Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He’s sitting in one of the hardback chairs in Snoke’s office. It’s a minimalist room with white walls and black and brown furniture. The accents, though, the blood-red pen on Snoke’s desk. Next to the stark white pad of paper. There’s a computer monitor off to the side. He’s never seen Snoke use it before. The artwork hanging behind Snoke’s desk, chrome-framed and darkened shadows, but mixed within it are streaks of red. Stark red lines that look like veins. From afar, it’s subtle, but sitting in front of Snoke’s desk, with a view of it up close, there’s something intimidating about it.

But coming to see Snoke in his office is often an intimidating endeavor. 

“Ben S.,” Snoke says, finally addressing him after a long while. Snoke’s bald head lifts, wrinkled features and ice blue eyes honing in on him as he gazes at Ben with mild scrutiny. “As the manager of the Severed floor, it has come to my attention that there has been a dip in performance over the last several days. It’s my job to make sure all the employees under my wing are in good working order, and that the work gets done. I find this change in performance highly unusual of you, as you are one of our most exemplary Senior Refiners—as previous performance milestones would indicate.”

Ben sits there silently, mouth moving just slightly as he works his jaw, contemplating what he could possibly say to his manager that would not make him sound ungrateful. But it’s all he’s been able to think about lately.

This feeling of… nothingness. 

Nothing matters. 

Not this job. Certainly, not the stupid ass rewards he was once so proud of. Not this company. 

Even though it’s the reason for his existence. 

Ben grits his teeth, thinking of all the ways he’s been wronged by being put here. A choice from his Outie to torture him with menial work when instead he should be—

Fuck, even the idea of it still shakes him. 

Ever since he saw that hardcover book stuffed in his desk drawer—You’re Not Alone—A spiritual journey to finding who you are, by Dr. Rey Niima, PhD—his mind has been fraught with these thoughts of— other things.

Other things like—having memories outside an office. A place he can never leave. This is it for him. 

“Is there anything you would like to say in response to my observation?” Snoke’s gravelly voice zaps Ben S. out of his melancholy momentarily. 

After a beat, Ben takes a breath, inhaling the calming scent of coconut. Why coconuts? Who's to say, but it's a scent Ben is always familiar with at the beginning of the day. “I guess I have been a bit less productive as of late.”

Snoke waits for a long pause, as if expecting Ben to keep going, but when Ben’s mouth remains shut, his superior says, “Can you think of—any reason as to why?”

Yeah, Ben thinks, scoffing mentally while schooling the muscles in his face to an indifferent calm. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Something must have changed,” Snoke prompts him, demanding an answer. A different one to what Ben just gave. 

And if he’s going to push and prod, Ben muses, what’s the point?

“Who—Who am I?” Ben asks.

Snoke nods his head at him like Ben has asked a most basic question. “You are Ben S. You are a Senior Refiner on the Severed floor—”

“But what about—” Ben blurts out, finding the words difficult to keep from spilling out. “What about my Outie? Who is he?” 

Snoke pauses, considering how he will answer Ben’s question. “Your Outie is kind,” he says, reiterating a similar script he’s heard before. “Your Outie is extremely intelligent, but there’s a quietness about you that doesn’t exude arrogance. Your Outie was very successful in his field of study, receiving various awards of high merit.”

Right, these are things Ben has heard before about his Outie.

“No, I mean—I want to know—” It’s hard for him to figure out how to ask this without his intentions fully exposed. “What about my family? Do I have one? Am I married? Do I have a dog? Kids—”

“That’s enough,” Snoke cuts him off. The empty expression on his face is replaced with something slightly more rigid. Barely there, but Ben notices. It’s his job to notice things. To find the scary numbers at Starkiller and be the best Refiner on the floor. “You are aware that these kinds of questions do not align with our values at Starkiller. That is not the purpose of your role here.”

“But what if I want something else?” Ben asks. “Something that isn’t this?”

“As was explained to you during your onboarding process, your Outie’s decision to take this job is what created you. If you no longer seek a purpose here, well…” Snoke trails off now, his voice lilting deeper. That placid voice he often speaks with when the conversation is serious is more pronounced. “You’d be voluntarily erasing your existence.”

“But it has to end at some point, right? When I retire? What difference does it make?” Ben’s growing more frustrated as he sits in his uncomfortable chair. 

“The difference is you. The work you do here. The things you can accomplish.” When Ben doesn’t appear appeased, Snoke exhales. “I’m afraid, if you don’t comply, I’ll be forced to send you to the Break Room.” He lifts a wrinkled hand. “You have one more chance.”

📥

Back at his desk, Ben sits there fuming. The numbers move across his screen, but he doesn’t see them. He can’t stop thinking about the fact that Snoke didn’t answer a single question, which leads him down a rabbit hole of wondering if he ever did. At least, if he ever gave Ben the answers he was looking for. But then again, Ben wasn’t usually in the habit of asking questions.

Until now.

Until this fucking book landed in his lap, and now his head is filled with these flagrant thoughts. 

Part of it can be blamed on Hux. He’s always sprouting conspiracy shit. Where he gets those ideas, Ben isn’t sure because the rest of the team isn’t like that. 

“What did Snoke want?” Hux’s voice floats across the partition separating their desks. 

“Nothing,” Ben grunts, facing his computer. 

“Was it about your performance?” Hux asks, knowingly. 

How the hell does he—

Ben takes a breath, calming himself. He doesn’t want to get irrationally irritated with Hux right now. There were still four hours left in the day. 

“Phasma says we should go to O&D and meet the other departments. We were thinking we’d go today.”

Today? “When was this decided?” Ben asks, skeptical of Hux’s response.

“A few minutes before you got back,” Hux admits. “But we’ve been wanting to go, so why not now?”

Because Snoke said Ben had one more chance before he’d be forced to go to the Break Room.

Ben sets his hands away from his keyboard. 

“Yeah, sure.”

📥

So this is Optics and Design. Phasma had been adamant for them to meet the head of the O&D department, Amilyn Holdo. They spoke of each other during introductions like they were well familiar. Ben’s not sure how. They weren’t supposed to talk to the other departments. 

Ben picks up a small 3-D printed figurine. A black sphere with one small radio disk carved into it. It almost looks like a planet made from computers.

It is a planet made from computers, his logical mind unhelpfully supplies for him. 

Like, duh.

It’s instinctual, maybe. It’s what he’ll tell himself later. For why he puts that small figurine in his pocket. A keepsake, he admits. Something to remind him of a place they shouldn’t be. Proof of another’s existence in the vast and arid halls of Starkiller Industries. 

Proof that they’re not alone.

📤

Ben comes to with a large gasp of air, as if he’s been jolted here without his usual calm or care. 

And wait a minute—where is here? He looks around at the unfamiliar surroundings. He’s in a kitchen, he can tell by the sink and the appliances. Common sense tells him this is a kitchen. Where one cooks things. This is the kind of knowledge he just knows. Like how he knows his name. Or how to go to the bathroom. Or how to eat. Things that are linked to one’s semantic memories. 

But the bigger question is, why is he in a kitchen? And why is it dark outside the windows? 

Why are there windows?

Ben tries not to let panic set in, but as he’s trying to take it all in a voice forces his tremors to abate, and as he hones in his focus once more, he’s able to recognize Snoke standing before him across from his kitchen counter. 

“Where the hell am I?” is the first thing he says. Still disoriented and trying to understand why he’s not at work. Or anywhere that appears like Starkiller Industries. “Is this my Outie’s house—”

“Ben, I need you to pay very close attention,” Snoke growls. He looks angry. Or as angry as a usually emotionless manager might seem. “You took something from the O&D department, I need to know where you hid it.”

Immediately Ben understands. 

“Is this my last strike?” he asks, not really feeling any which way about it. If they send him to the Break Room, or if they want him gone gone, that’s just as well with him. He no longer sees a reason to keep working, and if that’s really all that encompasses his ‘purpose’, then guess that’s that.

“We will determine your punishment and how to proceed during usual working hours. Right now, what’s important is you tell me where you hid that figurine.”

Ben’s first instinct is to seal his mouth shut and not say a word. Because in Dr. Niima’s words, “When you feel it? That something… it is awakened. Now, you need to know how to wield it.”

Ben has been awakened, this disquiet inside him, he feels it. He’s seeing the world differently than what he’s seen every day inside his cubicle. And he’s only just figuring out what to do with it.

“If you don’t tell me what I need to know, your entire department could be at risk,” Snoke prods, pushing and poking against Ben’s defiance. 

Sure, he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to his department. They’re—mostly—the only people he’s ever known. They’ve worked side by side over the years, hitting milestones together. Milestones that used to be important to Ben, but no longer are. 

Because all he can think about is the life his Outie is living. What does he do when he’s not at work? Ben isn't concerned with commentary on his kindness or that he’s so smart he won a bunch of awards for being—intelligent? But in what? What did he do to deserve those awards? There are no details beyond what has been recited to him again and again. 

Does his Outie have a family? Does… does he have a family? 

Ben knows what a family is. Again, it’s one of those ingrained facts that just makes sense, even if he can’t recall a connection to it. No memories of his own to know what that might be like. It seems more like a far off idea—or even a dream—than real life. 

Snoke’s ringed knuckle taps on the marble counter, reminding Ben of where they are. Where he is right now. 

Ben Solo’s life. 

He tries to peek more glimpses of his surroundings. For any hints of a life he’s never supposed to know. 

But Snoke is getting impatient now. That ringed knuckle tapping faster. 

“I said, where did you—”

“Ben?”

Silence. Then Ben’s brain catches up. It’s a third voice that spoke. A feminine voice. 

Ben watches his manager freeze, before his eyes dart behind him to the figure standing in the doorway leading outside from the kitchen.

It’s a woman. She’s—

“Hello, Rey,” Snoke addresses her with familiarity, which confuses Ben, but only because of how overstimulated he is. “Ben said you wouldn’t be back until late tonight.”

A second later his mind whips back into focus as he looks at Rey. Someone that Ben knows. The other Ben. His thoughts immediately wonder if she’s—is she someone to him? Ben’s curiosity is dying to know. His eyes catch hers, glitching as he tries to soak in every bit of her to his memory. Surely Snoke will cut off whatever this is—based on the growingly irate look on his face. 

He takes those precious seconds to try and commit her to memory. She’s of medium height, dark brown hair that hangs a few inches past her shoulders. Her eyes are green and her skin is littered with freckles. She’s wearing a dark-colored collared dress that has no sleeves. The hem ends just above her knees. In his quick scan there’s no denying she’s one of the most beautiful people he’s ever seen.

When his eyes land back on Rey’s face, it’s pinched with confusion.

“Girls night was cut short. Rose had to go tend to a sick child,” she explains, as if Ben is supposed to understand what she’s saying and who she’s talking about. “What’s going on?” she asks, curious but also a bit hesitant. Unsure. 

“Ben and I had gone out for drinks after work. I’m his boss at Starkiller, Lars Snoke.”

That pinched look morphs into something suspicious before it’s mollified into indifference. “Ben never really talks about work,” Rey says blankly.

“It was a special occasion,” Snoke adds. “Ben’s Innie has been performing excellently over the last several periods.”

Ben is still trapped between desperate curiosity and perplexity at this entire situation to fully comprehend the lie Snoke just told. It’s very obvious in the way Snoke is looking at him that Ben is not supposed to be Ben S. but his other Ben.

“Oh,” is all Rey says in response to Snoke. She doesn’t seem all that excited. Her arms cross over her chest, and it’s then that Ben notices the gold band on her finger.

