Title: Catch

Date added: Oct 25, 2019

Rating: K+ (everyone)

Description: Rey leaps into Kylo Ren's arms through the force bond to escape capture by Hux.

Rey never thought things could become more desperate than when the Resistance was reduced to a single beat-up freighter and a few dozen people on Crait. They had more people now, of course, and more ships to work with…

But they were now fighting battles on two fronts.

Rey leapt over a fallen log and rolled into a crouch behind a nearby tree trunk to dodge the blaster bolts coming at her through the dense, overgrown forest. She had no idea where Finn and the others were. She only hoped they had made it out alive as well. They had known to expect the First Order, led by Kylo Ren, from the sky. They had not known to expect the Crimson Force, led by Armitage Hux, from the very woods they hid in.

Rey caught her breath as she reached into the force to sense where the troopers were around her. Five behind her… three coming up on her left… and an entire mass of troopers on her right heading towards her along with sniffers… some canine creatures Finn said had been bred by the Order specifically to track down humanoid targets.

"Kriff," she cursed quietly as she considered her options. She was surrounded. She couldn't realistically hide. She looked up. The trees were climbable, but the troopers were too close for her to climb high enough to get out of range before they would reach her.

There was another option. It wasn't one Rey wanted to consider, given that Kylo Ren had lost her trust when he had tried to keep her from leaving him on the Supremacy. However, he had promised not to hurt her again.

Rey growled. For all she knew, Hux and Kylo Ren were still allies despite the formal split in forces, and this entire ambush was set up to isolate and trap her.

A sniffer howled in excitement, and the other sniffers joined in.

Rey didn't have a choice.

She had never technically attempted this, but she knew it was theoretically possible from what few exchanges she and Kylo had made since their fallout near Crait. They had traded objects before, but... Rey reached into the force and yanked on the bond between her and Kylo Ren, causing the sounds and vision of the world around her to warble with distortions.

Unmasked, Kylo Ren faced her with frank surprise. "Rey?" he said, as if he hadn't been expecting her. Perhaps he hadn't.

"Catch," Rey said with a grim smile.

Kylo's eyebrows shot up slightly, but he held his arms out, preparing himself to catch. Rey darted out of her hiding spot to leap directly into his arms even as blasters shot off around her. The second she made full contact with Kylo Ren and felt his arms wrap around her as she wrapped her own around his broad shoulders, she ripped herself away from the bond, screaming in pain as it cut at her and she felt her body travel through the force in a way that was never intended.

"Catch?" Kylo Ren said, still holding her and gazing down at her in confused shock.

Rey took a moment to catch her breath and register that she was now on the bridge of a star destroyer in space instead of in the woods near the Resistance base. The various officers underneath Kylo Ren were staring at her with gaping mouths.

"I needed an out," Rey explained as she scrambled out of his arms and lit her lightsaber. "I will fight you, Kylo Ren."

Kylo Ren swallowed and shook his head. "I won't," he said solemnly. He turned to an officer on the bridge. "Prepare one of the captured X-Wings for her to use. Fill its fuel tank and make sure it's fully functional. She'll need it to get home. Inform all personnel not to interfere unless they wish to die by the edge of a Jedi's blade." He glanced back slightly at Rey. "Do you know your way to the main hanger?"

Rey nodded, mystified that he was so blatantly helping her. "You're not going to stop me?"

"Can I stop you?" he asked her seriously.

Rey considered it. She would fight him with everything in her being before letting herself be captured. "No," she said.

"Then go," he said with a nod of his head towards the exit of the bridge.

Rey ran.

Kylo Ren had been good to his word. The ship she found waiting for her was an older X-Wing model, but it was fully operational and had a full tank of fuel. Rey inspected the communications device first, but after verifying it was free of bugging equipment, she made her first jump to a neutral planet to scan the rest of the ship for tracking devices before ultimately connecting with the Resistance remnants again.

