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Chapter Text

- - -

The biggest changes in Rey’s life had always been printed in black and white and tucked away in private files, secrets to the world at large.

The initial report of her abandonment outside a hospital at the age of two, nameless and silent, followed by the extensive CPS file that detailed her next sixteen years. The belated birth certificate full of unknowns labeling her as Temperance Thursday, an oddly puritanical name drawn from the hospital itself, the day she had been found, and quickly shortened to the easily hollared Rey. The diagnosis that left her dependent on insulin two weeks shy of her twenty-sixth birthday. The marriage certificate three weeks after that, and the health insurance card slipped behind her driver’s license.

Rey had always been good at keeping secrets.

Rey having a husband was hardly the biggest one she had ever kept (though the husband in question was quite large), but his existence would only inspire a web of questions if she let slip her status of married, filing jointly or that the pair of rings hidden in her underwear drawer had originally belonged to his grandmother or that on her wedding day her husband had kissed her on the forehead and smiled shyly. No one knew that they were married save the federal government, the state of Georgia, his CPA, their health insurance provider, and whoever might read the forms relating to her employment and his post-doc.

It was, as Ben had pointed out the night he had shown up at her door with a worn velvet box and a stack of cookbooks aimed toward newly diagnosed diabetics, an entirely practical solution. She needed the insulin, and he had more money than he knew what to do with. “And if either of us ever wants to marry someone else,” he had said after methodically listing off the advantages and possible disadvantages of the plan, “then we’ll quietly and amicably divorce.”

“You wanted to turn this into a powerpoint, didn’t you?” she had responded with a stunned kind of calm, stomach twisting, and had been rewarded by the guilty sweep of color over his face.

Rey had always been good at keeping secrets.

Marrying Ben and never once hinting that she had been hopelessly in love with him for two years was yet another.

- - -

“Hi.”

There was a silver lining to Ben moving across the country: when his voice curled around her over the phone, Rey never once had to hold her expression in check. She could allow her lashes to flutter closed, allow her free hand to settle low on her belly, fingers curling with a wish that his were clasped with hers. She could smile soft as he told her about his day, imagining all the while the sweep of his hair against his cheek.

She could look in love, when Ben wasn’t there to see. As long as she kept her voice normal he would never know.

“Hey.” She leaned against her kitchen counter, dinner abandoned for the moment. “How’s my favorite scholar?”

She could get away with some endearments, as long as she wrapped them in teasing tones. She was his friend first and marrying him hadn’t changed that fact; she could call him her favorite scholar or her redwood academic or her towering historian and still sound like his friend Rey, who just happened to file tax returns with him.

“Tired.” He huffed a laugh at the other end of the line, a faint clink underlying the word. He had sent her pictures of his Santa Barbara apartment in the early days, and she suspected he was sitting out on the patio in the evening air, a glass of wine in hand. More than once she had imagined padding barefoot over those hardwood floors wearing only her rings and one of his shirts. “The end’s in sight, though.”

“You said that two months ago,” she replied with more fondness than intended, and rushed to cover her lapse. “And three months before that. I’m beginning to suspect that Snoke has you chained to a desk in his office.”

“In all ways metaphorical, but-”

He paused briefly, the last word lingering on the line between them. “I rented a moving van.”

“Yeah?” It hurt to breathe, all of a sudden, her questioning response coming out with a squeak. She had half-expected that he would remain in California- if not working for the same department that ran him ragged, then accepting some tenure-track position in a coastal town- and had resigned herself to the thought of only having pictures and texts and the occasional visit when he returned to Atlanta to see his family. Eventually he would tell her that he had met The One and she would sign whatever his lawyer sent her and that would be that.

She would get Christmas cards, Rey suspected. Ben and his spouse and a dog, all wearing cute sweaters. He might even smile for the camera.

“Yeah. Already dreading the drive.”

Ben liked cities with walkable neighborhoods. Wherever he was going there would be at least a half-dozen nice restaurants and bars near his new apartment, and probably a fancy grocery filled with artisanal chutney to boot. “Well,” she said, licking dry lips, “you could always stop and see… I don’t know, the world’s largest ball of twine.”

“Far more interesting than the Grand Canyon. I think somewhere along the way there’s a really big chicken statue-”

“Not The Big Chicken,” she interrupted.

“A paltry runner-up for sure.” He was smiling for all that his tone was serious; Rey was willing to bet on that. “I’ll take a picture so that we can laugh at it over dinner.”

“Oh?” Not somewhere in the north-east, then, unless he was taking an inexplicable detour to see his parents with all his possessions in tow. Savannah, maybe, or the Triangle. “When will you be in town? I’ll work you into my very busy schedule.”

There was a beat of silence, and then three words: “I’m moving back.”

Back.

Back.

