

“Relax, Threepio, I got ‘em,” Leia huffs, hiding a roll of her eyes before he could see. After she sold Organa Manor to Leida Mothma and her husband, with the promise they would oversee the home with care (and keep out unwanted neighbors), Leia felt less pain than expected to leave the Manor behind. Because here she found a home she had long ago forsaken. Perhaps one she did not deserve but was hoping to earn every day she woke up to the temperate and calm climate of Maine where she first met Han.

And while the remainder of her staff stayed employed to the manor, Threepio insisted he join her and frankly, she was too accustomed to him to tell him to find some other old woman to make tea for.

And while she has sacrificed much of noble life, keeping Threepio around seemed smart. She did consider him a friend after all. Annoying and tiresome in his own way, but her friend.

And she cannot help but find it amusing to see how he acclimates to American society. 

“For Mama?”

Leia looks beside her where Bee holds out her arms, ready to hold whatever she can carry. 

“Yes, she’ll need a lot of things to keep her comfortable.”

Leia hands her one pillow, about all her little arms could carry before she rises, with the folded blankets under her arm and keeping a gentle hand on Bee’s back before they make their way back outside.

“Oh, Madam Beatrix, do let me carry that for y-”

Bee hugs the pillow closer to her chest and walking right past Threepio. “No, ‘s for Mama,” the little girl insists.

Together the three of them and Chewie make their way back down the road, up to where the rest of their family is. It is late but after a day like this, time is hardly the thing on her mind. She was too restless of a mood to consider being tired.

“What are you hoping for, little Bee? A brother or a sister?”

“I wan’ a frog,” the little girl answers confidently with an hop and Leia can’t help but laugh. 

As the cabin comes back into view, Leia rejoices to see it so often again. She didn’t realize how much she had missed it. It had been so long that she let herself remember how lovely this place was. How sweet it owas of Han to build it. After all, it’s where Ben was born, even if Ben has made extensive additions to it.

And now, it’s where her second grandchild was born too.

They stay quiet as they walk in, Rose holding a finger to her lips but looking mainly at Bee.

Chewie rushes to the bed made for him by the fire where he goes back to nursing the steak bone Ben gave him days ago, taking the hint better than any of the humans. But Bee toddles in a hurry to the bedroom with the pillow. Leia waits, however.

Her son has allowed her into more of his life than she expected after everything that happened. She is cautious not to cross over any boundaries that Ben is not ready for. But when he asked if she could watch over Bee after Rey’s waters broke, Leia as ecstatic for the trust and responsibility as she and the little girl awaited for news. Even if she was restless to ensure that everyone was safe and healthy.

But then she hears her son’s voice ask Rose, “Is my mother here?”

“Just outisde.”

“Send her in.”

Leia could have burst into tears. Her son has been too good to her after everything she put him through but she will do better now. She knows better now, worlds away from the stuffy society she found herself too deeply saturated in.

Rose’s face peaks from behind the door and waves her in with a smile. Leia enters, her hands clinging tight to the linens and blankets in her grip, about to meet her grandchild. Something she never got to experience when Bee was born. And sadly she knows that is the same for Ben. 

But instead of living in the past and cursing all which cannot be changed, she can embrace what comes. Because they are good things, she knows. She just hopes she can prove herself worthy of them.

She steps into the room to see Rey resting on the bed, her eyes closed as Rose gently stuffs the pillow Bee passed her beneath her head.

Ben sits on the edge of the bed, holding Bee closely and kissing her temple, telling her she was now a big sister to the infant swdallded beside Rey.

He smiles to her when he sees her step forward. 

“Is everyone alright?”

Ben nods and she can see the shine to his eyes as he smiles.

This is what he always deserved. He was such a good man and he found a woman that valued him for all he is. Something Bazine never would have done even if she hadn’t interfered the way she did.

“All healthy. All good,” he nods, a croak to his voice making Leia tear up herself as she chances a step closer to see the little face in the blankets. But she’s hardly halfway there when she hears an impossibly tiny cry not from the bed but from the bassinet on the other side.

And Leia gasps, looking to Ben in astonishment.