The Resistance had losses, but her friends were okay. Apparently the majority of the Crimson Force had gone after her when she slipped out.

"It's almost like they were hunting you down, Rey," Finn remarked. "They didn't even care about the rest of us! How did you even escape?"

"You're asking how she escaped… I'm wondering how she got this beauty of an X-Wing!" Poe fussed, fondly stroking the belly of the ship she had arrived in.

Rey kept her silence. She had never told her friends about what had happened between her and Kylo Ren, and she never planned to. She would take the secret of her force bond and complicated history with Kylo Ren to the grave.

For a few weeks there was peace as the Resistance regrouped on a different planet... some desolate ball of ice called Hoth. The base there was still in pieces from a previous attack, but parts of it remained usable. General Organa thought that the frigid cold would ward off ground attacks. She was wrong.

As the sun came up one morning, a band of well-insulated red stormtroopers came out of the snow and began infiltrating their base with sniffers, now wrapped in fur coats and leather mittens on their paws, alongside them.

This time, Rey took off quickly in an airspeeder near the base exit. If they truly were after just her, her departure would save more lives than her defense. Rey zoomed over the small snow dunes that had formed in the night. Sure enough, behind her, the sniffers had begun howling again and chasing her. Their red-clothed handlers were mounting their own sleeker versions of her airspeeder and starting off after her, abandoning the base.

The force warbled around Rey, and she felt Kylo's voice in her ear. "You're in trouble."

"A bit," Rey conceded, wondering why he felt the need to comment and trying to focus on the terrain around her so she didn't accidentally flip her airspeeder. "Care to help?" she asked, fully expecting him to back off.

"Look up," he said simply.

Rey glanced up and nearly lost control of the vehicle as she realized the First Order Fleet had arrived above Hoth sometime since she had left the base. "What are you doing?" she whispered.

"Helping," he answered, and the bond broke. A moment later, the Star Destroyers fired at something on the ground in the distance. It was near the base, but not exactly the base. The Crimson Force troopers dropped off her tail immediately, however, and took their sniffers with them as they zoomed away from her.

Rey pulled to a stop on her airspeeder and stared for a moment before reaching out with the force to feel for her friends. They were fine… celebrating in shocked awe at the battle between the First Order and the Crimson Force taking place just outside their base even as they worked on evacuation plans. General Organa in particular burned with brilliant hope, and Rey frowned. Of course, the General would hope her son was returning to the light.

Rey knew better than to trust Kylo Ren to become Ben Solo again.

Then again, this was the second time he had rescued her lately. Furious at having doubt in her heart, Rey forced their bond open on the spot. "What do you want from me, Kylo Ren!" she yelled at his back, not even bothering to wait and make sure he was available to speak.

Kylo Ren paused, then turned halfway to face her and look her in the eye. "To be called Ben Solo again," he said and then cut the bond off on her.

Rey gaped at the space where Ben, no, Kylo Ren had been… Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she felt more frightened than she had when Snoke had pinned her against the wall while Ben stood by doing nothing.

Except he hadn't been doing nothing… he had merely been biding his time for the moment he could kill his master and save her.

But then he had insisted she abandon her friends to rule at his side… he had called her nothing… he had tried to prevent her from leaving…

Rey growled, slammed the airspeeder controls, and then screamed at the icy wasteland around her. She didn't want to think about him anymore. He had made his choice on the Supremacy, and so had she. Whatever friendship they had before then was done. She wanted to move on. She couldn't handle being hurt that badly again. She had trusted him with everything, more than she had ever trusted anyone else, and he had thrown it away that day.

"I can't. I can't do this again," she said out loud, rubbing at her eyes as she realized she was crying.

She made it back to the base well after most of the Resistance had evacuated. Only Chewbacca and Finn remained with the Falcon to wait on her. "There you are!" Finn announced on seeing her and wrapped her in a big, warm, bear-hug. He pulled back after a moment and shook his finger at her. "Don't you ever scare us like that again! The General kept saying you were fine… But Rey, people die out in that cold! And with the Crimson Force and the First Order both attacking? Thank the stars they took beef with each other instead of both targeting us. Hey, have you been crying?"