He would be just a few MARTA stops away (“Oglethorpe offered me a position,” she could hear him saying as her mind whirled), and there would be movie nights and dinners and he would slip back into their friend group as if he had never left, at least until he met The One and bought a house in the suburbs. Rey could almost see herself smiling through a wedding far more joyous than her own had been, and felt her heart break, a little.

“That’s good,” she said when she realized that he was waiting for a response. “That’s great, Ben.”

She probably imagined the relief in his voice when he said, “I think you’re going to like my new place.”

“It has an air hockey table?”

“Big windows, a balcony, a great kitchen. A clawfoot tub in the guest bath.”

“Would you even fit in one of those, Solo?”

“Well.” He coughed. “I was thinking… Brookhaven is closer to your job, and I have two bedrooms. And… and our insurance might have questions, if I moved back to the Atlanta area and we still lived separately.”

“Oh.”

She could see sleepy Ben. Fresh from a shower Ben. Workout Ben. Her insulin could sit next to his protein shakes in some gleaming smart fridge, and he’d ask her if she wanted to add anything to the grocery list or if she was up for a Lord of the Rings binge session or if they should host a game night- and she’d be right there when he got ready for dates, and possibly a wall away when he brought someone home.

That had been their agreement, after all: no strings beyond the legal. Rey hadn’t dated anyone since exchanging vows, but that was yet another secret.

“Right.” Air seemed in short supply. “Right. That makes sense.”

“My lease starts in three weeks, but my last day here isn’t for a month-”

I love you.

“-so if you want to go ahead and move in I can arrange for a moving company, or you can wait until I get there-”

This is going to be excruciating.

“-and if you’re okay with it I was thinking that it would be nice to get cats; the lease allows for two per unit.”

She blinked. “Two cats.”

“They could keep each other company while we’re at work.”

She had lost her appetite, but she ate a bite of stir-fry nonetheless. “You’ve thought of everything.”

Ben’s voice dipped low and quiet, almost uncertain. “Is that a yes, Rey?”

“It is.” She attempted a laugh. “I mean, living together is what spouses do, right? Even secret, convenient ones.”

“Yes.” There was a heavy warmth to the word, and she chastised herself for reading too much into the presentation of a single syllable. “That’s what husbands and wives do.”

They set the date for her to move six weeks later, and in desperation she purchased a vibe that the internet swore was utterly, utterly silent.

- - -

- - -

“Look,” he said when she finally managed to reach him, his voice so harried and grumpy that she knew hers wasn’t his first questioning call of the day, “the school knows I’m married. The entire department knows I’m married because Snoke made sure to comment on my lack of a ring week one-”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“It was my problem.” He sighed, muttering something she couldn’t quite hear before continuing with, “It just made sense to wear the ring; fewer questions that way. It’s not like I had the time to date.”

Rey swallowed the hurt that comment inspired. “I get it.”

“Are you mad?”

“Surprised,” she answered honestly, smoothing down her rumpled shirt as she skirted around the boxes of books in a corner of her studio. “I just- it was unexpected, hearing it from someone else.”

“It would be,” Ben admitted after a pause. “I’m sorry you were blindsided.”

“And now I’m going to have to find another place. I already gave up my lease here.” She barely avoided stubbing her toe on yet another box, hopping haphazardly out of the way. “Shit, I’ll probably end up at the opposite end of the blue line.”

It was the way he snapped out a short, sharp, “Why?” that told her they were not on the same wavelength at all.

“Because it would look weird for me move in now.” She dropped heavily onto the couch, wincing at the whine of the springs. “Mystery spouse and a roommate? Your mother would have us both abducted and professionally interrogated.”

“I told her it was a pretentious joke about being married to my work.”

Rey found herself releasing an incredulous, wordless half-scream, muffled only out of respect for her neighbors. “Ben.”

“I think she bought it,” he replied defensively.

“She did not buy it.” Leia Organa-Solo, sharpest person Rey had ever met, would never buy such nonsense. “She probably has her clerks checking every marriage registry in the country for your name. Possibly the planet.”

His response was so quiet, so surprising, that her brain initially refused to process the words. “We could tell the truth.”

She thought of the ideal, in those first heady seconds: wearing the rings, sharing a bed, choosing to change her name. Family dinners with his parents, sitting under his arm during outings with friends, seeing him look at her in the way she had always wanted. Knowing that he would be there, every comforting inch of him and every day.

Reality set in shortly after. It would be pity and carefully veiled disappointment, if his parents knew the truth- that Ben had saved her from a great deal of debt and possibly death by marrying her, and that she was the barrier between their son and happiness. “Or,” she forced herself to say, digging her nails into her jean-covered thigh, “we could cut ties.”

Between a cheaper apartment- with roommates, even- and a carefully rearranged budget she might be able to manage it. Her current job had better insurance options than her last, and maybe her doctor knew some appropriate off-brand insulin even if a year ago the answer to that question had been don’t you dare switch.

The silence lasted long enough that she checked her phone to make sure that they were still connected. “Rey,” he finally said. “Sweetheart.”