That’s a wedding ring, the factual side of his brain tells him. 

Suddenly, his heart starts pumping faster as the thoughts begin to manifest into bigger thoughts and then into unstable feelings. 

Is it—could she—

“We were just finishing up here,” Snoke says in a monotone voice. “Care to walk me out, Ben?”

It’s not a suggestion, and the tension in the kitchen is so thick Ben feels like he’s moving in slow motion. His gaze doesn’t turn from Rey, still struck trying to memorize her face. To figure out where—

And then it clicks for him.

Rey. Spelled R - E - Y… Could she be Dr. Rey Niima? But how does she know him? Is he married to the person who wrote that book? He stupidly assumed Dr. Niima was male. He’s not sure why that was his assumption, but there were no pictures in the book of the author because it didn't come with a cover sleeve. 

He holds her stare as he goes to follow Snoke to the door. She holds his too, wordlessly, but he can tell there’s something there behind those eyes that wants her to yell out and say what maybe they’re both thinking. 

Are you my wife? The thought helplessly crosses his mind, floating away like tissue paper in the wind, thrashing against a current that begs him to at least try to reach out and grab it—even if the effort is futile. 

When he reaches the front door as Snoke opens it, a sinking realization settles within him. He doesn’t want Snoke to shut him off again. The greater epiphany that Snoke was able to do this at all should be more pressing on his mind, but now that he’s out here, now that he’s seen, he’s unravelling from the inside. He wants to know who Rey is. He wants to know her.

Ben’s feet halt just at the door, where Snoke is standing in the open entryway. He thinks he has one last chance to turn around, and maybe if he just calls out to her. 

“We will resume our discussion tomorrow at work,” Snoke says, demanding Ben’s attention. He has his phone out, and Ben quickly glances to see a call screen to an unknown number. Snoke’s other hand lifts and settles on Ben’s shoulder, holding him in place with a vice grip. As if he knows how badly Ben wants to turn back around. 

He doesn’t know what he can say to convince Snoke to let him stay, not with how subtly angry he looks. Simmering rage even. 

Instead, Ben’s curiosity bubbles over, and he can’t help but utter, “Is she my—”

As suddenly as a flame is extinguished without any air, a whooshing sound rushes in Ben’s ears as he’s flung into darkness. 

Chapter Text

The whooshing stops.

Ben comes to, blinking rapidly due to the intense bright light. His heart is hammering in his chest—or it had been just before. It is strange, his mind is still buzzing, but his body is strangely calm? As his vision comes back into focus, he realizes he’s in the elevator at Starkiller. 

No… nonononoNO.

He all but falls out of the elevator as he quickly assesses what he doesn’t want to be true. It’s obvious in a blink that much time has passed. 

Ben turns around to try to get back in the elevator, but the doors close before he has a chance. 

His thoughts are buzzing from the adrenaline pumping back into his chest as his mind and body finally connect with each other. 

He has to—he has to get back there. He has to find out more about Rey. If she really is the one who wrote this mystery book. Or perhaps, it’s not a mystery at all. What if he was given that book intentionally. Was it because of his Outie? There are so many questions Ben doesn’t have the answers to. 

But now that he knows his very smart and successful Outie doesn’t walk on a path alone but with someone, all of his previous priorities, or lack of them, are no longer that important. The only thing that matters now is—

Ben speed walks to his desk, wondering if Snoke found the figurine he hid, or perhaps in searching, he found the other piece of contraband Ben’s been keeping.

At his desk, Ben yanks open the cabinet drawer and shuffles through the folders to find all of them empty. They were mostly empty before, but Dr. Niima’s book is gone.

“Everything okay?” Hux asks, peering over the barrier between them. 

Ben exhales his frustration. He doesn’t know what any of this means. Snoke wasn’t there in the lobby to greet him. His threat from just before Ben got sucked back into the Starkiller elevator is still fresh in his mind. Snoke said they would resolve this on the next business day, which would mean today. But looking around the sparse office space, it’s business as usual.

“I met my Outie’s wife last night,” Ben says, unable to keep this information to himself.

All sounds from their four-pronged cubicle cease. When Phasma stands up, she towers over the partition, looking at him with skepticism.

“That’s impossible,” she says. 

Mitaka slowly rises from his seat as well, peering over the partition at Ben’s left. “You mean, you saw the… outside?”

“I woke up, and I was in a kitchen. Like a real one. A full range stove and everything. I was in my Outie’s home. Snoke was there. He needed to ask me an urgent question about work.”

“An urgent question?” Hux repeats, sounding perplexed. 

Ben hadn’t told them about the figurine he took, or the fact that Snoke had failed and not gotten him to fess up when he wanted him to. But it’s obvious he—or someone, has been to his desk and searched it. Now that his book is missing. 

“I took something from the O&D department,” Ben admits. “Snoke wants me to give it back—”

“Good morning, Refiners!” It’s Snoke, walking into the room and pushing a cart with a record player and a fruit and cheese platter. 

Everyone looks over with stunned muteness. 

Ben watches, and Snoke stands there in his usual boring black suit and golden tie. He expected Snoke to be waiting to reprimand him, but this he didn’t expect.

“Congratulations Phasma C., you have reached seventy-five percent in productivity of your Macrodata Refinement work. Such achievement deserves to be celebrated with some music of your choice and light refreshments. You get to select the first song we’ll listen to. If you’ll browse through the categories in this box,” Snoke gestures to the cardboard box on the bottom shelf of the cart. 

The grim and often authoritarian manager of the MDR floor is not one to show appraisal with emotion. He is very success-driven. Which, Ben also had been, and is why he usually thought he and Snoke were on good terms. Ben does good work. He is efficient. He barely makes mistakes. He could tell Snoke saw potential in him. And for most of his existence, he’s believed that’s what was his life’s purpose.

But now? Now that he knows he has Rey? Well, he doesn’t, but some alternate version of himself.

Suddenly, a flash of hate flares in the stream of a single thought. How cruel of his Outie to try to cut out a piece of him.

A piece with no Rey. 

Ben glares at Snoke as he beckons Phasma to look through the box of records he brought.

“But Phasma’s only performed at seventy-three percent,” Hux grumbles, and it sounds like he’s complaining about the injustice, but Ben—who has had four years now to observe Hux and understand his quirks—senses suspicion hidden beneath the squawk. 

“As a collective, this team has shown great progress,” Snoke says. “The company felt like you deserved a reward. A boost to keep up the good work.”

Hux scoffs lowly under his breath. Only Ben can hear it because he’s standing right next to him. 

Snoke walks over to the record player, there’s already a disc inside it, and he sets the needle on the track. Sound warbles from the speaker. An upbeat tune. The lights quickly dim and start flashing in different shades of blues and pinks and purples. It’s somewhat disorienting. 

No one moves. Ben catches Mitaka shooting Phasma a glance. 

Some party. 

“You have fifteen minutes to enjoy before it’s time to get back to work,” Snoke says, and then it looks like he’s about to leave.

Ben’s feet move quickly, unsure what to make of this distance. 

“Wait, Snoke!” Ben shouts over the music. He looks back at the team to see Hux watching him. Mitaka and Phasma have gone to peruse the fruit and cheese platter. 

When he turns back to Snoke, his manager is standing there seeming impatient. 

He can tell his window to ask any question is quickly closing before he’s even had a chance to even open his mouth.

“What happened yesterday—or the other day—I mean, when I was last conscious—at-at the—my—at my house? Was that—”

“I needed your help finding the item you stole from the O&D department,” Snoke says emotionlessly. “To do that, we enacted a protocol that allows us to wake Innies up outside work hours. We ended up resolving the issue this morning.” It’s meant as a dismissal.

But Ben’s not nearly satisfied. 

“What about Rey? Did she know that it was me and not—”

Not him.

“It’s best you forget about what you saw while under OTC,” Snoke suggests coldly. It’s final, and not giving Ben much room to push for a compromise.

And forget? As if there’s any way he can forget the one thing that’s come into his life to make him believe it’s worth living.

“But, sir, I just—”

“This will be the last time we have this discussion.”

That anger flares within Ben once more. Snoke’s answer is not satisfactory. It’s the opposite of it. And—Ben’s the employee! The work he does for this company—doesn’t that count for something? There’s obviously value he brings, hence why he’s standing here? And they’re just going to treat his one request—the one time he’s asked the company for anything—they’re going to deny him before he even has the chance to ask?

He’s not sure what overcomes him, but Ben is lunging forward. He grabs at Snoke, fingers curling around the lapels of his nice suit before traveling upwards to his throat.

“I deserve to know about her!” Ben yells, his voice carrying over the bopping music in the background. It scratches to a halt, likely one of the other Refiners stopping the ‘party’ as they realize one of their cohorts is currently attempting to strangle the boss.

Phasma is the one who’s able to successfully pull him off Snoke. Ben staggers back, panting hard. The blood in his veins pulsing and on fire with his rage.

How fucking dare they?

“We will discuss this in my office,” Snoke growls while fixing his tie. “Now.”

📥

Blood thumps with the rhythmic pulse of his heartbeat in Ben’s ears. He finds himself staring at the streaky red art behind Snoke’s head again. Not finding comfort in it. In fact, the feeling swirling inside Ben worsens the longer he looks at it. 

Ben shifts his gaze down to his hands on his lap. He reminds himself Snoke can’t threaten him with anything more than he hasn’t already threatened him with. His life already sucks, and it only sucks more now that he knows just how much it fucking just—

“After last night, it’s clear to me that you are unhappy here.”

That’s… unexpected.

Ben’s mouth remains shut, stunned for once by Snoke’s candor. He’d been expecting Snoke to fire him for attempting to strangle him at Phasma’s performance party. Or maybe even grill him some more about where he hid the figurine. Since, Ben never had a chance to answer before they were interrupted by Rey. 

And after he assaulted him in front of his peers, well, Ben expected far more outrage.

Shouldn’t he be punished? 

“We value the work you do for the MDR department. If that hasn’t been sufficiently communicated, it was not our intention. We hope by offering this incentive, you may consider it as motivation to improve your performance.”

Intrigue sinks to dread. “What incentive?” Ben asks skeptically. “More useless rewards?”

At his defiant responses, Snoke hardens in his resolve. “I don’t think you’ll deem this reward useless.” Snoke pauses for dramatic effect. An observation Ben caught very early on. When Snoke seems like he’s trying to make the most of something he doesn’t truly believe in. Something that goes against his moral principles.

Now, Ben is interested.

“What’s the reward?” he asks, knowing it’s what Snoke wants. 

His compliance.

“The woman you met the other night is sitting in one of our waiting rooms right now,” Snoke relents. Though, if he wanted Ben’s compliance, he knew exactly how to get it.

“Rey?” There's an urgency and utter lack of control within him when it comes to her. How desperate he becomes at the very thought of her. 

But wait, she’s here? At Starkiller? 

“Can I see her?” The question is out before he can think to reconsider it. 

“Considering how abruptly we enacted the Overtime Contingency without giving you any notice, the company has allowed ten minutes to speak with the Outie’s spouse. It will be a monitored conversation. Remember to be mindful of company policy when conversing. The conversation can be cut short if there is a violation of our code of conduct at any time.” Snoke sounds like he’s reading this information from some sort of handbook. As if such a policy already exists. Not a policy Ben has ever heard of.

But then again, all of this is new.

And does he really care? Not when it sounds like he’s going to see Rey again very soon. Like maybe right now.

“This meeting can only be awarded per your discretion. If you accept the terms, here is the form to sign noting your compliance,” Snoke grumbles while procuring a clipboard from seemingly midair with a form attached to it. He picks up one of his blood-red pens and places it across his desk. 