"Let's just go," Rey said, dragging her half-frozen feet aboard the Falcon.

"Sure, sure… but you know you can talk to me, right?" Finn said. "I mean, we could even sit down now. The First Order and Crimson Force both left hours ago after most of the Resistance cleared out. There's no rush anymore."

Rey didn't answer Finn as they boarded the Falcon and took off from Hoth.

After that attack, Rey decided to travel on her own for a bit with Chewbacca in the Falcon. She was tired of bringing the Crimson Force onto the Resistance, and her heart was full of too much turmoil for her to want to face the mother of the man who confused her so much.

She set off with Chewbacca for Jakku. She had no memories of Kylo Ren on that planet. She had been nothing more than a scavenger girl there earning her wage. There, she hoped she could clear her head from the familiarity of her old home..

Her hopes were dashed the moment she stepped a foot inside. She had barely touched her door when she felt a jolt of electricity stun her, and then suddenly crimson stormtroopers were all around her. She heard Chewie roar in fury as if from a distance, and everything faded to black.

Rey woke up bolted to a metal bed that reminded her all too much of the one she had been in on Starkiller Base when she had first seen Ben, no, Kylo Ren, unmasked. Like then, she had neither lightsaber nor staff. Unlike then, she had the force.

A well-groomed man with pale skin and neat, short, red hair stood before her with his hands folded behind his back. He forced a politician's smile when he saw she was awake. "The scavenger! We meet at last. I'm Armitage Hux, the leader of the Crimson Force."

"I know who you are," Rey hissed. She reached into the force and felt her surroundings. Lots of life forms. Getting out would be tricky, even assuming she could break free.

Hux's grin deepened into something more authentic and sinister. "Excellent. Well, scavenger, I was hoping you would solve a puzzle for me. Why would one of the most feared men alive want you?"

Rey focused on Hux. If he ran this show, a Jedi mind trick might be her ticket out. "You will release me."

Hux stared at her with incredulity and then snorted. "You can't possibly think that I could have risen to my position if I were susceptible to those little force mind tricks. Ren's been trying them on me for years without success. What hope have you?"

Rey drew her eyebrows together in frustration. She had to get out of this somehow. Her mind flashed to Ben, but she didn't want to ask him for help.

As if summoned by her thoughts, the sound distorted, and Rey saw Ben standing beside her. "You're in a bind," he commented with a wry smile. Rey nearly spat at him for joking at her expense until she saw the raw relief in his eyes.

"If you're not planning to help, you can go away," Rey said, taking care not to look him in the eyes anymore. She did not want to see how much he cared. She focused on Hux instead, who was already sputtering about who she was talking to, though the bond's distortions made him hard to hear.

"Rey, catch," Ben said.

A clunk of metal landed on Rey's belly, and the bond cut off.

"What is… wait, I know that object. How did you get Ren's lightsaber? I had you searched when you arrived!" Hux said, turning beet red as he lost his temper and backed away.

Rey reached into the force to position the saber away from her and turn it on. The color drained from Hux's face, and he fled as Rey carefully freed her right hand. She took the blade in hand, and began cutting her way to freedom through the doors. She had no idea where she was though… with no windows, she could not know if she were on planet or not.

She stopped her journey and opened her bond back up to Ben. "Done with my blade already?" he asked.

"I don't know where I am," she explained, staring at Ben expectantly.

"And you think I do?" he asked, with only a hint of a smile giving him away.

Rey put her hands on her hips and tilted her head at him. "You've been there every time Hux came after me."

"You're in a dreadnaught in orbit around Jakku. My fleet exits hyperspace in minutes to attack the Crimson Force to free you. If you would like, you may spare me the trouble of risking dozens of men and ships by coming to me through our bond," Ben said.