It was electric, that endearment, and the honey-sweetness of it swept through her in a manner he likely hadn’t foreseen.

“You’re my wife.”

She repressed a whimper, squeezing her eyelids shut.

“And we don’t have to tell them that part.”

She took in several long breaths before replying. He was offering her a kindness, a reprieve. “So… half the truth.”

“Just an omission,” he said softly. “They don’t have to know we don’t share a room.”

Rey felt rather as if she were on the edge of a crumbling precipice. “I mean… it’s not like I could wear rings while working on an engine.”

His murmur had her rubbing her thighs together. “You’d wear them at home for me, wouldn’t you?”

“That would be… practical,” Rey breathed, the ground beneath her losing stability with every second. “Theoretically.”

“Good girl.”

She blinked, some part of her acknowledging that from anyone else the diminutive would have filled her with the rage of a thousand suns. “Well.”

“Well.”

“The move is still on, then.” This would be the end of her, the absolute end. “Your mother is going to want a party, isn’t she?”

“Bare minimum.” Ben sounded lighter, with everything decided, and his laugh made her wish that they were sitting hip to hip, his lips against her hair. “Let her go to voicemail.”

“She’s going to show up at my work and you know it.”

“Rey, sweetheart… I’ll make it worth your while.”

- - -

Chapter Text

- - -

“Word of advice?”

Rey left off pleating a fold of her skirt, turning a carefully composed expression on Han. “Yeah?”

“Pick your battles.” He shifted the car into park, giving her a wry grin. “Leia’s going to throw a wedding one way or another, but if you fight her every step of the way you’ll find yourself in one of those princess carriages in front of a cathedral.”

She could almost feel the color drain from her face. “We really don’t need another wedding.” Forcing a laugh, she joked, “I think the first one took.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Unexpectedly, awkwardly, he ruffled her hair. “Welcome to the family, kid.” Han’s voice was gruff, but she knew him well enough to hear the underlying sincerity. “Ben made a good choice.”

Ben had certainly made a choice.

A good one for me, Rey admitted to herself as she followed Han up the porch steps. She had loved Ben before he had all but rescued her. If she hadn’t, every visit to the pharmacy may very well have made her hate him, chipping away lesser sentiments with each presentation of the debit card and proof of insurance funded by his bank account. For no one else would she carry out so significant a con with the unfamiliar weight of two rings on her left hand- and even so, as she stepped through the front door of the Organa-Solo Druid Hill residence, she had to fight the urge to turn on one ballet-flat wearing heel and run. His parents had always been kind to her, but as enemies they would be formidable.

Not, she told herself as she stepped over the threshold, gleaming hardwood underfoot and Leia moving forward with arms outstretched, that I’m going to slip up.

“You,” Leia said with amused warmth, cupping Rey’s face in one hand, “look terrified.”

The unexpected sally and Han’s snort had Rey grinning even as her knees threatened weakness. “Well, I’ve never had… uh… a family dinner. Like this.”

“Ben likes to dodge them,” Leia replied, a scheming kind of mischief in her eyes. “Always has an excuse- though I think for a while you were the excuse, even if he didn’t come out and say so.” She smiled, and Rey felt a little as if she were prey before a predator. “You’ll convince him to come around more often, I hope.”

“Princess, what was it you insisted on when you realized my courting was in earnest?”

At Han’s dryly spoken words Leia abruptly looked not only more approachable, but also surprisingly self-conscious under her ever-present dignity. “Leave and cleave.” She sighed, turning to slip an arm through Rey’s own and guide her further in. “My apologies, dear. I hope that your reasons for the Biblical adage won’t be mine- you wouldn’t believe how many men wanted to marry me just to be my father’s protege- but I shouldn’t be trying to set you to work against Ben in even so small a thing.”

“Oh.”

“Though we would love to see you both whenever you have a spare evening.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Rey promised, utterly unsure how Ben might react to such a conversation. “I know you must be happy that he’s coming home.”

“Very.” Leia beamed up at her. “It was just like him to pull a trick like this. I conferred with a dietitian for tonight; I hope everything works for you.”

Rey, who had long had a complicated relationship with food and hospitality, was quick to assure. “I’m sure whatever you’ve chosen will be fine.”

“Can you have a glass of wine with dinner?”

“One.” Her blood sugar levels (checked right before Han had picked her up, in a rush) had been solidly in range, and the indulgence was manageable. Her doctor’s warnings that stress affected levels was shoved firmly aside in favor of liquid courage. “Thank you.”

Leia kept up a flow of conversation throughout the meal, neatly cornering Rey into setting a date for dress shopping (“You aren’t being much help,” Rey accused Han in a whisper when Leia left to get her more water, only to have him laugh and shake his head) and offering their own home for the wedding in such a casual, offhand way that Rey immediately knew Leia had her heart set on it.