Ben glances at the form and sees various lines of shrunken text. Words he doesn’t really have time to read right now. His hand is shaking as he lifts the pen, ready to sign.

Ready to see Rey.

📥

Ben’s foot taps against the thinly carpeted floor of one of Starkiller’s meeting rooms. Though, this isn’t an ordinary meeting room. There are no desks or white boards. This room seems more like an office. There are fake shaded windows. Ben’s already checked. He curses it being nighttime when he saw real windows for the first time. Wondering what it was that could be seen out of them. 

They wanted this room to feel cozy. Or, as cozy as a Starkiller designed room can feel. The two plush chairs in the room are comfortable. One for him and one for Rey. A small table separates them. There’s a glass water bottle and two cups. In case either of them gets thirsty? 

He’s fidgeting in his seat. He contemplated standing, but he wasn’t sure if that would seem intimidating. Now that he’s been waiting in this room, he’s had time to think and progressively overthink this meeting. These measly ten minutes. Is this all he gets? Snoke thinks this will motivate him?

To be fair, there’s little Ben wouldn’t do if it meant he got to have this meeting. So, perhaps Snoke knows exactly what he’s doing.

The door opens with a click, immediately shifting all of Ben’s anxious thoughts into anxious anticipation. 

He can’t help but stare at the door, watching it with growing interest as it slowly opens from the outside. At first, the doorway is empty, and then a face peaks around it and Ben quickly deflates. 

It’s not Rey. Just some other person—

And then, his next breath is choked from him as she appears like a flickering mirage. Or it’s a byproduct of his brain short-circuiting. 

Ben tries to swallow the lump in his throat, but it’s far too dry. His breathing has gone shallow, too, only able to stare at her as she walks further into the room until she’s standing in front of one of the plush armchairs. Only then does she break his gaze, glancing down at it. She has a hand circled the handles of a tote bag slung over her shoulder. Almost like she’s holding it as a weapon. 

Or maybe a shield.

Rey shuffles around the chair to sit in it. She’s wearing a muted red cardigan over a white t-shirt. Her jeans are flared at the bottom. Ben’s never seen pants like that before. Yet, he still understands the concept of a ‘flare’. 

Her feet are clad in leather ballet flats. She looks comfortable, yet uncomfortable at the same time. Ben immediately worries about how awkward or strange this might be. He tries to keep himself calm, even as his heart stutters in his chest as he grapples with staying present enough to retain every second of the next ten minutes. 

“Hi,” he hears himself say after Rey sits down and pulls her tote bag off her shoulder, setting it on the floor. She doesn’t sit fully in the chair, instead sitting just on the edge of it.

She doesn’t say anything back immediately. Instead, she just keeps staring at him. Her eyes flicker across his shoulders and quickly sweep his seated form before they zip back to his face. 

When she does speak, it’s not an expected response. At least, not an expected response to Ben. 

“This is so weird,” Rey mutters, staring at something particular on his face. “I’ll be honest, I haven’t known much about Ben’s job. He mentioned being severed, but well, he never really went into any details. Besides, it’s one thing to read about the procedure and another to…” she trails off, but Ben knows what she was likely going to say.

To see it for yourself.

“Being severed is all I’ve ever known,” Ben says. 

“I know it’s you—unless they’ve suddenly figured out cloning.” She inspects him with a practicality that makes him feel like he’s shrinking. Nervous at what she thinks of all this. Meeting her husband’s other personality. If she wanted to meet him at all in the first place. “But it’s also… not you.”

“I know,” Ben says, unable to think of a good excuse—or any words of real substance. 

They sit there for a long pause. Rey’s gaze shifts from his, breaking eye contact to assess him once more. 

“You… have no idea who I am,” Rey says softly, sounding distracted and distant.

Immediately, Ben wants to reassure her. “I do now,” he says quickly. “I mean, a little. I know who you are now.” He winces at his babbling, but Rey doesn’t seem to mind it. 

At least she hasn’t gone running yet. 

“I want to—to get to know you,” Ben rushes out, hoping it doesn’t sound too desperate. If only she knew exactly what he’s been through. The life he’s been enslaved to.

“Why?” He’s surprised by her question. Even if it’s a very logical one. “I guess—I was told we’d only be speaking for a few minutes. I’m not really sure what I’m doing here. Everything surrounding Ben’s work has always been so separate.”

Ben doesn’t really want to talk about the other Ben right now. “Are you Dr. Rey Niima?” he asks, unsure how much time has passed but knowing the minutes have a habit of passing by quickly when one’s not paying close attention. 

Rey blinks in surprise, straightening slightly from her perch on the armchair. “I—”

“I read your book,” Ben says, eager to share this with her. Ever since he found out about her and made the connection.  “Well, not all of it.” Anger that it was confiscated flares within him. “But the part where you talk about finding out who you were meant to be. It really resonated with me. Since I—well, I don’t really have a life, you know? My whole purpose was to do a job and that’s it.”

He looks at Rey, finding her staring perplexedly back at him, like she’s seeing him for the first time. Ben S., not the man she knows to be her husband. And not as a stranger body-snatching the man she’s married to, either. Ben swears when she looks at him now, it’s with a different sort of clarity.

“What?” he asks, unsure why she looks so upset. Worried that he said something wrong. 

Rey sucks in a breath, and it shakes a little as she exhales it. “You… haven’t always been a fan of my work. Even more so when I started writing that book in particular. But I was writing it as an attempt to get you to hear me some other way. I just never thought it would be like this.” She doesn’t say more, stopping just before Ben can understand a deeper piece of her.

What has it been like for her? With the other him? Why does she seem so sad, yet when he mentioned her book and what he thought about it, he saw that flicker of light.

That same flicker flutters in his stomach. “Well, I’ve been a big fan,” Ben admits. He’s telling the truth, so it’s easy to smile as he tries to comfort Rey’s shaken expression. “Your book made me realize the unfairness of my role here. That I deserve more than punching numbers day in and day out. I want a life outside Starkiller. You said it yourself in chapter three, defining that ‘thing’ inside you that drives you to keep going. When I awoke in that kitchen that night—something inside me has always been there. This—I don’t know—a curiosity? A craving. And now it’s awake. But—I’m afraid. I don’t know what it is or what to do with it, but I think I just need your help. I need you to show me my place in all of this. What,” Ben pauses, noticing Rey try to discreetly wipe away a tear. “What’s wrong? Have I—”

“You haven’t looked at me like that in—well, in years.” Rey says, cutting Ben off mid-speech. Maybe she hasn’t heard him, her mind concerned with something else. 

He wonders what she means by ‘that’. Like the way he’s looking at her right now? The only way he’s able to look at her. With a look he assumes to be a mix of shock and awe. Because that’s what it feels like. Knocking him off his feet any chance it gets. Thumping through every vein in his body as he considers the fact that the person sitting across from him means more to him than any of his coworkers on the severed floor. A lot more. 

A whole span of emotions Ben has yet to feel or experience have been presented before him.

“That night in the kitchen. You looked at me like—you were—” Rey bites her lip, like she’s reconsidering it. Instead, she says, “You were different.”

“I’m a split personality of your husband,” Ben explains, understanding that much of what she’s saying. “I don’t have any episodic memories.”

“Right,” Rey says, seeming to wrap her head around his words slowly. “That’s why Ben knows nothing about you,” Rey says, sounding concerned.

“Well, he had to consent to my creation,” Ben admits, pulling at one edge of his sleeve nervously. “But no, we haven’t really communicated with each other over the last three years.

Rey only looks more distressed. “And you read my book,” she says, less like she’s asking for confirmation, more reiterating this information to herself. There’s something like pain pinched in her features, but Ben isn’t sure why.

“You’ve really helped me, Rey,” Ben tells her, hoping it’ll make her feel better. Fill her with tears of joy. “Your book gave me purpose. Y-you gave me purpose.”

“I—Uh—” Rey stumbles over what to say. It’s obvious he’s shocked her. Maybe all of this was too much to try to cram into a ten-minute meeting. “I’m sorry,” she says, now whispering. “I just—I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

“That’s okay,” Ben says reassuringly. Anything to reassure her. He has to get her to come back. He has to convince Snoke to let him have another visit. He can up his productivity. He can work harder. 

He would do it for her.

“You’re just so…” Rey starts, looking at him with disbelief. “Different.” She uses the same word she said before.

Ben’s not sure if that’s a good thing, but he wants to be optimistic. “I really want to—”

Before he can finish, the door opens again with a click, and the woman who was not Rey is back. 

“This ten-minute session has ended,” she says. 

And—no, they’ve barely had time to talk. Has ten minutes really gone by so fast? Ben’s not ready for this to be over. For Rey to be gone. Potentially for good.

“Maybe we can do this again,” he blurts out as Rey starts to rise from her chair, picking up her tote bag as she does it. She freezes all movement, tote not fully slung over one shoulder. “I know it might be weird, but I—I hope I can get to know you just… just a little more.”

Rey looks so conflicted as he says this. He can tell she’s somewhat withdrawing. Or maybe this is all too weird for her. He’s an anomaly that shouldn’t exist. 

But it could be because he’s looking at her so hopefully, so determinedly. With a new purpose. 

She’s barely able to nod, something else shading her features that she won’t say openly. “It was—” she tries, but she can’t finish.

“It means a lot that I was able to meet you,” he tells her earnestly, only watching that expression on Rey’s face shutter even more. But if this is the last and only time he’ll see her. He can’t help but ask the one thing he’s never had. “Can we…” he starts while opening his arms slightly to gesture at what he means while his nerves get the best of him. 

“Oh,” Rey says, as realization dawns on her. Ben can’t tell if the expression on her face is one of skittishness or deep suspicion. As though this were the moment she fully realizes who he is. And who he isn’t.

He isn’t Ben Solo. He is Ben S. 

Immediately he scrambles to think of something to say instead. To deflect from the rejection of his possibly inappropriate request.

But then Rey steps forward instead of back. 

“Ma’am, the time is up,” the woman at the door echoes calmly. 

“Okay, we can—” Rey says somewhat hastily, she’s closing the space between them. Ben can’t believe this is happening.

He goes to hug her, while Rey reaches up, and instead of hugging him back, she wraps an arm around him and pecks him on the cheek. 

Time stops. Rey freezes. Ben can’t move. But Rey’s shock processes after her next breath. Ben can feel it against the right side of his chest, where she’s currently pressed against him. 

She jumps away, and she won’t really meet his gaze. “God, I’m sorry,” she apologizes. “It’s just—it’s a habit—”

“It’s okay,” Ben says, trying to be reassuring, but he’s falling apart a little on the inside. He’s never experienced a moment so—so intimate.  

Thinking of that word, knowing what it means, that’s one thing. But knowing how it feels?

He shudders, remembering the heat of her body touching him. The scent of coconut wafting from his cheek.

Coconuts…

“Sorry?” Rey mutters, seeming to have heard him. But now the attendant is entering the room to escort Rey out. 

Every morning, the first thing he associates with the start of the day is the scent of Rey’s coconut chapstick on his cheek. From a kiss meant for his other self.

Someone who isn’t him.  

Time is moving quickly all of a sudden. Too quick for Ben’s liking. Far too quick. 

Rey is stepping back now. Away. Ben can only helplessly watch her leave, conflicted with the need to demand more, demand she stay—if she wants to—demand for this hell to end, and for him to live— 

What?

In the outside world? A place he knows nothing about. To just be thrust into society with only the knowledge of working an office job. It is laughable. How would he survive?