Rey frowned. Chewbacca had been with her when she was captured, which meant he was either dead or a prisoner. She expected Ben would know, but he had told her to abandon her friends before. She couldn't trust that...

"Chewbacca is alive, though injured, in prison cell 851-B," Ben said, interrupting her thoughts and watching her carefully.

Rey inhaled sharply, and something brittle in her heart fell away to reveal fresh hope… "You're not telling me to abandon my friend."

"Would you abandon him?" Ben asked.

Rey shook her head, and blushed as she realized she was crying. She swiped her face with her sleeve.

"Get him. I'll be waiting," Ben said, and he closed the bond.

Rey ran through the ship, now knowing what to look for as she had studied Dreadnaught schematics many times while scavenging even though she had never been in one even halfway intact before. She ran into little opposition. Hux had clearly not planned for her to be free with a lightsaber in hand.

When she reached Chewbacca, she found his leg was bloody and matted, but he was otherwise fine. He growled his greetings.

"I have an out, Chewie," Rey said, and she took a deep breath. Chewbacca knew more than anyone else about her connection to Ben, given Chewie had been the one to drop her off by the Supremacy, but she hadn't told him about the bond. "Do you trust me?" she asked the wookie.

Chewie huffed and nodded.

"Okay, this is going to be a bit weird," she warned him. She paused, considering the history between Chewie and Ben. She swallowed hard. There was no way this would be pretty. "And please wait until I'm out too before you try to kill him."

Rey forced the bond open, picked up Chewie with the force, and hurled Chewie at Ben the second she saw Ben. "Catch!" she shouted as she registered that Ben and Chewie could see each other and therefore interact physically.

Chewbacca roared, but Ben merely braced himself as Chewie slammed into him, and Rey had the rather comedic view of Ben's slender, tall frame cradling the much larger wookie.

Ben set Chewie down, and Chewie disappeared from Rey's vision. Rey exhaled. It had worked. She had gotten Chewie free through the force and Ben.

Ben faced her. "Your turn," he said, holding his arms out again.

Rey jumped into his arms once again, and the force screamed with her as she changed locations through the bond. When it was done, she was tucked into Ben's arms in a med bay, and Chewbacca was sitting on a gurney nearby getting his leg treated.

Rey stared breathlessly up at Ben a moment before climbing down to face him from a safer distance. She handed him his lightsaber and froze. "My lightsaber… I never got it."

Ben rolled his eyes as he claimed his own blade back from her. "I'll get you a new one, or the materials, if you prefer to construct it yourself."

Chewbacca mewled a question, his eyes darting back and forth between Rey and Ben.

Rey hung her head. "I don't know, Chewie. Ben's helped me several times lately. I don't think he's our enemy right now."

"Your ship is still on Jakku. I'll get a transport prepared to take you to the surface when you're ready," Ben said.

Rey's eyes narrowed as she nodded. She didn't understand this. "What do you want from me, Ben Solo?"

Ben gazed at Rey. The med technician helping Chewie paused and glanced up from his work in the silence that followed, and Rey grew so nervous she began to chew her bottom lip.

Ben exhaled as if releasing the weight of a thousand sins. "I want you to know that you are everything. You are the most important person in the galaxy to me."

Another piece of the brittle shell around Rey's heart cracked off, and her eyes swam with tears. "We need to go," she said. She had to get out before she became any more vulnerable to Ben. He had hurt her before, and even if he was apologizing now… "Just, let me go," she pleaded.

"You may leave whenever you wish," Ben said. "You have free range of this ship. I'll be on the bridge if you need me."

Rey nodded, and she watched Ben leave the med bay. Chewie mewled at her, and she collapsed onto the gurney beside him and punched his arm as he guffawed at her.

"It's not like I asked him to treat me this way," Rey grumbled.

Chewbacca mewled at her.

"I know it's a good thing, but I'm not… wait, aren't you angry with him? Chewie, he murdered Han, his own father!"

