When Ben was twelve, during one of the last full summers he spent with his parents, he went through a brief but intense epic fantasy phase. He read Tolkien, Jordan, Peake, LeGuin - skipped Harry Potter, that was for babies - but his favorite was A Song of Ice and Fire (yes, before the HBO series came out, thank you).

He liked the Omega dwarf, who should have been the lowest of the low but was too smart to be anyone's pawn. He liked the bastard son of the north who got sent from his family and would one day prove himself even though he was just a Beta. He liked the dragons, who didn't care about designation and answered only to the right blood.

(He also liked that no one had realized yet that maybe these books weren't as kid-friendly as C.S. Lewis. Uncle Luke would have a heart attack if he knew what the Lannister twins did together.)

There were Alphas in the stories too, great kings and queens who conquered everything they saw and re-made the world into something they could control, something that made sense to them. He loved those parts.

Until the day he came to the following-

"Every child knows that the Targaryens have always danced too close to madness. Your father was not the first. King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Alpha Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land."

-and he heard his father's voice in his ear. "Wow, that guy must've hung out with a lot of Skywalkers."

Ben had slammed the book shut and glared at Han Solo. "Do not read over my shoulder."

Han had just laughed, and gone off to continue arguing with Leia in the next room.

The fantasy books lost their appeal, after that. Three weeks later Ben was sent to Luke for six months, in Lhasa that time, then back with Han and Leia when they tried to re-re-reconcile, then back to Luke in Buenos Aires, then just Leia for awhile, then Luke again…

...until Ben turned eighteen, burned his bridges, and joined up with First Order.

Every time a new Alpha Skywalker is born, the world holds its breath to see how it will land.

He never did finish reading Martin.

When Rey was twelve, she kept a lot of junk in her room. Unkar knew about it. If he'd thought she was holding on to anything valuable, Rey knew he'd take it all, but he didn't care as long as it was too broken to sell.

If it shuts you up, he said when she carried away some scratched DVDs. But don't let me catch you slacking off when we're open.

Rey loved to watch movies at night, because it helped drown out the sound of Unkar snoring across the hall. She kept a TV from the dump that only needed to be kicked a few times to turn on, and a DVD player that played as long as you spat on the tray once in awhile. She'd usually have to skip a scene or two because otherwise it would freeze up, but still. It all worked.

The movie that played best was Kung Fu Panda.

"To make something special, you just have to believe it's special."

She took the handle of an old broom and, whenever Unkar wasn't looking, swung it around the junkyard, in what she thought was kung-fu style. She hit trash cans. She struck sofas. She bashed in the only unbroken window of the Ford Falcon that had been there since the day Rey arrived.

With this, she could be special.

"What are you doing out here?" she heard one day.

Rey had dropped her weapon and spun around. Unkar glared at her from the gate. "Nothing," she said.

(Pretending, she thought.)

He didn't buy it. A moment later he yanked the broom handle from her grip and examined it. "Stupid," he grumbled.

Then - to her shock - he shoved it back into her hands. "Keep it," he told her. "And get good, because if you think I'm paying for suppressants you're got another thing coming."

Rey felt the patch on the back of her neck that had appeared a few months before. She knew what it meant. "Thanks," she had said, kind of moved.

Pain exploded in her cheek less than a heartbeat later. Unkar, for all his bulk, moved fast. "But don't ever think about using it on me, girl. Now show me what you got done today, and I'll decide how long to unlock the pantry tonight."

To make something special, you just have to believe it's special.

It could be hard to believe.

Months later, Rey finds the sword while snooping in Ben's loft.

She should be better about respecting privacy. But scavenging habits die hard, and you never know where something important or interesting or worthwhile might turn up. In Ben's case, it turned up in the closet, behind his dress shirts.

It's huge, and looks heavy hanging there on the wall. Rey doesn't know much about weapons, but she's got a sixth sense for quality, and this? This is the kind of thing someone should have displayed in a place of honor, not-

"Leave it alone."

Rey spins around, knocking several hangers down in the process. Ben's out of the shower, in a towel, and - he doesn't usually look at her like that, or speak to her that way. "I'm sorry," she says instinctively.

His expression softens. "I don't want that to touch you," he tells her. "Not ever. Do you understand?"

She doesn't, not really, but she nods all the same. "Why is it in your closet?"

"Because I don't like looking at it."

"Then why don't you get rid of it?"

"Because I like knowing it's there. Besides, it's an heirloom."

"Oh. That- that must be neat. Having heirlooms, I mean. Having things that you know your family touched."

Ben looks at her for a second. Maybe two seconds.

Then his expression changes again, to something harder for her to read, and: "Rey. Come here."

Well, all right. Rey steps into his arms and accepts the embrace, even though she's confused by the sudden shift. His skin smells wonderful, that nice safe reassuring Alpha scent that makes everything feel like it's going to be-

-wait, her cheeks are wet-

-oh, for God's sake, she's crying again, isn't she.