He’d have her, though. The thought selfishly can’t escape him. 

“Goodbye… I guess?” Ben wants to convince himself it’s uncertainty that trails in her voice.

But the sinking, pessimistic side of him that’s awoken ever since he started reading Rey’s book—an unfortunate side effect—can’t help but imagine what Rey must think of all this. A weird day getting her first glimpse of her husband’s work life. Only to find it’s not at all what she expected.

He’s not what she expected. 

She glances back one more time, but it’s quick, and then the door is closing behind her, separating them. 

“Bye,” Ben whispers into the silence, wishing that–with all this technology letting people sever their memory states from one another–there was a feasible solution that can turn back time. 

📥

“Where were you?” Hux asks.

“Snoke sent me to Wellness,” Ben lies, remembering the consent form he signed before he agreed to never mention the meetings with Rey to a single soul.

“Everything okay?” The question comes from Mitaka instead of Hux. 

Is everything okay? What a loaded question. 

Ben has the sudden urge to punch his desk. He plops down in his chair with a clatter and thunk. He doesn’t remember it being so uncomfortable to sit, but then again, every little thing is ticking him off right now. 

“Is it because of the whole finding out your outie has a wife thing?” Hux surmises, always the one to just say what’s on his mind. 

That’s only half of it.

“Snoke called it the Overtime Contingency,” Ben says, considering he’s pretty sure that wasn’t mentioned on the form he signed. “I think if they’re able to do it… we should be able to do it too.”

“What do you mean, turn it on?” Phasma sounds skeptical. “What, you think there’s some control center with secret access somewhere on this floor?”

“Like the security office?”

All eyes turn to Mitaka. 

“The security office?” Phasma repeats. 

“You’ve seen it?” Hux asks, suddenly sounding far more interested. 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I saw it that time during the fire drill.”

“Won’t there be a lot of security?” Phasma questions, she still doesn’t seem convinced.

“Other than Pryde?” Hux pipes in. “Snoke’s lackey is the only ‘security’ I’ve seen.”

“Guess that means it’s time for a field trip,” Ben suggests, pulse thumping with excitement. To be pleasantly surprised that he’s not alone in this desire. That the idea of catching a glimpse of the outside world isn’t an individual temptation. It is a universal one.

“Except, we need a keycard to open it. A card with access we don’t have,” Mitaka points out.

The group seems to deflate as one at the realization. 

Ben’s shoulders slump, the hope of seeing Rey again seeming more and more bleak. He stuffs his hands into his pockets, only to immediately stiffen at the feel of something thin and hard in his pants pocket. 

Confused, Ben wraps his fingers around it, feeling the rounded edges and discovering what it is. He pulls it out of his pocket, and all eyes in the group glance at what’s in his hand.

Mitaka points. “Is that—”

“I don’t know,” Ben admits. “It might be.”

The keycard hadn’t been in his pocket earlier. He’s sure of it. Had Rey slipped it in his pocket somehow? When he wasn’t paying attention? 

When they were embracing?

But why would she… how could she… it didn’t make sense. 

Ben knows undoubtedly that this is the keycard that’ll open the security office. 

“I think there’s only one way to find out,” Hux suggests, eyebrows raised and alight with the same hope Ben has blazing within him.

Ben meets his gaze with a sharp nod of his own. 

“So, about that field trip?”

Chapter Text

📤

Ben comes to, sitting on a couch with his socked feet propped on a coffee table. He’s scrolling what looks to be e-mails from a personal account on his phone. 

How he just knows that, Ben doesn’t have time to think about right now. 

There’s a ticking sound echoing in the distance from a wall clock above the fireplace.

Tick, tick…

He jolts upright at the sound of a door opening and closing. 

“Heya—”

It’s an accent—he comes to the realization. He noticed it a little when they met at Starkiller, but he hadn’t really processed it until now. 

Ben gets to his feet just as Rey walks through the archway and into the living room. 

Her steps falter as she notices him standing there awkwardly. “You okay?” she asks, tilting her head a little to the side. Looking so goddamn adorable—

“Rey, uh,” Ben tries to think of the best way to tell her. “I—uh…”

He stops when he hears her sharp intake of breath. Almost like she already knows. How can she tell just by looking at him?

“Ben… S.?” Rey draws out the silence between his first name and his last. Drawing out the inevitable. 

Ben nods, unable to say the words, afraid it might spook her. “I needed to see you.” His voice sounds gravelly when he tries to use it. All the anticipation to get here, and now that he’s here, seeing her again, it’s challenging to keep his thoughts straight or his voice even.

Rey puts her tote bag down on the floor, then her purse on the credenza beside her. The rattle of keys clinks against glass as she finishes her home arrival routine.

Her back is slightly turned from him when she asks, “Was this sanctioned by—”

“No—” Ben interrupts her. “No, this was—this was something I had to do.”

Now Rey turns to him, appearing concerned. “Is something wrong?”

There’s no point in hesitating now. “I needed to talk to you again. Outside Starkiller. I just—I want to understand how he could agree to what they’re doing to us down there.”

Rey’s eyes widened, taken aback. “Doing to—What are they doing?” she asks. 

“We’re working on some confidential program, but no one actually knows what for. We don’t get to have lives, or any real hopes and dreams.”

“I’m—sorry.” Rey looks regretful. Much good it does either of them. Ben doesn’t feel any better hearing it. 

Ben takes a few steps from the couch to approach her, but he does so, slowly. “Work was mad that I was under performing because I was slacking off. That I seemed to lack any motivation anymore. But I was just sick and tired of things always being ‘the way things were’. Especially in times of injustice.”

“What injustice?” Rey asks curiously. 

Ben shrugs, saying the first thought that comes to mind. “Like how they said Finn’s outie decided to leave the company, which is why they promoted Hux to Macrodata Refinement Chief.”

“I—I’m sorry I have no idea who you’re talking about,” Rey admits, but it’s Ben who feels miffed. Because how could he have forgotten?

“You don’t have to keep apologizing—”

“Sor—” Rey catches herself. She looks so cute, self-regulating. He finds it interesting, after reading her book, to find that she’s not just a confident and self-assured person, but to also know there’s vulnerability there. 

She’s human. Full-fleshed and fully realized. Whereas Ben has felt like nothing but a fraud. A fraud with no real purpose.

“Is being an author your only job?” he asks, even though he already knows the answer as he read it in the opening pages of her book. His eyes follow Rey as she starts to move around the back of the couch—to sit on the other side of it.

When she sits down, she says, “I’m a speech therapist for disabled veterans.”

It fills Ben with a sense of accomplishment that he was able to divert the growing tension into curiosity. He follows her lead, sitting opposite to her. A chasm of space and couch cushions between them. “How’d you get into that?”

“Did you know that’s actually how we met?” she asks, rhetorically. There’s no possible way Ben S. would ever know that. The detail that he was in the military seems to have been left out of his Wellness sessions.

“I was a patient of yours?”

“Your file had daily mandatory PT. At the recovery center, where I worked, you were one of my cases.”

“So, a patient,” Ben confirms. 

“You survived a blast to the face while in combat. That’s where that scar is from.” Rey points to a spot on his face where he’s seen her look before. When they were sitting across from each other at Starkiller. He was familiar with the scar, understanding it came from his Outie. He just never knew why.

Only that it was the cheek that always smelled like coconut chapstick.

“Your lungs were also damaged. We spent the first few months just getting you to breathe properly.” 

“When was that?” Ben asks.

“Nearly ten years ago.” Rey’s eyes glaze over, like she’s remembering it now. There’s something pained in her features that Ben wants to understand. What happened in the past ten years to make her so sad? 

Ben naturally has the urge to scoot closer to her, which he does just a little. Not close enough to touch her, but closer than them sitting on opposite ends from one another. 

“Are you happy?” he asks. 

Rey seems taken aback, but his question has brought her back from wherever she’d gone in her head. “What?”

“Are you happy?” he repeats, an ache building pressure in his chest as he struggles to get out the next two words. “With him.”

“I—” she stops, searching for the words. “I’m not sure, I—”

“Because I think I really could—” Ben pauses to swallow the drying lump in his throat. “Make you happy.” Relief only lasts briefly as he gets this out. “If I just had the chance to—”

“What are you really doing here? If this wasn’t company mandated? Are you…” She won’t say it aloud, what she suspects. “You can’t be here,” she says, shutting down from him, leaning away from his touch. Like she’s just realized the full implications of his presence here. 

“But I don’t think I belong there,” Ben emphasizes. “I’m not sure where I belong, but when I saw you—”

There’s an invisible force propelling him forward, nudging him inch by inch until Rey’s thigh is touching his, and they’re now wedged next to each other on the couch. 

Rey seems to be hanging on to every word, waiting for him to finish what he was going to say. 

“Solid and clear… The only time I’ve felt more—of what I can guess—than senseless loneliness, is when you came into my life. In more ways than one. I feel like I’ve known you longer than I’ve known you. If that makes sense?”

Her lip flutters before she bites it to stop the movement. “I feel like I have known you longer than I’ve known you, too,” she whispers with a tooth still snagging that bottom lip.

It might be strange how natural it feels to sink further into one another, lean closer. So close, the next and last part of them to touch is their lips.

They surge together in a kiss that—for being Ben’s first kiss—completely knocks the wind out of him. It’s everything at once. It’s too much, too fast. He’s scrambling to keep up.

Cupping a hand around her face and neck, fingers weaving through the loose strands of her tied up hair, he has some control. He’s able to hold her to him in a way she doesn’t seem to mind.

After a time, they do have to break away. But Ben’s not done kissing her. He takes a deep breath before he leans forward again. Rey grants him a kiss, and then a few more, before her hands are lightly pushing against his chest.

“I have to catch my breath,” she whispers, huffing softly as she sucks in air. 

“Sorry,” Ben rumbles, blood throbbing in his ears. He can’t actually let go of her. The hand at the back of her head and his other—looped around her waist? 

He feels a tug at his collar, only to realize it’s her fist twisted in his shirt. Rey takes two more breaths, and then she’s back to attacking his mouth at full force. 

Ben is in—it’s quite possible he’s in heaven. 

When they next pull back for breath, after quite a long meander of each other’s tongues, Rey pants, “How are you here right now?”

Ben pauses, thinking. “It’s the Overtime Contingency. We enabled it ourselves because you gave me the keycard to open—”

“A keycard?” Rey asks, pulling further apart so she can look at him. It’s not what Ben wants, he’d rather still be kissing her than talking right now, but he lets her go, lamenting the distance already. “I never gave you a keycard.”

As her words sink in, Ben swears her voice has started to echo and a sinking panic settles in him. 

Not again, he thinks. Not right now!

“Re—”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence, let alone finish the first syllable of his first word.

📥

Tick, tick, tick…

“Let me just say,” Snoke grates from where he’s sitting sternly at his desk, eyes narrowed and scrutinizing. “I am very disappointed with your actions.”

Ben doesn’t have a response. He doesn’t regret a second of it. It’s merely been minutes to him since he was yanked away from Rey and back to the elevator at Starkiller. He can still feel the tingle of where her lips touched his when they kissed. His face heats at the memory of it. Still so fresh in his mind.

How soft she felt. Losing his mind in the intense slide of his tongue against hers when he somehow knew how to deepen the kiss instinctively. 

But what is time? To him, it’s just a thing that passes. It was merely a thing that passes. Because there was never anything really that exciting to look forward to. Now that Ben’s been awakened and seen the other side, how could any of those cheap rewards ever measure up?