Chewbacca mewled again sadly and went into a long speech.

"That doesn't make it okay, Chewie!"

Chewie growled at her and threw his hands up.

"I don't know. I know it's a good thing that he's helping us, and yes, clearly, I've been seeing him more than you or anyone else knew, but…" Rey glared, hating herself for even considering making herself vulnerable to Ben again. "Let's just go."

Ben was good to his word. No one stopped them between the med bay and the launch bay, and a young captain waited at attention for them to board his transport, which took them directly to the Falcon. On their journey down, they saw that Hux's forces had disappeared from the sky, though Rey had no idea what had happened between the First Order and the Crimson Force during that time.

They went to Ahch-To next, where Rey had trained with Luke Skywalker, since Rey knew that location had been kept completely off record from the First Order and most of the galaxy. She wasn't sure why she wanted to be there, but it felt right to visit the place where her relationship with Ben had effectively been born.

The caretakers were still there, of course, along with the endless swarms of porgs all over the island. Rey was surprised to see that the place where the Jedi texts had been kept was burnt to the ground and wondered if he had done that before or after discovering she had stolen them for herself. She still felt the pull of the darkness in the water, but it was somehow less seductive and more familiar now, like the shadow behind her back… and her relationship with Ben Solo, which had been born in fury and then morphed into something forbidden when she was last here. She had gone to him with a heart full of trust and hope, and he had crushed it…

And yet…

Rey chewed her lip as she stared out at the sun over the horizon. Below her, the waves crashed against the rocky shore, drowning out all other noise except for the occasional warble of a nearby porg. The world smelled of saltwater and fish. Rey reached into the force and felt life thriving, surrounding her and filling her with power, and just as it had been ever since she had bonded with Ben, the bond to him existed within her.

She felt her senses distort around her, and then he was standing beside her.

"I'm not ready to speak to you again," Rey stated.

"You have no lightsaber. I brought you materials to make one. Are you somewhere safe? Neither the Crimson Force nor the First Order has been able to locate you, and our Resistance spy says they don't know your location either," Ben said.

Rey's eyebrows shot up. So the Resistance had a spy for the First Order, and yet Ben told her so casually. "You don't mind that I know you've placed a spy amongst us?" she asked.

He held up a lumpy burlap sack for her to take. Rey took it without question. "How do you think we arrived so quickly every time the Crimson Force attacked the Resistance? Why do you think we were delayed when you were attacked alone on Jakku?"

Rey sighed. So he had a spy there specifically to report when the Resistance needed help. "Is there a tracker in the bag?" she asked, looking at the sack.

Ben smiled. "I won't deny I considered it, but I find the knowledge that you can leap to my safety at any time reassuring enough to avoid overtly invading your privacy."

Rey raised an eyebrow at him and frowned. "You're invading my privacy now, Ben. I came here to be alone."

His eyes flinched with hurt shock, and he stepped back from her. "My apologies, Rey. Everything in the bag is yours now."

The bond ended, and Rey realized she was breathing as hard as if she had run a mile. She squeezed her eyes shut and took some slow deep calming breaths. He had come to help her and make sure she was safe, and then he had left when it was clear he was unwanted. He was doing everything she had wished him to do in the first place… If only…

Rey shoved the thought aside before she could think it, and pulled open the back. Inside were several kyber crystals, a guide on building lightsabers, and a host of parts along with a tied leather satchel. On opening it, she found a customized toolkit with the name Ben Solo etched into the bottom left. Rey blinked and felt her face twist with grief as the forbidden thoughts flooded her soul.

If only they had never argued on the Supremacy… What would she feel? What would they be? She had felt so much for him when she went to him, more than she had ever felt for anyone. Her heart burned with excitement when she had seen him opening her life pod. She had yearned for his touch in the elevator, and her first thought when he had killed Snoke and returned her lightsaber was how deeply she loved him.

She broke out in sobs then and cried until the sun set, only coming in when one of the caretakers brought her a blanket and a warm mug of tea to help shield her from the cold.