(Her parents have been gone for nineteen years. It's time to stop feeling sad about it. But she feels so much sadder in general these days, but also happier, she'll just start laughing for no reason or realize she's sobbing - being with Ben has opened up this squishy place inside her that was covered in scar tissue for so long and now there's just all this stuff pouring out, even when she's not heat-hormonal. Being loved hurts a lot sometimes.)

"Let's watch a movie," she says after a few minutes.

"Okay. Go pick something out, I'll get dressed."

Rey presses her forehead against his chest. "You can skip the getting dressed part."

(Cuddling with an Alpha is, like, ten thousand times better when you actually like him. And being soothed is maybe a little bit nice. She's starting to consider letting herself get very slightly used to it.)

"How about this." Ben's voice is so deep she can feel it against her skin. "I won't put on clothes… as long as you take yours off."

"Deal."

Two days later Ben calls Connix, the woman who'd worked as his mother's personal assistant for years and therefore became the perfect person to manage all the vaguely formed philanthropic ideas Ben had no idea how to execute. "Add therapists into the budget," he says.

"Uh. Sure. How many?"

"I don't know- ask Holdo, she's still consulting for you, right?"

"Technically she's consulting for you. This is your project, Mr. Solo, and I'm really touched by all the confidence you have in me, but are you sure you want me to-"

"My mother trusted you. That's enough."

The silence on the other end of the line speaks volumes to Ben. Sometimes he forgets he and Poe aren't the only ones who miss Leia Organa. "Okay," Connix says. "Thank you. And you're positive the cost isn't an issue?"

There's another letter from Pio on Ben's desk right now, with pictures of a castle by a lake in northern Italy that somehow everyone had forgotten about. There are already offers coming in with more zeros than Pio can fit in a single line. Ben still repairs his socks with needle and thread because that's how Luke taught him. "Yes, I'm positive. Any Omega who needs therapy gets it."

Connix promises to make it happen.

It took Finn until almost midnight on the day he picked her up from Ben's to wrap his head around what happened. (Though, to be fair, this was in part because they'd both fallen asleep on the couch around ten and not woken up till suppertime. It had been a long night for them both.) And he more or less reacted how she'd expected: pointing out that Ben had an unsavory past (to put it mildly), he was way too into her way too quickly (not that she wasn't totally deserving of love-at-first-sight), that the only independent knowledge any of them had of him came from Poe, who'd called him a dickhead more than once (but Poe had thought Ben was okay to bring to the bar, so that had to count for something).

But the news that Ben had offered to pay for better suppressants made Finn turn quiet. Then he told her to take it.

Rey asked if that meant she'd be whoring herself for drugs.

Finn reminded her that when they'd been living in alleys and abandoned warehouses, sleeping in shifts just in case someone tried to jump them during the night, they'd both considered prostitution. It was just dumb luck that they'd found a place they could afford before it came to that.

Rey asked what she'd do if she and Ben didn't work out.

Finn said that even if no clinic was ever built she still wouldn't be any worse off, medication-wise, than she was before. And he reminded her there were no prizes in life for making yourself suffer when you don't have to. And he also reminded her that she was his Peanut and he was her Peanut and they'd always have each other, even if things dove back to rock bottom. Especially then.

Then Rey asked what happened between him, Rose, and Poe the night before.

Finn squealed into a pillow like a little girl and they stayed up till sunrise laughing.

"Don't say it," Rey tells Ben the first time he walks through her front door. "Don't even say it."

Ben shuts his mouth.

And he's very good - better than Rey expected - for about, oh, five minutes, when he says: "There's exposed wiring in the ceiling. This place is a death trap."

"It's not that bad. I fixed up a lot of it."

"Uh-huh. And what happens during thunderstorms?"

"It gets a little exciting, I won't lie-"

"Jesus Christ."

"Oh, don't be such a snob."

"I am not being a snob. It's not snobbish to worry that my Omega might be electrocuted in a…"

Ben trails off. Then he looks away and makes that face where he puffs out a breath because he knows he's said the wrong thing and doesn't know what words to use to fix it. (Rey's gotten very familiar with that face.)

He doesn't call her Omega when she's not in heat. And even then, it's only over the phone, when he's saying beautiful things as she fucks herself with the toy with the knot attachment and Concealatrex is amazing, it's an absolute wonder drug, but that's the only time he ever says my Omega.

She never said he couldn't, but she's always appreciated the thought.

"I think it's a little bit condescending," Rey says slowly, "that my Alpha thinks I can't repair basic circuitry."

Ben's ears turn pink, but they keep arguing anyway, right up until Rose gets home and tells Ben she's an Alpha too and she'll zap his ass with her stun gun if he doesn't quit complaining.

(But the fight doesn't really stop until she moves in with him after the building is condemned six months later. Which Ben swears he had nothing to do with.)

Phasma slips into the booth like it's totally normal for a six-foot woman wearing six-inch designer heels to be in a diner at three in the morning on a Tuesday. "I'm only here," she says, "because I was in the area anyway."

"Hello to you, too," says Ben. "How have you been?"