“After we rewarded you—”

“That wasn’t a reward,” Ben butts in, insulted that Snoke would try to downplay this. That he would use the very word Ben was just thinking of. “That was—dangling a carrot from a stick.”

“You know you will have to go to the Break Room for this, yes?”

“Lead the way,” he says sarcastically, gesturing to the door.

Ben will beg for forgiveness for as many times as Snoke requires if he has to. He has a new goal set.

And he intends to reach it.

📥

“Read the compunction statement written below.”

“Forgive me for the hurt I have caused. My actions are mine to atone and no one else’s. I am thankful I was caught, and know how deeply sorry I am. I look to the guidance of those with superior knowledge than myself. To be the most regretful person that I can be.”

“I don’t think you mean it. Again.”

“Forgive me for the hurt I have caused. My actions are mine to atone and no one else’s. I am thankful I was caught, and know how deeply sorry I am. I look to the guidance of those with superior knowledge than myself. To be the most regretful person that I can be.”

“Again.”

“Forgive me for the hurt I have caused. My actions are mine to atone and no one else’s…”

📥

He doesn’t just work efficiently. There’s a distinct intent with every swath of numbers he drops in each bucket. Every day. On the dot. By the hour. The second. He reaches 100% before everyone else in the group. Not a first, but he’s eons ahead. Days or maybe even weeks, though time doesn’t pass at Starkiller like how his brain tells him it should.

The echoing shouts in his head have finally abated some, but every now and then he catches a whisper of a sorrowful, “Don’t do this Ben, Please don’t go this way.”

It has been happening ever since he got out of the Break Room. The same words repeated over and over again. Triggered by the compunction statement.

He has no idea what it means. But there’s no doubt in his mind, he knows it’s Rey saying the words. It’s Rey who is broken. 

Ben has to see her again. He has to know. Is he treating her alright? Is he a monster? Why was she begging him to not do something? Was it when he decided to get Severed? Because maybe she actually can’t stand him. What she sees in him is something she never wanted to be a part of. What if that puts a strain on their marriage? 

Why does he swear she looked so sad the other day, sitting across from him. When he was trying to connect with her. And then after—when she kissed him—

So he works his damn ass off. And he earns himself another meeting. Snoke never said they were off the table after what he and the team did to set off the Overtime Contingency. 

And he wanted Ben to be working more efficiently, didn’t he? 

Well, this is how he was going to do that.

When he hits a second milestone before everyone else on the team has a chance to finish their first, he asks to see Snoke.

Tick.

📥

“I want to set up a meeting with her.”

“Set up a meeting with—” Ben doesn’t let Snoke finish.

“With Rey,” Ben butts in. “I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that I have completed twice the work as my colleagues. When you offered that incentive, I understood it as being contingent on my performance.”

Snoke is silent, staring at Ben, or maybe through him, as he contemplates Ben’s words.

Irritation flares beneath Ben’s skin in the silence. “If my faster progress matters at all to you—”

They’re interrupted when Bazine Netal walks into the room unannounced. She struts in with heels so high they make her slender frame appear to be balancing almost on the tips of her toes. There’s an elegance and austerity to her, clad in sensible yet fitted work attire. The earpiece Ben always sees attached to one ear makes her look like a walking telemarketer. “There’s something urgent the Shareholders must speak with you about,” she says, face expressionless except for the slight widening of her eyes as she stands there waiting.

“We’re finishing up here,” Snoke says dismissively.

“I have them on the phone right now,” Bazine replies, tapping at her ear. There’s an unspoken demand with that action. 

Snoke seems to placidly consider this for two long seconds. “As there is an urgent matter for me to discuss with the board, I will have to consider your request at another time.”

“But—”

“They’re urgently waiting,” Bazine interrupts, parroting Snoke’s choice of adjective.

Ben storms out of Snoke’s office, deflated at his rejection. It’s clear to him then what seems to speak to these people to get what he wants.

Insubordination. 

📥

It takes several days. Maybe even a weekend. But what is time to someone who wakes up at work, finishes their day only to wake up back at work seconds later? Time almost felt erroneous. Like, what purpose did it serve? To Ben, it’s just been hitting deadlines to have any concept of ‘progress’. 

So to make up for all the work he did ‘too efficiently’, Ben spends the next several iterations at Starkiller unmotivated. But Snoke seems preoccupied, unbothered by it. Something else has been going on. The atmosphere in the office was slightly more tense than ever before. Snoke has been absent. There hasn’t been much pressure to ‘continue’. 

But Ben has been patient. He knows his lack of participation has affected hitting certain deadlines.

“Is there something wrong with your desk?” Hux asks on the third iteration of Ben’s period of ineffectiveness. 

The fact that Snoke hasn’t come down yet to reprimand him for doing absolutely nothing, has Ben chewing his bottom lip. How much longer will he have to keep going? How much longer until he can see her?

“No,” Ben says, leaning back in his chair with his ankles crossed. Instead of working, he’s been mentally mapping the paths of all the winding halls at Starkiller. It was time he started paying a little more attention. Understand this place. Actually speak to the other departments. His whole reality he never once questioned, until he realized how shielded he really was. How guarded. Imprisoned. 

“Is there something wrong with…” Hux trails off, but Ben knows he means to say, you.  

There’s a barely audible clicking sound happening across the way at Mitaka’s desk. Ben’s cognizant of each ‘click’. 

Tick, tick.

📥

She’s in the room waiting for him this time.

“I talked to him,” Rey says, voice quivering. “About—us. The meetings… when you were somehow standing in our living room.”

“What did he say?” Ben asks as he goes to sit in the armchair beside hers, unable to help from leaning forward. To be closer to her. He doesn’t want Rey to be sad. As she appears to be right now. Face drawn and eyes lowered away from him. Nothing about this meeting is going how Ben had anticipated. 

Rey laughs, but there’s nothing humorous about it. “He says he needs you to keep working hard. He’s been told the work you’re doing is important, and he believes—he says when the work’s completed, they’ll finally be rewarded. We all will be.”

“He sounds crazy.”

“We’ve… been drifting apart. For some time,” Rey admits, exhaling like saying this to someone is a load off. “I wrote that book because there were nights when you were working longer hours. He never told me he Severed himself. I thought when he came home exhausted, he never wanted to talk about it. Not because he couldn’t talk about it, but because he didn’t want to. But now I understand.”

“Did he tell you why the work is so important?” Ben asks.

Rey’s pause is not very long. “Even now, when we speak to each other, it’s like we’re both speaking in another language. After everything, with the speech therapy. I knew he had demons. I've seen some of them.” She blinks, stymying tears that have pooled beneath her lids, though she keeps her gaze cast down. “I’d fought some of them with him, but—he always felt there were some things he needed to deal with on his own.” She looks so defeated, and Ben—his chest aches at the thought of her feeling all of this sorrow because of him. “I wrote the book because I wanted him to know I—that I was still fighting this with him. He doesn’t have to do this alone.”

“What does he have to do?” Ben asks, not quite understanding. 

At his question, Rey sighs. 

“He thinks burying his past is the only way he can move on from it, but it’s only carved into him deeper, settling into this fear that he’ll never actually be able to look past it.” Rey pauses then to wipe at a tear. “I just—I don’t understand why he would—” But then she stops, glancing at him as if remembering who he is—and who he isn’t. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes like clockwork. “I know it’s selfish to talk like this. When you didn’t even ask for it.”

“To exist?” Ben clarifies. “Does anyone ask to exist?”

Rey looks sheepish then, as if she regrets even mentioning it. “ We’ve been so distant. Then I met you, and—” Now she’s getting tripped up again, struggling to find the right words to use in such an unusual situation.

“And I’m so… different,” Ben finishes for her. Remembering what she said in that first meeting.

After a long pause, Rey barely whispers. “Yes.” 

Ben still isn’t sure if that’s a good thing. He can’t help but think back to when he saw her during the Overtime Contingency. The second one where Snoke wasn’t in control. When he had time to talk to her without anyone watching. When he kissed her. Or did she kiss him? Or had it been a mutual agreement?

There isn’t much he can do while sitting in that armchair to be closer to her. He doesn’t even care that his suit doesn’t give him much mobility as Ben sinks to the floor to his knees before her.

Rey wipes at a fallen tear again hastily, turning away from him so he won’t see.

“No don’t—” he says, attempting to reach for her hand but hesitating. He’s not sure if he should touch her. He’s never witnessed such emotion before. Ben’s not really sure what to do, but it seems like his body wants to act, telling his brain what to do instead. Just like with that kiss. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

His words—spoken from some deeper part of himself—is what causes her to break. Then, instinct takes over, and Ben goes to rise from his knees only for Rey to fall into him, joining him there. Her arms wrap around his shoulders in an embrace, and she’s holding him so tight, she’s shaking. He holds her back just as tightly, engulfing her in his arms with her half fallen into his lap. 

“I’ve missed you,” Rey says through her tears, sobs shuddering in her chest. 

Ben holds her, but the thought that can’t help but surface is that she doesn’t even know him. Realizing who she misses is likely a man he can never be. But he can’t help himself. Even with this tragic understanding, he still wants whatever he can get.

Rey sniffles into his shoulder as she starts to calm down. The sobs now abated to smaller and quieter shakes. When he feels her start to draw away slightly, he loosens his grip, so he can see her, but he doesn’t fully let her go. Her hands still sling to his back and shoulders as she pulls back, but she too doesn’t fully extricate herself. 

He wants to see her face, but they’re still too close, and then before he can utter a word she’s back to closing the gap between them, lips seeking his.

She misses slightly, but Ben is quick to catch her until their lips are pressed and twined together like their limbs. Rey is wearing a skirt today, and it’s easy for her to spread her legs over his lap to bring them closer.

This is the second time he’s kissed her—the second kiss he’s ever experienced—and while he knows he lacks so much in the experience department, when he lets his body decide for him that seems to get the best reaction from Rey. 

She’s warm at the center, pressing heavily on his crotch. It’s all he can focus on for a while. That and moving his mouth against Rey’s and doing all he can to keep up. 

”Mmm,” Rey moans, shifting her hips and that warmth Ben feels on his crotch gets warmer. After another deep breath, there’s a pressure there now. His pants are tighter.

Rey grinds against him again and a part of him—growing by the second—presses into a now damp center. 

It sizzles in the back of his mind that what he’s feeling right now is arousal. That it’s his dick—which has only ever had a perfunctory use—that seems to be reacting the most. The fluttering in his chest coming second to the shooting pleasure building with each grind of Rey’s hips. 

Rey’s hands move from his shoulders, sliding down his chest, then his stomach, only to land a few inches below it, right at his belt buckle. 

Ben’s next breath hitches in his throat, and he almost chokes on it when Rey starts to pull at the leather and undo it. With a clank and a sudden release of some tension, she has his belt buckle undone, her fingers teasing toward the fastenings of his trousers. 

He’s immobile, rigid on the floor as Rey writhes on top of him. At some point while he was kissing Rey, he’d scooted them back, leaning against the apron of the armchair for support.

A gasp cuts off his groan when Rey’s hand reaches into his pants to grip his erection. An insane ricochet of pleasure careens through him from that touch. A feeling he’s never felt before and is completely overcome by. For a man who was sure he may never truly know joy, this feeling must come close to it. 

“I need you—” Rey gasps, when she finally pulls away from his lips enough to glance down at where her hand has disappeared. Where he’s throbbing beneath her fingers. 

“I love you—” The words are uttered, but it takes another second for Ben to realize he’s said them. 