Building the lightsaber, or lightstaff, as Rey preferred to call it, took her nearly two weeks. She was familiar with the mechanical side of things, but the guide used unfamiliar terminology both in terms of the kyber crystals and the force. Rey couldn't count the times she had nearly reached out to Ben for help explaining something, but she wanted her lightsaber to be all hers.

It was beautiful.

Rey practiced cutting at a rock on a ledge. Using her new lighstaff was invigorating, but it wasn't quite the same without an actual opponent.

Rey closed her eyes. She still wasn't sure what to do about Ben Solo, but she knew he would test her skills with the lightsaber if she asked. She also wanted to know what he would think of the shimmering blue blade.

"Ben," she said into the force, and then he was there, sitting near her in what looked like training clothes, only he was halfway through pulling a very sweaty shirt off. He stopped immediately and let the shirt fall back down around him.

"Rey," he said, standing and appraising her. "It's done?" he asked, glancing at the lightsaber hilt she held in one hand.

"It's done," she said. She lit her lightstaff, savoring the look of awe in his eyes as he witnessed what she had made of his gift to her. "Fight me," she said.

"I won't hurt you, Rey," he insisted, clearly misunderstanding her request to practice together as desire for a true duel.

"I know," Rey said, impatient. It was only when his eyes flashed with hope and wonder that she realized how much she had revealed in those two words. She blushed. "Fight me, Ben Solo."

He pulled his own blade free and lit it. "As you wish," he said, and he came at her. They crossed blades, and Rey found herself laughing in delight at the exhilaration she felt from testing the lightstaff she designed against Ben's own blade. Ben smiled with her, and they fought until she held up a hand for them to stop and knelt down to rest. Ben immediately turned off his blade, and Rey followed shortly after with her own lightstaff as she caught her breath.

"I want to do that again," she said when she could catch her breath. "Another day."

"I am at your disposal," Ben said between breaths. They had both pushed their limits.

Rey stood back up and gazed at Ben Solo. She wanted to know why he was there for now. She wanted to know why he had let her down on the Supremacy. She wanted to know so many things, and she didn't know how to ask.

"What is it?" he asked her. "Are you going to ask what I want from you again? I had prepared an answer, but you beat me to it."

Rey frowned, confused. "What was it?"

"I wanted you to trust me again," he said. "I regret what I said and did on the Supremacy, Rey, and not just because it turned you away from me. I missed you. Is there a chance we could be friends again?"

Rey paused. She wasn't ready to answer this, even though she knew she was falling hard for him all over again, despite all her attempts to protect herself from being hurt by him again. "What of the Resistance's war against the First Order?" she asked him instead, trying to stay in safe territory.

"My offer from the Supremacy remains, Rey. That part I do not regret. Whenever you like, you may rule the galaxy with me, side-by-side, and if you wish to end the war and have the First Order surrender to the Resistance at that time, you may. I won't stop you."

Rey's resolve faltered. "You would do that for me?" she asked.

Ben smiled sadly. "Rey, I would do anything for you."

Rey nodded, and the force bond broke apart on its own, as if everything needed saying had been said. Rey took a deep breath and went back to the Falcon to get clean and sort out what to do next.

Rey went back to the Resistance next. True to her theory, the Crimson Force had left them alone while Rey was absent from them. There were even rumors that the Crimson Force had been absorbed back into the First Order.

Rey tried to sort out who the spy was, but she eventually conceded that her skills were not in spy-finding. She told General Organa what she had heard of a spy that reported to the First Order when the Resistance was in trouble and was startled to see the woman burst into embarrassed laughter. "Oh Rey, who in the Resistance would trust Ben Solo enough to rescue them in a time of need?" General Organa asked Rey.

Rey sputtered. "It's not me!" she insisted, terrified at how much General Organa might know.

General Organa only smiled. "Of course it's not you, Rey. It's me."