“Twins,” he nods. “Boys.”

“Two boys?!” Leia tries to keep her voice a whisper. “Oh, that’s amazing!”

“I need to make double of everything now but…” Ben reaches over to quiet the crying newborn in the small cradle. “I think that’s a good problem to have.”

He walks over with the little boy in his arms, hair black as Bee’s and his features so tiny. 

It takes her to all those years ago when she was the woman on the bed holding her son for the first time. A baby that looked precsisely like this one.

“Will he be a Junior, do you think? A little Ben?”

“No,” Ben scoffs, sitting on the bed once more so Bee could see. “Something new.”

Leia nods, leaning back to look at the sudden family of five as they cuddle close in the tranquil silence of a cabin by the sea.

It is every generation’s duty to differ from the one that came before. And while Leia knowns others her own age always chide the younger generation for not doing things the way they did things, Leia only hopes more will come to their senses.

Because these kids have found something that Leia was foolish enough to let go of. 

Never again.

Rey woke up to Bee on one side of her and Ben on the other. 

The babies, she sees, were moved to the bassinets (Ben pulled in an older one of Bee’s until he could make a new one) and sleeping soundly.

Rey knows to cherish the silence now because very soon she won’t have quiet for quite a long time. Bee was one baby and she made quite a lot of noise so she can hardly begin what to expect with two.

But it’s a challenge she would like to have.

“Are you alright?”

Rey realizes he isn’t asleep after all. She nods. “Yeah.”

“Can I get you any–?”

“No, stay,” she hums with her eyes half closed but considering the little girl cuddled beside her. “Did Bee seem alright?”

“Oh, she was so excited.”

“I wish I saw it. Can’t keep my eyes open.”

“No, you need rest. I can’t believe how grueling that all was. I was useless.”

“You were not. I’m glad you were here…”

Granted, he did seem more frantic than she did. So much so Rose almost tossed him out but she ultimately took pity on him. But men don’t typically stay for the birth.

Naturally Ben would differ.

He cried when he held their son for the first time, and she got to see him fall in love all over again. She was suddenly transported to Bee's nursery in Ach-To when she saw Ben instantly fall in love with Bee upon seeing her. It was beautiful to see. 

And his look of absolute shock when Rose announced another was on the way. She will never forget it. And it was amusing enough to make the second one go by a lot faster. 

“They’ll be a handful,” Rey sighs with a smile.

“Of course.”

“After a Solo daughter, I can hardly imagine what a Solo son is like," Rey says, reaching over to brush over Bee's head. She looked so sweet when she slept. Deceiving of the absolute firecracker she was when she was awake.

“There's two of them,” Ben chuckles. As if she needs reminding. 

“Two of them,” she nods. Overwhelmed but eager. “I'll get to work in the morning making doubles...I should have done that anyway."

"You've been so busy. I don't know when you could have."

Ben sighs. "I just hope they don’t give their sister too hard of a time. Boys can be rough.”

“So can Bee," he laughs. "She’s gonna be the one to teach them how to climb trees and ride Chewie.”

“True.”

It gets quiet then and Rey thinks she’s fallen asleep again until she hears her name.

“Rey?”

“Hmm,” she hums, unable to open her eyes again.

“What do we name them?”

“How about Fritz and Ernst? Like the brothers from Swiss Family Robinson?”

“No,” Ben scowls and Rey laughs. “Why Swiss Fa–?” Ben starts but pauses when he realizes why. It was the book he had been reading when they met. One he lent her many times every time she wished to read it.

“As pitiful as those parties were…we wouldn’t be here without them,” Rey tells him.

“You’re right. I know you’re right,” he says with a kiss to her ear.

And while Rey is not one to overly boast, she smiles as sleep finds her again.

Of course she’s right. She’s been right about Ben since she first saw him. She may have been filled with doubt for a while. When she was deceived into believing he would beray and abandon her. But even then it felt so wrong. Because Ben was, to his core, the best person she knows.

Even when he was just the boy tall enough to reach the toy rabbit on the wardrobe, he was unlike anyone else and she never wanted to be without him.

And clearly now, surrounded by their three children, she knows she won’t be.