“I have to discuss it with Ben,” was Rey’s response, for all that she felt a sudden longing to marry in the expertly maintained garden that was the Organa-Solo’s backyard, all velvet smooth grass and blooming flora. The fact that their (admittedly imposing) home was also not a cathedral was an added bonus.

The doorbell rang just as Leia was placing a single petit four topped with a candied, crystallized violet in front of her, the two-bite cake a work of art that Rey was (almost) reluctant to marr with a fork.

“I was thinking we could serve something like this at the wedding,” Leia was saying as Han left the room to answer the door, settling back into her chair. “A sort of picnic buffet theme, with different flavors of petits fours in different colors to match the garden- the hyssop and asters and sedums should still be blooming in late September.”

Rey blinked, fork held over pale purple icing. “This September?”

“Oh, yes.” Leia took a sip of her wine, smiling.

“It’s July.”

“Plenty of time to plan a backyard wedding.”

Rey’s own wedding had been planned in five minutes after twenty-four hours of indecision, and the ink dry on the certificate within a few days of agreeing. She knew well enough that the basics could be done quickly and cheaply (the cost of the license and the magistrate’s fee, the purchase of Ben’s ring which she had insisted on paying for herself, the price of a late lunch by the river for just the two of them as they did their best to talk past their newly binding ties) but her definition of a backyard wedding was likely far different from Leia’s.

She’s probably already hired a wedding planner to delegate, Rey thought with an inward sigh, and closed her lips around one perfect bite of lemon cake and cream.

Abruptly Leia’s similarly burdened fork fell from her hand to the table as she jumped to her feet, darting past Rey’s chair with a cry of joy. Rey turned in her seat with the taste of sugar still on her tongue, idly expecting to see Chewie looming in the doorway, and the greeting half-formed in her mouth turned into a quiet gasp.

Ben, his hair tousled and a shadow of stubble on his jaw, met her gaze over his mother’s head with an embarrassed smile. “Hi, sweetheart.”

She’d never known what he looked like, saying that word. Now she knew.

“Sorry I’m late. My flight was delayed.” Belatedly he wrapped his arms around Leia to complete a formerly one-sided hug. “It seemed unfair to make Rey face the inquisition alone.”

Rey got slowly to her feet, hands clasped tightly in front of her, and took two hurried steps forward when Leia finally released her son and cleared her path. “They used all their tricks,” she told him seriously, feeling her mouth turn up despite herself. “I spilled all manner of secrets.”

“I thought that might be the case.” His hands- warm and lightly calloused and oh so gentle- cupped her face, fingers slipping into her hair and thumb coming to rest at the corner of her mouth. “You have icing right here.”

As if from far away she heard a low whisper and two sets of footsteps leave the room, and his hands dropped to curl loosely over her shoulders, cool air rushing in to hit her heated cheeks. Ben’s smile turned sheepish, and he kept his voice low as he bent slightly toward her. “Okay?”

“Fine,” she mustered, her wondering smile fading. “You got on a plane just for dinner?”

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I fly back early Sunday morning. Not a big deal.”

“Your definition of ‘big deal’ is a little suspect, husband.”

There was an odd intensity to his expression at her joking words, but soon enough it was gone and he was laughing quietly. “Snoke’s also in a temper, so I was looking for an excuse to flee town.” He released her, the ring he wore catching the light. It looked like a natural part of his hand. “Don’t waste your last bite.”

Obediently she sat, popping the second half of petit four into her mouth.

Lemon and sugar and violets lit up her taste buds, all the more vibrant on her tongue for him dragging a chair close and sitting next to her, the backs of his fingers brushing against her arm.

- - -

In her studio all pretense of married bliss was gone, though Ben was, as ever a gentleman.

“I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“It’s a love seat,” she responded with a snort. “I’d have to unfold you like origami in the morning.”

“It’s not too late to arrange for a hotel.” It was hardly the first time he had been in her home- there had been all those movie nights, all those board games with friends- but there was a new and unusual intimacy to having him sitting on the end of her bed, hair still damp from a shower. “You could take the hotel room.” Ben grinned at her knowingly. “One of those downtown suites with an amazing view and five million television channels and spa services.”

“I’m beginning to think you have a spoiling kink,” Rey said lightly, deliberately turning her back on him and rummaging through her closet to avoid seeing his reaction. “We’re adults, we’ll share the bed. Do you have plans for tomorrow?”

“Uh.” He still looked faintly stunned when she turned back around empty-handed. “I thought… I thought maybe we’d go downtown for dinner, catch a movie at the Fox.”

She stared at him with reluctant amusement and burgeoning excitement, wishing her pajamas had pockets so that she would have something to do with her hands. “It’s a sing-a-long tomorrow. The Sound of Music.”

He hesitated for a noticeable beat before replying. “Poe and Rose would get a kick out of it.”

Not a date, then. Of course. “Right,” she agreed cheerfully. “God help us if Poe turns up in dirndl cosplay.”