But instead of making things fall apart by opening his stupid mouth, it has the opposite effect, spurring Rey on as she starts to pull at the hem of her skirt with one hand while pumping his cock with the other. 

In the next second, Rey’s pulled him out of his trousers, guiding him between her thighs and rubbing his tip against the damp gusset there.

He thinks his eyes roll to the back of his head at the sensation. He’s so sensitive at the tip. Imagining how wet she must be beneath the fabric he’s pressing against? He only gets harder imagining it.

“Ben—” His name trembles from Rey’s lips. She lets him go to pull her underwear aside, hovering just above him. Waiting.

He understands what’s happening. It’s weird to understand something—almost in such a way as someone who has experienced sex before—but to have no actual memories of the act. It’s just fuzzy and somewhat elusive theories of how sex works. How to try to make it feel good. 

“Please,” he shudders. So, so close to it. 

Rey bites her lip to stifle her moan as she slowly slides down onto him. Her body stretched to accommodate the girth of his erection. Ben can’t explain the sensation, but it’s beyond anything he’s ever dreamed of. He could never have imagined such a feeling without having felt it before. He wouldn’t have been able to do it justice. Not this. Not the way her heat engulfs him. Strangles him. And every part of it is only basking in utter delight. 

Once he’s buried as deep into her as he can be, he opens his eyes, overcompensating a bit with how wide they get, but it’s only in response to how wide Rey’s are in return. How stunned she looks, mouth hanging open slack-jawed, an expression of pleasure or possibly even pain as she slowly rises on her knees, sliding him out to only sit back down with a little more force.

After one well-placed thrust, Rey is clinging to him, teeth wedged around the muscle of his shoulder blade to keep from shouting too loud. 

There’s no doubt anyone watching would see exactly what’s going on in here. Would likely try to stop it. Ben prays to prolong the minutes. Because he can’t stop. He can’t stop now. 

Rey starts to move faster, pushing from her knees to keep up her momentum. Ben can feel something tightly building at the base of his spine. A pressure that’s borderline uncomfortable, knowing just how amazing it will feel when he can finally reach that peak. 

He’s so close. So close to whatever that is—

The sound Ben makes next isn’t human, but he’s unable to hold it in when his orgasm comes, taking him by such surprise he feels like a steam top barely able to let out the air fast enough. And the feeling keeps going. Waves of it. Pleasure rippling with the pulse of his heartbeat, beating in his cock that’s still buried inside Rey. Rey, who has started rocking against him, whimpering and clinging to him just as hard as he’s clinging to her. 

She shudders around him, which only keeps his buzz going. The pleasure has made him drowsy. There’s more heat, more wetness, more everything as he tries to catch his breath. As he tries to take it all in. Rey’s muttering nonsense into his neck. A string of the same word over and over again.

“Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.”

Ben doesn’t know why, but he starts rocking them again, mimicking the movement from earlier but now? Instead of inciting pleasure, it’s comfort Ben feels. This connectedness to her goes far deeper than how deep he already is inside her.

Almost like what’s happening is a twining of souls. 

As the silence starts to fill the room, Rey whispers the words so softly it’s like she doesn’t actually intend for him to hear them. But to Ben, it’s impossible not to focus on everything that pertains to her.

It’s her words, though, that sink the deepest. That speaks aloud the bad thought he’s had himself, but knows he can’t say. But she says it. She says the words. Words that change everything in a second.

And these words?

They make him want to move mountains, only to be crushed with the inevitable realization that there’s no way out of this. There’s no place apart from here where he gets to remotely have this. 

He can’t have her.

But Rey’s words only echo in his mind, refusing to unstick. 

“I wish you were him.”  

Tick… tick…

Chapter Text

Tick, tick, tick…

“Solo what are you doing—”

“I can disarm it!”

“Don’t take the risk, it’s not worth it.”

“This is a civilian area. There are innocent people within the blast radius.”

“Don’t do it, Solo. It’s your funeral.”

“I’m almost there—”

boom.

… Hello?

Hey.

What’s going on? Where am I—

It’s… kind of hard to explain.

Are you…?

… Yeah. Uh, I guess it was inevitable this would be awkward.

I don’t understand.

I know, and I’m doing a shit job at explaining it.

…

What?

I’m waiting because you haven’t explained shit.

Right, well, I guess—I’m—you’re—

Me.

Yes. Well, no. You’re me.

Scoffs. I’m not anything like you.

I’ve heard as such.

How are we talking to each other like this?

It’s part of the reintegrating process.

Reintegrating?

Starkiller is done. They can’t Sever another person again, no matter that person’s consent. Because it was never fully consensual. And for once, everyone agreed that such a thing had no reason to exist in our society. The people came together. And perception is one of the hardest things to change about a certain thing once a belief is established. And if Severance succeeding relies on that perception?

I know I asked for you to explain it, but… that’s a lot to process.

Take your time.

But… I exist, and others like me exist. Even if Severance is done what—what happens to us?

I understand you’re upset—

You don’t understand shit. You have no idea what it’s been like for me.

I want you to take my place.

What?

It’s why I created you.

Why you chose to Sever?

Yes, that’s part of it. But it’s a little more complicated than that.

📤

Ben wakes up lying horizontal—and in immense pain. His head is killing him. His face…

He lifts a hand to find half of his face bandaged. A dull ache pangs through his cheek as he works the slowly mending bones of his fractured jaw.

He’s unable to move or make a sound apart from a wordless groan. His lungs can hardly function. There’s a machine helping him breathe.

He feels like a burning pile of shit.

What the hell happened?

📥

So, how does this work? I drive and you—you’re just a—a passenger?

I’m not entirely sure. I’m the first one to try to reintegrate. But I had assumed, eventually, I’d likely fade away.

That’s so messed up.

I don’t see it that way. 

How do you see it, then?

I just want her to be happy. All I’ve done is make her miserable.

Wait… you mean Rey? You did… you did all of this for her?

I know you might think I’m insane. That my ethics—

Are non-existent? Look, as much as I don’t want to admit this, what you said about making her miserable—that’s not true. It sounded like she really loved you when she talked about you. You just made her sad—sometimes.

You just made my point.

I said sometimes.

I think I’ll stick around for as long as most of the core memories get transferred.

You can just decide that?

It’s a hypothesis I have.

Pft, you really are a brainiac.

You are too, you’ve just been sheltered.

No thanks to you.

The whole point of Severing was to create a version of myself that could function in the real world. It just took some programming.

Programming?

Or, should I say, deprogramming.

What does that even mean?

It was necessary to get to the second phase of this work. It’s why I put that keycard in our pocket.

Because you wanted me to see the outside world on purpose? But why?

Do you think I would have been able to convince you otherwise?

Probably not.

But then Snoke and Starkiller were starting to get greedy. They had their agenda.

Snoke? As in my boss, Snoke?

He’s my boss too, technically.

Sorry, our boss. Better?

Alright… Now I can see why some people thought I was an asshole.

Some people?

📤

“Breathe in through your nose,” Rey coaxes him. “And out…” she mimics him as he exhales, eyes never leaving him. Her hand rests on his chest, just below his heart, but she must feel how it beats, thrumming harder and faster beneath her touch.

No matter how long they’ve been at this, Rey always meets him halfway. She always participates. Like they’re in this together or something. Like, Ben’s injury isn’t just his now, but it’s also hers. In the way that she treats it as something not in need of fixing, but healing. 

Ben does what she says, breathing deeply in through his nose, and then out from his mouth, the air whooshes from his lungs and from the depths of his belly. 

While the muscles threaten to twitch and tense up, he keeps breathing with Rey. In time and as one.

And it’s in those times when Ben never wants to be anywhere else. He doesn’t want to breathe for anyone else. 

Rey and her unyielding patience. How she’s the only face he wants to see during his days at the rehab facility.

She’s the only face he wants to see, permanently.

📥

When did you first fall in love with her?

When did you?

I think it happened the moment I saw her.

We’re not that different, you know.

Is that part of reintegration?

No, I think that’s just… how it’s always been meant to be.

📤

“I’ve always been a fan of the coconut flavor. Makes me feel like I’m on a beach somewhere.” A hand plucks the plastic tube in question from right in front of him. “In a place that’s always warm and full of sunshine. Reminds me of my childhood.”

Ben rears back from where he’d been staring at the various chapstick flavors, desperate to find the one labeled ‘unscented’. 

His head whips to his left where he sees Rey, his speech therapist, at the same drug store as him. 

She’s smiling in that soothing way of hers, the kind that’s dimpled and bright and is a balm on Ben’s weathered soul. She holds up the chapstick and hands it to him. 

“Thanks,” Ben mutters, putting all those hours of speech therapy to use. 

Somehow, he knows just how transparent he really is when she asks him, “Do you want to grab a bite? It’s been a few months, I’d love to hear how you’re doing—”

It doesn’t matter what else she says. He’s transfixed on her. He’s ready to agree to anything she suggests. Jump at the chance to spend more time with her. Something he’s longed for but never been able to consider as a possibility. 

Seeing her smile like that—Ben swears to imprint that smile into his memory and to remember the feeling of immediate peace that comes with it.

📥

Are you controlling the memories I’m having?

Can’t say that I am.

How long has it been since…

Only a couple of days.

Days? What about Rey? What about—

She’s aware of what’s happening.

What is happening?

As Starkiller powers down, a decision had to be made on what to do with the already cultivated data.

You’ve lost me again.

Maybe I should go a few steps back. I’d been working with an investigator to yank the mask off Starkiller to the masses over the last several months. After I discovered the Perpetuity wing—where they keep the archives and history of our founders—and the legacy of the Sith. Starkiller was an arm to this greater power. And it all started with our founder, Darth Plagueis. He had this whole ideology centered around rebirth and reincarnation. When I realized what they were hoping to use my technology for, I knew I had to stop it.

.

.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

📤

There are dreams that haunt him at night. Every night. Screams of sorrow, despair, terror. The kind of horror that no one should ever bear witness to, let alone bear to instill with one’s own hands.

After all of that—all the destruction and the pain—Ben knows who the real enemy is. He’s intent on killing them—destroying them. For what they’ve done. What they’ve done to him. To so many innocent lives. 

He knows he has to do something, when he wakes from a night terror with Rey’s throat encircled in his hands.

It’s time to let the past die.

How his body shakes with tremors so intense it’s not easily abated. He’s racked with guilt. Shame.

“I could have killed y-you.” His voice shakes with his body. Head hung as he crouches in on himself on his side of the bed. 

“Ben, you wouldn’t—” she reaches for him, hands and heart full of forgiveness, but he can’t accept it. He shies away from her touch. He can’t forgive himself so easily. Because she doesn’t know. She has no idea how dark and how twisted the demons have become. How he isn’t sure he can ever control it. 

How he can’t bear the thought that he could lose her because of it. 

“Don’t,” he says, as silent tears fall. 

He can’t bring her into the darkness. He won’t bring her down with him.

📥

You said you created me. Earlier.

I did.

You did, as in, you did create me? Or do you just agree that is what you said?

I guess both.

You’re kind of an asshole.

I am.

📤

“Why are you interested in this position at Starkiller?” Across a conference room table, Snoke sits at the head. Ben is in a chair adjacent to him. The room is sleek and everything has chrome accents. The fluorescent lights illuminate the room so brightly, all the dark furnishings and decor don’t seem so gloomy. The only accent is the streaks of red welded in the cracks between the walls. Ben glances at them, noting to himself how it replicates a wall soaked in blood. Its tendrils are running down with the fall of gravity. Perhaps, a reminder of death—something no one can escape.