"Busy. You left an enormous mess for us to clean up, you know."

"I had to do it."

"Bullshit."

"Okay, fine. I wanted to do it."

"Everyone wanted to do it, you selfish prick. What gave you the right to jump the queue?"

Ben takes a sip of coffee, and says: "No one else would have succeeded."

(Phasma - and everyone else in First Order, and rival companies, and rival governments, and at least forty-eight of the top 100 most powerful people on the Forbes list - would happily have gutted Snoke herself. But Snoke didn't let people close enough to get that chance… except for the boy who came to him broken, the boy he then demolished, tore down to the foundation, and remade as a personal instrument of death. Ben Solo, he trusted.

Unfortunate for him.)

Phasma humphs. "And with a sword," she says derisively, which from her means That pile of bodies was the most impressive fucking thing I've ever seen.

"No one ever expects a sword."

"He should have."

"That's true. How's Hux?"

"Alive," says Phasma.

"Too bad," says Ben.

"Indeed. But I assume you didn't invite me here to talk about the past."

"I did, actually. Just not mine." Ben glances out the window, and sees his own face reflecting back. He's gotten used to the scar. "Phasma, I need a favor."

He only swore to lead a semi-sane life, after all.

You are not satisfying your Alpha. He wants more from his Omega, and you are not giving him what he needs.

The drawback of the new suppressant is that the stupid Omega instincts are a little louder in day-to-day life. It's the tradeoff that keeps them from running the show every heat: a gentle up-and-down through the cycle, rather than going from zero to sixty in a matter of hours.

Rey can live with that. And it's quiet, most of the time. Hormonal nudges instead of demands.

You were made to be mated. You were made to open your body and give your Alpha everything. That is what he wants. That is the purpose of an Omega. You are not behaving as you ought.

"What's wrong?"

Rey shakes her head. "Nothing," she says, laying her head on Ben's lap. There's a Julia Child marathon on and it's beyond absurd how much they're both enjoying it. "Just a little crabby." She pauses, then elaborates: "My heat's coming up."

"I know."

"And I… um… I don't have my apartment anymore."

"True." A beat. "Will you be going to a hotel?"

"Yeah. That makes the most sense, probably."

He strokes her hair, very gently, as Julia explains how to flip potato pancakes. "I'll make a reservation."

Your Alpha is displeased.

"It has to bother you," Rey blurts out. "I know it does."

(Julia's pancake falls on the stove; she didn't have the courage of her convictions.)

"You're an Alpha," Rey continues. (Ben's taken his hand off her head.) "Please don't lie to me and tell me you're fine not fucking Omegas in heat."

"I want to fuck you," he replies steadily.

"Maybe you don't. I'm the only one you've had, so maybe it's just that you don't know any better-"

"No, Rey."

"You have to want to mate someone!"

"No."

Your Alpha is very displeased. Stop, Omega.

"And even if I let you - even if it worked! I don't know if it would work! - I wasn't good at being a mate anyway!" (This is an ugly part she never thinks about except during the hormonal mess of heat, and even then, not often.) "He never came after me, I mean, I know I ran away, and we didn't like each other but he did mate me and then he didn't even try-"

Ben stands up so abruptly Rey almost falls off the couch. He leaves the room. Rey hears something crash in the hall.

He will not care for you, if you do not give him this. He will not protect you. He will not make you safe. Your Alpha will find another Omega.

A fat manila file slaps down on the coffee table.

"He's dead," Ben says flatly.

Rey sits up, wipes her face, and stares at the envelope. There's several labeled tabs sticking out of the side. The first one reads Thomas Edo in neat font.

"And no," Ben adds, "I didn't make him that way. He tried to fuck another Alpha's mate three years ago and got stabbed for it. He had no respect for anyone. He was garbage, Rey, and you are not. Not to me."

The file is at least an inch and a half thick. Rey can't tear her eyes away. "What else is in there?"

"Everything."

Everything. "Have you read it?"

"No. Only the files on him and on Unkar Plutt." Ben's mouth twists. "He's still alive, but my offer to change that stands."

Her parents. Her parents are in that file. Her birth place. Her real name. The tools to become a citizen, maybe. Everything she is is sitting in an envelope on Ben Solo's coffee table.

"Why?" she whispers.

"Because you're my Omega and I want you to be happy," he says, in that cold, distant tone he uses when what he's saying is everything to him. "This universe should be a place where you don't feel alone, Rey. And I will make it that way whether you want to be mated or not."

(Julia Child reforms the potato pancakes and tells the audience it's okay if it's not perfect, it's your kitchen, no one needs to know.)

"I don't feel alone when I'm with you," Rey tells Ben. "And you- you're not alone either, you know."

Ben blinks. "This isn't about me," he says.

But Rey stands up, walks around the coffee table (she'll look at those files eventually, when she's ready, but not now, not today) and wraps her arms around Ben's middle.

Neither of them are accustomed to her initiating hugs.

But after a moment, he figures out how to hug her back.

Rey never returns to the heat hotel on Takodana Avenue.