"You betrayed the Resistance to the First Order!?" Rey exclaimed.

"Nothing so dire. I only reached out after the Crimson Force already discovered us. Ben reached out to me following the battle on Crait to apologize for… well, many things." General Organa fell quiet a moment with grief. "But he explained what he intended moving forward, and why Hux had defected to create the Crimson Force."

"Why?" Rey asked.

General Organa patted Rey's hand. "You, Rey. Ben said he had made a horrible mistake, and he wanted to devote his resources to setting things right with you. Hux refused. We suspect Hux has been trying to capture you to get Ben to relinquish control of the First Order to Hux in exchange for you."

Rey sat down, shocked to her core that Ben had made his intentions towards her known to both his mother and the First Order despite the repercussions from Hux.

"He loves you very much, you know," General Organa said.

"He hurt me," Rey reminded the older woman. "He called me nothing. He wanted me to abandon the Resistance! Leave you to die when he could have saved you easily!"

"I know, Rey," General Organa said in a sad voice. "He told me what he had said. He had gotten carried away and let his fear get the best of him."

"His fear?" Rey protested. "How does that even make sense!?"

General Organa held up a hand. "It doesn't, not really. He was so afraid of losing you he thought you would leave him if any other competition existed for your heart. He realizes now his fears were exactly what drove you away."

Rey frowned. She didn't get it. She had never felt that way, and yet, she wasn't sure that it mattered whether she understood or not. "I don't want to be hurt again by him," she said.

"Do you truly think he would make the same mistake again with you?" General Organa asked Rey.

That was it. Rey didn't think he would. He had demonstrated time and again that he had changed since Crait, but… "What if he makes new mistakes?"

General Organa smiled indulgently. "There's no if to it. He will. He's human. We all make mistakes, even you and me, but he'll always strive to be worthy of you if you stay by his side. Isn't that enough to try again?"

General Organa's words haunted Rey over the next few weeks as she caught up with her friends and everything she had missed while she was gone. The First Order was quiet, and the Crimson Force gone. General Organa gave Rey odd looks every now and then, but she never confronted Rey again on the topic of Ben Solo.

Time passed, and Rey found she missed Ben. He had not reached out since she rejoined the Resistance. Rey rather suspected he was keeping tabs on her through his mother, and therefore avoided intruding into Rey's life directly via the bond. Occasionally, however, there were gifts left for her through General Organa. Some particularly colorful seashells, a sheath for her lightsaber, fresh flowers, protein snacks, some delicate candies… Each one simply came with a one-word signed note, the name Ben scrawled on a scrap of paper.

Then one day, Rey received Ben's lightsaber with a slightly longer note which said, "I made a new one. - Ben."

Rey called on him through the force the next day. Excitement filled her every cell until she was practically vibrating from anticipation as he appeared before her dressed in dark brown robes and holding a new hilt. His hair was tied back in a small ponytail at the nape of his neck, making his ears stand out almost comically far from his face. "Would you like to see it?" he asked her.

Rey nodded, and Ben switched on the blade to reveal a brilliant green blade.

"My first one was blue," he said as he gently maneuvered it for her to see. "I can't go back to that time, so I thought green might suit me better now."

"It's perfect," Rey said over the sound of her heart pounding in her chest.

"I wanted you to know that I am trying to change for the better." He turned the blade off and faced her, shyly tucking a loose curl behind his ear only to have it immediately spring loose again. He blushed to his ears, and Rey stepped forward and fixed the loose hair for him before stepping back again, which made him turn even more red. "I… I don't know when or if…" He cleared his throat and rubbed his face. "Umm…"

"Ben?" Rey said, relief filling her heart as she finally came to terms with what she wanted. Perhaps things wouldn't be perfect. Perhaps she would get hurt again, but… he would be her partner through it, and they would grow together.

He looked up at her, exposed and vulnerable.

"Catch," Rey said with a smile, and leapt into his arms. Whatever happened next, they would face it together.

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