“When I was in the military, I was an EOD specialist. I have skills in robotics and weapons engineering. Since being honorably discharged after a nearby landmine detonated while I was disabling another one, I spent years rehabilitating into normal society only to realize how impossible that was. In the past two years, I’ve been studying human consciousness on a molecular level, how our memories are formed and where they are stored. What you’re trying to attempt with spatial separation is possible, you’re just doing it all wrong.”

“And how might we be doing it wrong?” There’s a sense of hostility in Snoke’s tone. Or perhaps, superiority as he glares at Ben from across the conference table. As if to say, who do you think you are?

“The mechanical device you’re implanting is sending the wrong soundwaves through a person’s neurons to create that separation. It’s why you’re unable to control how long you keep people ‘under’.”

After a long pause, Snoke finally says, “Why does this matter to you? What incentive do you have to make sure this procedure succeeds?”

“I need this to work,” Ben says, not wanting to provide any more reason than that. “I know how to make it work, I just need the resources to complete it.”

“Well, it sounds like this may be personal for you,” Snoke baits. Perhaps, thinking Ben’s interest in the subject might cause him to be a liability. 

“It’s why I’m all the more motivated to solve your Severing problem.”

“Who says there’s a problem? A journalist hack just trying to make waves?” Snoke speaks dismissively. In normal circumstances, Ben would assume at the way Snoke is looking at him, he definitely doesn’t have the job.

But, he’s been doing his research.

“Well,” Ben says, mimicking Snoke’s earlier tone. “I think the fact that I’m sitting in this room answers that question.”

📥

What was so bad you felt Severing yourself from that pain was worth it? Because you hurt her?

Because I couldn’t control it. And she loved me too much I—

Hey, this isn’t her fault. It’s never her fault.

Huh, nice to see I could give my second chance a sense of decency.

I can’t really tell what’s sarcasm with you and what isn’t.

For everyone’s sake? It’s probably better that way.

📤

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“It’s late, I’m heading to bed.”

“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say to me?”

Ben’s footsteps pause at the entryway. He walks back to the living room, where Rey is sitting on the couch, cozied under a blanket. He wants to go to her. Hold her. Apologize to her. Apologize for—well, a lot of things.

But it’s going to be easier. It will get better. Once he knows he can’t hurt her anymore.

Even if this distance might be hurting her already.

“I’ve had a long day—”

“Yes, I know,” Rey says, voice short. There’s a tinge of emotion there, but she’s quick to swallow it. “I know your days are long. Even if I have no idea what you’re doing there. Even though the articles that are published about Starkiller these days aren’t painting them in the best light. And you—you don’t talk to me.”

Ben’s silence only proves her right. His feet shuffle, unsure if he should just go or try to explain any of this to his wife without saying too much that might make her try to stop him.

And he can’t let her stop him.

“Goodnight, Rey.”

He means it to be dismissive. To be the end of their conversation. His feet start shuffling to the stairs, but then he hears the rustling of Rey disentangling herself from her place on the couch. Her footsteps pad across the floor just as he steps his first foot on the stairs.

“They say they’re working on a procedure that would allow people to separate themselves into another conscience that can then be controlled entirely without their consent. They say Starkiller plans to use this technology to create a working system of corporate slavery.”

Rey is now standing behind where Ben is frozen at the stairs. When he turns around to look at her, tired eyes finding fire blazing in the ones starring opposite him, he can see the question in them.

Is that what you are doing? Are you helping them?

“Rey—”

“Don’t—” she stops him, emotion tickling her throat. “Don’t lie to me.”

Ben can never lie to her. He can only omit the truth.

“It’s not like that,” he says, even though he doesn’t actually know. His sole focus has been on completing this work. On agreeing to Sever himself first as the guinea pig of his innovation. Because his reasons for doing so are selfish. Just as Starkiller’s reasons for hiring him were also selfish.

And he’s almost finished. He’s so close. “Soon, I shouldn’t be working such long hours.”

“That’s not—that’s not why I’m—” she exhales, frustrated, pulling at one of the buns in her hair. “Can’t you see? None of this is ethical. If you’re helping them create a procedure that threatens human autonomy? It’s not right. There’s no way any of that is consensual.”

“You misunderstand,” Ben tells her. Because the media doesn’t even understand. They don’t know what they’re doing. But they love to spin up lies to make a story go viral. Anything for a dollar in their pocket. “The tabloids are overblown, based on an unverified source.”

But his answer doesn’t satisfy his wife. It tears at him, knowing what he did. Knowing that he didn’t tell her. That he made such a decision with little thought of any consequence.

That he’s had to lie to her all this time.

“None of this is right,” Rey says. She’s standing there in front of him with pleading eyes. He notices her hands lift slightly—as if she were going to try to embrace him—but then she hesitates, and then they fall back at her side. A barrier is up between them. Rey’s words clamoring desperately to get through. “While I’ve been writing my book, I’ve had to consider a lot of things. Things about myself I still don’t fully understand. But I think—if you read some of the pages—you’ll find that there is a way out of this. You need to heal, Ben, not throw yourself into working on a technology that could destroy mankind. We can get through this together. I can help you.”

How can he get her to understand he’s doing this for her? Even though he can’t tell her. There’s no way she’d ever let him go through with it if she knew.

“You’ll understand all of this one day, even if I can’t explain it to you right now. But I’m doing this for us.”

For you.

Something in Rey’s eyes dims just slightly as she lets his words sink in. Words that only draw her further away from him.

“Don’t do this, Ben. Please don’t go this way.” Her last plea is riddled with so much anguish. It snaps Ben’s instinct to attention. The one that yearns to go to her. To tell her, it’s alright. It’ll be over soon. “I just wish you could see you don’t have to do this alone.” 

Where she once hesitated, Ben doesn’t. One more step and then he’s towering over her just slightly. One arm wraps around her waist as he embraces her. Holding her tightly because he can’t help himself. He loves her too much to deny himself this.

At least, he won’t deny himself this.

“I’m not doing this alone,” he says, cupping her cheek, relishing in the warmth of her against him. Such moments are so few and far between these days. Ben swears to himself to cling to it, to not take it for granted. Not for a second. “I have you.”

📥

She thought you didn’t love her.

Did she say that?

Not in those words, but I know how to read between the lines.

Ah, you do.

God, you’re such a jackass.

I’m also an Atheist.

Why did you pull away from her?

…

…

I—I have a hard time untethering my focus when there’s something I really want.

Like creating a world-ending technology to life as we know it?

I wanted—I saw the path I was going down and—something had to change. I needed to change.

Why?

Because I tried to kill her in her sleep.

… Accidentally or…?

I still have night terrors sometimes.

And because you almost strangled her to death, you decided to Sever a part of your consciousness from your main consciousness in an attempt to be… reborn? 

That Starkiller Propaganda was well at work. But no, I see it more as I’ve removed that part of myself that is damaged, and gave the undamaged part of me a chance to—

Live?

Yes, but also thrive.

📤

“You’re home early,” Ben says in surprise, after walking through the door and noticing Rey’s tote on the floor and her keys in the basket on the credenza. He tosses his in next to hers while shucking off his office shoes. Immediately, he feels more relaxed. A signifier that his time at Starkiller is well and truly over for the day.

“Babe?” he calls, walking into the living room and finding it vacant. The kitchen too. And the study.

His immediate next thought isn’t to panic as Ben heads upstairs, listening for any sounds—or lack of them. The one stair he keeps meaning to fix creaks beneath his weight, and he swears, forgetting it was there.

“Rey?”

Ben decides that if she doesn’t respond to him this time, then he’ll worry, but he’s relieved of the incoming panic.

“I’m in the bedroom.”

Hanging a left at the top of the stairs, Ben finds Rey sitting on their bed with her legs crossed.

“Everything okay?” he asks as he leans against the door frame.

Rey’s laugh expels from her breathlessly, before she starts shaking her head. “Uh… Starkiller Industries called me this morning and asked if I would come to the office for a matter pertaining to your performance? It was so weird and—”

“Who called?” Ben asks, shoulders tensing as he considers what she’s telling him.

“Snoke, he—he said that—he apologized for the short notice, but I was requested to participate in a celebration of your optimal performance.”

He can see it in her eyes. She knows. What he’d tried to keep from her—not forever—but until he could figure out his next steps—is now common knowledge, and he can’t lie to her. He can’t even omit the truth this time. Not when she’s looking so hurt. 

Ben swears at himself, knowing he’s the cause for that hurt, and all the hurt Rey has had to endure ever since she was cursed with his case. He leaves the door frame, almost stumbling over to her as he kneels on the floor in front of her. It’s a move he’s kept in practice since their therapy sessions. When Rey had been the one to support him, she was always getting on his level, wherever that was. She called it equalling the playing field. When someone is vulnerable, do not make them feel any smaller.

She was always more receptive to him this way too. Whenever he had something to tell her he knew she wouldn’t like or might not approve of. 

Though, it doesn’t seem to be working this time.

“Rey, I—”

“You’ve been lying to my face,” Rey says, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. The pain on her face, Ben wishes he had the power to take it away. Not be the reason for putting it there. “For how long, huh? How long have you been lying to me?”

“No—you don’t—you don’t understand, honey,” Ben says in a voice he hopes can be placating, but Rey just refuses to look at him. Dread slides down into the depths of his stomach at her distance. He wants to take both of her hands that are stuffed between her crossed legs, but behind the barrier of her calves he’s blocked out.

“I don’t understand?” Rey’s question sounds less like a question she’s actually asking him. “You Severed yourself and never told me!“

Fuck. Ben’s mind is going a mile a minute trying to figure out what he should say. “I was going to tell you—”

“Did you know I met him?” she asks, a whole slew of emotions crossing her face as she tries to contain the convulsions in her chest. She just rolls into a tighter ball on the mattress. More closed off. Ben tries to scoot closer to her on the floor. “That other you? He’s so open and honest, it was insane how alike you were, but at the same time incredibly different. Like a whole other soul extracted from memory.”

“In a sense,” Ben agrees, but then realizes what he’s said. “I didn’t mean—”

“And he just—he has no concept of the outside world. Ben, did you know that?” Now her sad expressions turn accusatory. She glares at him through blurred vision. “Do you know the kind of life a person lives when their entire world revolves around being in an office?”

“Yes, I have an idea—”

“No, because you walk into an elevator and then walk straight back out of it,” Rey seethes, and it’s the angriest he’s seen her in the entire decade he’s known her. It’s a look that should terrify him.

“It’s going to be temporary,” he tries to coax her, but he knows he can’t say too much either. For fear of ruining everything. “That other version of me has to keep working hard. The work is important. And—we just have to finish it. Because once we complete it? Then we’ll finally be rewarded. So many others could be too.”

Ben knows it’s just Snoke trying to control him, something he’s already somewhat given to him by agreeing to Sever in the first place. It wasn’t just to test his theory or his innovation. It was to give Snoke a sense of loyalty. Whatever was necessary for Ben to achieve his main goal.

They had an agreement. If he Severed and helped get the project to the finish line, he would be rewarded. Once project First Order was complete, Ben would walk away.

Ben S. that is…

And that’s all he really cared about. Doing this for Rey. Maybe that was selfish. But Rey deserved to be happy. He couldn’t be the reason she wasn’t happy.

Except, as he’s looking at her now, he notes she looks far from happy. Maybe the farthest.

Because of him.

“I feel like I don’t know who you are anymore,” Rey whispers, and when she wipes some of her tears and looks at him, it’s not a look he wants to receive. 

But I do.

Even if she can’t know, he knows what he has to do. Now, the question is, does he have the strength to do it?