He laughed and so did she, and in the elastic way of time too soon they were both claiming their sides of the bed and the lights were out. Rey, who usually slept facing in, settled herself facing away from him. Too intimate, to sleep with him directly in her eye-line and close enough to touch, and the glimpse she had gotten of him tucked under her sheets before turning off the lamp had been more than enough to tell her the kind of danger she was in. He looked softer than ever, waiting for sleep. He looked made to rest his head on her pillows.

His fingertips grazed against the back of her neck, her name coming in a murmur that made her heart race. “Rey?”

Licking her lips, she managed a calm, “Yeah?”

“Sleep well.”

A tease. She had married an oblivious tease.

On Sunday night she slept on his side of the bed, snuggling into a pillow that still smelled of his shampoo.

- - -

- - -

She took to wearing the hoodie in the evenings, once inside and away from the Atlanta heat, packing away her things one by one in box after box. Books, mostly, and clothes and assorted knick-knacks. The kitchenware she would donate (his, she knew from experience, was far nicer), and as Ben already had a designated guest room set her already secondhand IKEA furniture would also come under the proverbial ax.

For the best, really. She had seen pictures of the apartment, courtesy of both Ben and Zillow, and it was full of blank spaces that even empty spoke of elegance and ease. Her battered Malm would have looked ridiculous against one of those walls.

Little by little, she accustomed herself to the slight weight of her rings in her off hours, the subdued gleam of emeralds- and by the time Leia picked her up for a day of dress shopping with an excited Rose, she was able to go minutes on end without even thinking about the fact that she wore a fortune on her left hand.

“Tell me about him,” the shop assistant said encouragingly in the dressing room as she zipped Rey into the first dress, managing to make a question she surely asked at least a dozen times a day ring with happy curiosity.

“Ben?” Rey pressed a nervous hand to her stomach, breath almost catching in her throat at the sight of herself in white silk. “He’s… he’s a giant.”

“I like mine tall, too,” the assistant said with a wink in the mirror. “Nice choice.”

“And gentle.” Fingers trailing over the stylized boning of the bodice, Rey said with complete honesty, “I’ve loved him for nearly as long as I’ve known him. I pined-”

Pine.

“-like an idiot.”

“The pining always makes success sweeter.” She stepped back, giving Rey an experienced, professional once-over. “Let’s show you off.”

Rey chose a tea-length dress in the end, one that had both Leia and Rose in tears- and on a whim, a pair of blue heels with a shrugging, blushing, “Tradition.”

Their gentle teasing, and Leia’s promise to provide a ‘something borrowed’ raised a carefully hidden pang.

Her ‘something borrowed’, after all, was Ben.

- - -

- - -

There was always a particular shock in the shift from sweltering August day to aggressive air conditioning, and Rey (who had come only for the simple, uncomplicated task that was fetching her own set of keys and taking a quick tour) was still feeling the buzz when she reached their apartment door for the first time.

Ben’s greeting not only sent her skin newly humming, but knocked the wind from her. He pulled her over the threshold into his arms before she even had the chance to say hello, the hand flat against her back drawing her close- and then he bent, pressing his mouth against her own in a kiss so gentle and so soft that he almost tasted like her own yearning.

“Hi,” he murmured to her wordless, wide-eyed stare, arms still clasped around her. “Your keys are on the kitchen counter.”

“Ben, at least shut the door before romancing your wife.”

Rey, muddled, needed more than a few seconds of thought to identify her mother-in-law’s voice. The apologetic grin and brief buss Ben planted on the tip of her nose did not, in any way, help her composure.

“Anyone could be out in that hall,” Leia continued with a laugh.

“Are you worried about murderers or pearl-clenching neighbors, Mom?” Ben asked dryly, pushing the door shut and turning the deadbolt home.

“Either. Both.” Leia, in jeans and a crisp, tailored button-down that by all rights should have wilted long ago in the heat, wrapped Rey in a hard hug the moment she was free. “I dropped by with some flowers from the garden.”

A riot of color and texture in a glass vase, the bouquet was so large it blocked Rey’s view of the fridge. She couldn’t imagine how Leia had carried it without tripping. “They’re lovely.”

“Fit for a homewarming.” Leia fixed her son with a sharp gaze. “You didn’t carry her over the threshold.”

“I thought you wanted the door closed quickly,” he replied with such overblown innocence that she poked him in the chest.

“It’s good luck, and practice for your next wedding.” Leia gestured imperiously toward the door, one brow raised. “Go on, then.”

“Oh,” Rey began when Ben grabbed her hand with a roll of his eyes. “I’m not officially moved in yet, so-”

Leia snagged the purse hanging unattended on Rey’s shoulder, placing it next to the vase. “You look moved in to me.”

Fighting would only rouse suspicion. Fighting was absolutely out of the question, and so in a moment Rey knew she would remember for the rest of her life Ben scooped her up in a secure hold in the hall, her arm curving naturally around his shoulders and his face close enough to kiss. “Welcome home,” he murmured, eyes soft, and stepped sideways over the threshold to keep her well away from the door-frame.