📥

But Snoke did have his agenda.

He did. And I—I was too blind to see it for a while. For far too long, anyway. I thought, if I could just get it to work, put my plan in motion and exit peacefully, that would be it. Until I figured out what Snoke and the Shareholders really wanted to do with it.

Some evil-villain cloning technology with the use of another human’s consciousness to then be replaced by their founder—Darth Plage-uh-whatever—and grant him access to immortality so he can enact world domination?

After everything I’ve told you, that’s the summary you’re going with?

Right, let me paraphrase. They were going to do something very, very bad.

Something no one should have the power to do.

You mean, like severing a chunk of your consciousness because you can’t heal your trauma?

And you said I was the asshole?

You said earlier you put that keycard in our pocket. What was that for? I need details.

That investigator I mentioned earlier? He had interest in uncovering what Starkiller’s true mission was. When I joined the company and Severance was enacted, he reached out to me, wanting to understand the technology.

And instead radicalized you?

I never knew about the other departments. No one working there really does. They keep everyone separate on purpose. But when Hux found—

Hux? My colleague, Armitage Hux?

He’d been working at Starkiller for a few years before he decided to join the Severed floor. He wanted to uncover the truth behind what Starkiller didn’t want anyone to know about. What I had been working on.

That sneaky motherfuc—

Now he is an asshole.

His Innie isn’t so bad. He’d just be oddly strict at times. He was the one who figured out how to enact the OTC. He stayed behind while the rest of us saw the outside world. I wondered why he didn’t envy it, but maybe—

He’d been trying to figure out a way to merge some of his memories from the outside world while on the job. And he may be an asshole, but he’s got one of the smartest minds I’ve come across. Almost on par with my own. We ended up working together to create a solution.

Hold on a second—ignoring the arrogance—you’ve been able to intentionally wake yourself up without having to enact the OTC?

I might have built myself a loophole.

📤

Sometimes Ben liked to write down notes to himself. Little patterns he sees when looking for the scary numbers. Things that might improve his process even further. He also enjoys writing things down versus clicking keys on a keyboard. He has a click pen with a deep red chrome casing on his desk. The Starkiller sphere symbol is engraved at the top. It’s a great pen. The ink flows evenly, smoothly. It makes him enjoy writing his notes down.

He’s sparked with an idea suddenly after a long period of focus. Working through lunch, determined to finish his quota early. 

An idea comes to him. The rest of the team has taken their lunch break. Ben’s the only one in the cubicles. He wants to note down a thought he had of the sequential blocks he’s noticed over the last two workdays. Something he should share with Hux when he’s back from lunch.

Ben grabs his click pen, pulling the pad of note paper closer to his desk so he can write fluidly. His thumb presses down and—

Click!

He blinks, takes a breath. Somewhere in between, the air has hitched in his throat, the image of darkness from his closed eyes slightly prolonged. And when he next opens them, his hand is still holding his pen, but it’s slightly more to the right than it was seconds before. At least, he’s pretty sure it was so… 

How odd.

But he doesn’t want to forget his note, despite the mysterious feeling like he’s travelled in time, quickly scribbling it down.

And maybe, if he’d checked the clock on the wall to notice how much time had indeed passed, he’d have thought to be a little more concerned about it.

📥

So, clicking a stupid pen enabled you to ‘wake up’ at Starkiller Industries?

Two quick clicks and it’s like I was never there.

Hence, why I wouldn’t notice that my pen was broken?

I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing here.

Right, I should have been more focused on time. Then I might have noticed. Time—which has meant nothing to me other than the end of a work day only to instantly be transported to another with a blink.

I tried not to prolong my stay for too noticeable an amount of time.

Of course, you did. 

I didn’t always work on the Severed floor. Sometimes I was needed back in the laboratory.

And no one else noticed?

I suspect on those days, the other employees didn’t come into work. Hux and I had discussed this. How Starkiller Industries would give them ‘Thank You’ days. For a job well done. Those were the days I was reviewing the data from testing.

Why did you do all of this?

I just want her to be happy. And I had to make things right.

The Severance procedure has never been right. Not even for what you intend to do with it.

I know.

Do you, though? You think after reintegration, you’ll just get to disappear? And what’s going to happen to everyone else? Anyone else whose Outie wants to sacrifice themselves because they love someone so much, they’d rather die than see them get hurt?

Hux wants justice. I hope he gets it.

What happened to Starkiller Industries? And to Snoke?

Hux’s piece went viral, completely obliterating public perception of what Severance was thought to be. That—with a mix of donors and investors pulling the plug, Starkiller was crumbling from the inside.

And they just agreed to let Severanced people ‘reintegrate’? Just like that? 

To placate the masses—and because destroying the data would be a complete waste—we’ve introduced a solution. The promise of reintegration, where that severed connection becomes un-severed, but the joint memories remain and eventually merge.

What if that’s not what someone’s Innie wants? Considering you never actually asked me.

This is me asking.

Yeah, but you’ve already started it! The procedure or whatever the fuck is going on that you still haven’t been able to explain!

Well, now that you know some of the backstory. I think it’s time to wake the hell up.

Wait—Asshole!—I still have questions. Don’t just change the subje—

📤

His first sense to awaken is his hearing. An alarmed beeping sound, followed by a rush of voices. One is an extremely worried one that makes something in Ben’s chest seize, which only causes the machines to freak out more.

Second is touch. There are latex covered hands on him. He can tell by the artificial smoothness that it’s not skin. There is something being pressed against his chest as his mind begins to come to and his eyes flutter half-opened but shuttering closed. Still, he can catch a glimpse of bright unnatural light. 

God, his head hurts. 

“Ben? Can you hear me? It’s me, I’m right here—”

“Rey, you have to give us some room—”

“Is he okay—”

“—He’s seizing—” a third voice observes.

Ben tries to blink away the fogginess, but the blurred shapes remain blurs. His mouth is dry and his throat scratchy. He tries to move, but his body is so lethargic. There’s an IV stuck in his left arm. Somehow, he can feel that.

And that throbbing in his head hurts.

Yet, despite that, Ben finds himself calling out silently in his mind.

Hey, are you there? Hello?

But as the sounds steady around him and the twitching in his muscles cease, when some chaos calms around him, despite all the voices hovering around him.

One is notably missing.

📥

Fucking Christ! Have you been lurking here this whole time?

It’s hard for me to explain. I’m still around. I guess it’s not as easy to disappear as I thought it would be.

Miscalculated that in your giant brain?

Perhaps I made an assumption.

Are you going to try to take back your body or something? How does one be at war with oneself?

You’d be surprised. It’s more common than you think.

Okay, weirdo.

And no, I’m not interested in having my body back. I’m under the impression that this is still temporary.

Sure.

…Is she happy?

It’s only been a few weeks, but I’m doing everything in my power to make it so.

Good.

So, you’re just creepin’ now?

I beg pardon?

You’re just here in my dreams like my own personal encyclopedia with everything there is to know about Ben Solo?

There’s not much to know.

Somehow I doubt that.

Nothing worth noting. Not until Rey.

She really changed you, didn’t she?

I mean, she saved me. In the literal sense. She taught me how to breathe again. How to see life again. She made me want to give it another shot.

And you’re just going to walk away from that. When it’s possible, you could be stuck like this for the rest of our existence.  

Perhaps no one is ever truly gone?

And now you’re creepin’ again.

Think of it instead as—being reborn. 

Now you’re bordering on that Sith talk, which is not any less creepy.

Sorry.

📤

Ben jolts awake in pure darkness. Until his eyes adjust and the light streaming through the curtains slowly produces shapes within in a lighter shade of dull mauve. 

He’s having trouble catching his breath—his heart pounding wildly in his chest—throat closing, constricting around the lack of air as he tries to will his body to do what his mind is asking—

“Shhhh…” comes Rey’s soft hush from just next to his ear, humming a breathing pattern Ben tries to replicate. When her hand rests on his bare chest the air stutters between his lips, billowing out as a means of releasing some of the tension that so desperately wants to shoot downwards. 

“Come on, breathe Ben,” Rey coaxes, pressing into his chest gently as she continues demonstrating what he should also be doing. “In through your nose, and then out through your mouth.”

Ben shudders as he experiences a sensation he’s only heard and seen in his dreams. But this—this is real.

He’s… here.

“You’re okay,” Rey says repeatedly, rocking against him as they sway from their upright positions in bed. 

He racks his brain seeking that voice, being once again cut off mid-conversation. And Ben still has words he wants to convey to his Outie—or Innie? Now that he’s the Outie?

Fuck me.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He’d been dreaming of his last time in deployment again. Right before the other bomb detonates and shrapnel slashes his face from shoulder to cheek. How it had caught some of this throat—

It feels good to be held by her, a luxury Ben still can’t quite understand is meant for him whenever he wants it—whenever he needs it.

He still has difficulty remembering that his life is no longer measured by a corporate workday. That all the time in the day is his to decide what to do with. That the person lying in bed beside him is his wife—a woman he has loved longer than he has lived. A love that’s transcended every boundary imaginable. 

“When I was under all those days, I talked to him.”

Rey is silent, before his words finally sink in. “Him? You mean… Ben?”

He nods, wondering if Rey has the power to coax him out when Ben is conscious, not just when he’s deep asleep. 

Rey’s next breath is sucked in with a shudder. In the darkened room, Rey’s shadow becomes a little more clear as his eyes adjust. 

“No one’s ever truly gone,” Rey whispers, hand cupping his cheek as she angles his gaze to hers. Words he’s heard once before. Words that feel twined and connected by a durable string. “Only that the man that I love is slightly fractured, but he’s slowly mending.” Her thumb traces the scar on his face before she leans forward to kiss his cheek in the same spot she always has. “And I love all the different pieces that make him you.”

“Y-you should write that in a book,” Ben mumbles, grounding himself in the feel of their subtle rocking.

He can hear Rey’s smile as she says, “I did. It was in the last chapter.”

Ben pauses the rocking movement, letting Rey’s words sink in. “I never finished it,” he admits sheepishly as realization sets in.

But he remembers someone else having said those words to him before Rey.

When Ben leans forward to plant his lips to hers, finding her mouth in the dark, overcome by the desire to fuse every part of him to her. To never have to be parted from her again. To be on that spiritual journey to finding who he is.

Rey’s desperate touch only reciprocates the feeling, all but screaming, you’re not alone.

And when she moans as he rolls on top of her, hips bracketed by her thighs, tender yet growing flesh pressed against heat, he reminds himself just how true that statement is.

Finally, he’s not alone. Finally, he understands what makes life worth living.

When he slides into her, Rey’s gasp caught in the middle of her throat, he grows hungrier for her. A desperation that claws with each heavy thrust. Ben watches their bodies move in the shadows. How Rey’s heat clings around him and shudders, only making him fuck her harder. Needing to meet that desperation with the same passionate thrust of his cock. Burying himself so deep as to attempt his version of integration.

To be sure that he’s satisfied her beyond satisfaction. If the little mewls she’s currently making aren’t enough evidence of that.

It’s in these moments, where his heart and body are twined with hers, how glad he is for daring to see the other side. For not being afraid of the outside world, even though he has every reason to be fearful. To be overwhelmed and ill-equipped. To prove why re-integration is the only way to maintain a healthy balance that has once been severed. To right what has been wronged. But not lose a part of him in the process.

Only to know that despite what he thought was impossible, he was instead rewarded in the end.

Because he had the strength to do it. To open himself to love. To help his soul finally and truly heal.

📥

I just want her to be happy.