After- after the solid floor was again under her feet, and Leia had left, and it was just the two of them and the butterflies in Rey’s stomach and an almost physical sense of hope- Ben gave her that same soft-eyed look and smiled. “Come on,” he said, one hand lightly touching her back. “I’ll show you your room.”

And just like that, she slammed right back into reality.

Chapter Text

- - -

“Nice.” Ben said the moment she opened her door with a huff, reaching out to tap the drying mud mask covering her face. “Is that the one I gave you for Christmas?”

“Yes.” After a particularly trying day at work, even the sight of him in a straining henley failed to cheer her. “I was about to go to bed.”

“You can go to bed the moment we get home, I promise.” He paused, a blush coloring his cheeks. “Everything will have to go into my room, for now.”

Despite herself she half-smiled, feeling the mud on her cheeks crack at the quirk of her lips. “You really think they’re going to snoop in the closet?”

“No, but they’re both sharper than they let on.” His own ghost of a smile appeared. “Particularly Chewie.”

“Should I stage a bra strap halfway out of a drawer, then?” she asked, turning to shuffle back to her bedroom. The mud, at least, would have to go, though she had no intention of actually changing from her old tee and cotton shorts. “Leave a pack of pads on the bathroom counter?”

“I thought we’d take some of your books.” He didn’t sound embarrassed, but without checking Rey couldn’t be sure. “Mix them in with mine.”

At that she did turn with a mud-cracking grin. “Your alphabetized by author and title collection, fiction separated from non-fiction?”

Ben raised a brow, and if there was a red tinge to his skin his small smile appeared genuine. “The nonfiction is arranged by the Dewey decimal system, actually.”

“I know. A little hard to forget, with your helpful labels on the spines. You’re on shelving duty; I would hate to mess up your system.” Backing toward the bathroom door, she added in a teasing tone, “Though you could always include it in the divorce complaint. ‘Defendant showed continual and reckless disregard for Plaintiff’s well-ordered existence’, or something to that effect.”

“Am I that-”

Ben paused, clearly searching for the right word, and she felt a pang at the way his mouth settled into a faintly hurt downward curve. “Stuffy?”

“No,” she answered softly. “You’re not stuffy, Ben.”

Precise, yes. Loyal to a fault, yes. Stuffy, unbending? Never, in the years she had known him.

“I’m going to wash this off.” She gestured toward the box nearest the door, tapping the fingers of her other hand nervously against her thigh. “Those are my favorites. We should take those.”

Ten minutes later- skin glowing, a duffel bag and purse slung over her shoulder, and with only the addition of Ben’s hoodie and a pair of flip-flops to render her ensemble somewhat public appropriate- Rey locked her door and followed Ben to his car. The feel of leather, still warm from the heat of the day, against the back of her thighs had her biting back a sigh of pleasure. “Are you going to make me breakfast?” she muttered, slumping back in the passenger seat and shutting her eyes.

“I could be persuaded.”

It was oddly intimate, driving through the city at night- the smell of his ruthlessly clean car, the low whisper of music from the radio, the stretches of dark and ribbons of streetlight that dimly shone through her closed eyelids. Twenty minutes of just them and Atlanta traffic, the mood in their small space oddly like that of a confessional.

“Did you miss this?” she asked quietly, eyes still closed. “All the lights, the rush.”

He made a soft, humming sound in the back of his throat, and when she peered through barely open eyelids she saw that he was relaxed and calm, hands sure on the wheel. “California traffic is its own kind of beast… though people do like to move slow on the sidewalks and when crossing the street.” He huffed a laugh. “Phasma used to call it the Santa Barbara Saunter.”

Her fatigue drained away with a flare of recognition. That name she knew. “She’s defending next year, isn’t she?”

“I suspect her defense will end up being more like a carefully planned assault on her committee, but yes,” Ben answered dryly, more than a little fondness in his voice. “I have no doubt she’ll pass.”

Do you miss her? Rey nearly asked, but caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth before the words could slip free. She didn’t want to know, not really- or not enough to shatter the moment entirely. Snooping through the department website months before had rewarded her with a group photo of the graduate and post-doc students, and the elegant, confident blonde perched beside Ben in the California sun had given her pause.

“Taller than me,” Ben had said blithely whenever Poe had asked his type, back when he had last lived in Atlanta. “I don’t need you to set me up, Dameron.”

Rey might not know Phasma’s height, but she could take a guess from that one picture alone.

“What will she do after that?”

“She has her eye on Agnes Scott, where she did her undergrad- her former advisor seems to think she has a good chance of getting a spot.”

Stomach souring, Rey turned her head to the passenger side window and watched the shadows alongside the highway blur. Ben sounded pleased by the idea, more pleased than she might have expected if Phasma were merely a colleague or casual friend. And Decatur is close to Brookhaven, she thought, toes curling against battered foam. Just twenty, thirty minutes at most.

She had believed him, when he had said there had been no dating in California, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t secretly carrying a torch for someone he had seen day in and day out. Resisting the urge to bite at her nails, she considered the months ahead in a new light. Roughly a year before Phasma arrived, assuming she got the position at all, and after that- would it be a few months, another year before Ben sat her down and expressed his desire to move on?

Better to leave first, Rey decided. She would stash away every spare penny and say goodbye in the spring or early summer; offer the vague irreconcilable differences and make everything easy by signing away her laughable claim to alimony.

“The others would like her,” Ben added musingly out of nowhere, and Rey smiled tightly out at the dark.

“You’re probably right.”

She affected a more lighthearted expression when they parked at his apartment, and inside kicked off her flip-flops as if she did so everyday. Her belongings she haphazardly unpacked, clothing shoved into waiting, empty drawers and toiletries taking over one corner of the bathroom counter. Without bothering to clarify with Ben she claimed the bedside table bare of everything but a lamp, dropping a random handful of books onto its surface and climbing into bed. Rumpled sheets on both sides, and the guest room left neat and tidy- all part of the scam, as if his father and godfather would even check.

“Goodnight,” she told Ben when she heard him enter, the summer-weight coverlet pulled over her head.

She was still wide awake when she felt the dip of the mattress twenty minutes later, and when she heard his breathing change to slow and even some minutes after that.

- - -

- - -

Under Han and Chewie’s watchful eyes, box after box of Rey’s things went straight into Ben’s bedroom, where she unpacked them dutifully while beers were opened and Han began inspecting the bathroom plumbing.

“Shoddy work,” he declared from halfway under the sink as Rey hung her handful of dresses in the closet. “Chewie, go get your tools.”

Ben- who last she had checked, had been filling out little labels for her own nonfiction books- appeared in the room, barely masked alarm on his face. “Dad, we’re renting.”

“And the property manager should be ashamed.”

“Just because it doesn’t meet your standards-”

Rey, hands lying lax among her winter tights, watched with interest as a tic appeared beside one eye.

“-doesn’t mean you can mess with perfectly acceptable plumbing that we don’t own.” Ben met Rey’s gaze, and unexpectedly his expression softened, lips curving up. “Besides, I have Rey. She can fix anything.”

Han barked a laugh. “True enough, but if this starts spewing water at the ass end of the night she might not be so happy about you dragging her out of bed to fix it.”

Rey shook her head when Ben opened his mouth to respond, lifting a hand to gesture him over. “I’ll check everything after they leave,” she whispered to him with a small, conspiratorial smile as Chewie left with a grumble, heading for his truck. “Let him meddle.”

“I heard that, kid,” came Han’s muffled reply from inside the bathroom.

“It’ll keep him from criticizing the fireplace in the living room,” Rey continued in a slightly louder voice, grinning. Han- gray hair mussed, grunting as he came to his feet- appeared in the bathroom door and pointed a finger in their direction.

“Those painted bricks look ridiculous.”

“Agreed,” Rey answered easily, though in reality she was thrilled by the mere existence of the little gas fireplace and didn’t mind the white-covered bricks. “They’ll be a pain to clean.”

Han reached back for the beer he had left on the counter, considering them both for a long moment. “Not a bad place, though. In general.” He tilted the half-empty bottle slightly to the side even as he shrugged. “Close to home.”

Ben’s hand landed lightly on her back, and he brushed a kiss over her temple in one easy, relaxed gesture. “Yeah.” The full force of his attention landed on her. “Do you need a snack?” he asked quietly. “Something to drink?”

“No.” Han disappeared back into the bathroom, but Ben didn’t step away. “I’m fine.”

She was still fine, and would perjure herself swearing so in court, if need be, when she moved most of her things into the guest room a few hours later.

- - -

- - -

Living with Ben would have been a delight, were it not for the heavy weight in her chest- but even that weight could be forgotten for a short span of time. Head bent to a car engine and her hands bare, Rey could forget. Halfway through a good book, Rey could forget. Sitting on the balcony in the early morning, coffee in hand and birds singing in the trees, Rey could forget. Remembering would always come, but the quiet moments were a gift.

He asked, a week after her move, if she wanted to visit the local rescues and shelters, and she put him off with after the wedding. The needed supplies- litter box and cat litter, scoop and bowls, beds and toys- were already in the hall closet, and she avoided looking at the pile every time she opened that particular door. It felt rather unfair, even contemplating shared pets (whether Phasma would like them haunted her, a little), but much like remembering the cats, too, were an inevitability.

Ben could at least afford the vet bills, after she left. Rey would simply do her best not to grow as attached to them as she was to her husband, who held her hand as they walked down the street and never seemed to notice the way her pulse raced with every endearment.

Sweetheart over breakfast, one darling during a dinner out, tone distracted as he signed the check, a teasing sunshine when she groused about work. My wife at nearly every public occasion- a department staff happy hour, dinner with his family, game nights with their friends- and it was those two words she thought on most often when her door was securely locked and her teeth were clamped down on a pillow, vibe and fingers busy between her legs.

It wasn’t till the evening of her bridal shower- after the party, when it was just her and Rose sprawled over opposite ends of the couch with shoes kicked off- that Rey realized that while Ben might be oblivious, others were far more perceptive.

“It’s like we’re right back to the pining days,” Rose laughed, her cheeks flushed and tongue loose from over-indulging. “Take a pause till the wedding night if you want, Rey, but I’m beginning to wonder if you’ll both explode first. Or be arrested for public indecency from sheer repressed desire.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rey replied, her airy, off-hand tone belying a sudden spark of panic.

“Please. I thought we’d have to handcuff the pair of you together and run off with the key before you admitted your feelings. Marrying behind our backs ranks among the top five surprises of my life.”

Rey slid a glance toward the pair of padded handcuffs peeking out from a pile of lingerie, all doomed to lie unused in a drawer and gather dust. “I thought the cuffs were from Kaydel.”

“Oh, they were.” Rose sipped her champagne, grinning. “I wasn’t the only one conspiring.”

“Was I that-”

Rey hesitated. “-blatant?”

“Ben was worse,” Rose said cheerfully. “Watching you with big eyes, and whenever you would do that whole snarling thing-”

“What?”

“The back-off vibes when someone would hit on him.” Rose took another sip, unaware that within Rey a brief, barely arrived flicker of hope sputtered out. “He loved that. You could have dragged him home, all conquering hero, and he would have gone with a smile.”

Rey couldn’t explain the truth, in that moment- that the attention made Ben uncomfortable (“I’ve never known how to react,” he had told her once in a private moment, the embarrassed admission muttered), and she had always stepped in with his blessing in such situations. A little lie on both their parts, which had simply become a stepping stone to bigger lies. “He’s… private.”

“But easy to read.” At the muted buzz of Rey’s phone Rose stretched, nearly spilling what remained in her glass. “Punctual as ever. Give Ben a kiss for me, and if you decide to tease him with what’s to come I do want to know if he faints.”

Rey, shoving the scraps of fabric and toys back into the gift bags, replied as casually as she could manage, “You’d know; everyone in the city would feel the impact if he keeled over.”

“And bless him for it.”

She did kiss him, after sliding into the car- but only because Rose was watching from the sidewalk after carrying down her half of the bags, and only on the cheek. “Did you have a good evening?”

“I got some work done.” He lifted a hand to wave at Rose before pulling away from the curb, that same hand dropping to curve over her knee for a brief, heady moment. “In between being bombarded with texts from Poe and Finn- the former threatening to shift the festivities to Las Vegas, the latter warning me that Poe hired strippers, which meant I had to tell Poe to cancel the strippers, which led to an argument.”

Rey snorted, amused despite herself. “You can have strippers, Ben. It’s not like you’d be breaking a vow.”

“It’s not my scene.” He hit the brakes when the car ahead abruptly decided to all but stop for no apparent reason, the bags in the backseat toppling and sending a small flood of lace slithering free- and with the flood, a gaudily boxed dildo that landed on the floor with a thump. Already a little breathless from their near miss, Rey bit her lower lip and fought the urge to undo her belt and dive into the back. Ben said nothing, though she thought she saw his lips twitch upward when the other driver finally moved forward and they passed beneath a streetlight.

When they arrived home, Ben helping her tidy away the mess, his only comment was, “You look good in pink.”

It took everything she had on seeing his blushing cheeks to swallow the words so do you.

- - -

Chapter Text

- - -

Ben fairly poured through the door when Rey opened it, more than six feet of very large man wrapping around her with all the grace of a baby fawn taking its first wobbly steps. “What did you give him?” she asked Poe with a hiss, wrapping her arms around Ben’s middle.

Poe, who stood remarkably straight for all that he was clearly drunk himself (and bless Ben for assuring her beforehand that no one would be driving), shrugged with a grin. “Craft cocktails.”

Ben hummed something under his breath, nuzzling his nose into her hair. If he had been in his right mind Rey would have enjoyed that very much. “And you were, what? Topping his glass off with Everclear?”

Poe pressed a hand against his chest, all genuinely wounded innocence. “No. He just can’t handle his gin, is all. Or his whiskey. In succession.”

Rey huffed a breath, nearly toppling under Ben’s weight. She’d seen him drink before- beer and wine, usually- but always in a very measured way. At most he had hit a pleasant buzz on those nights over the course of their complicated relationship. “Will you make it home alive?”

“Given you’re burdened with a redwood’s worth of guy, yes.” He took a swaggering step back at her unimpressed look, resuming his grin. “He’s had a bad week. Get him some water and tell him he’s your dogwood.”

“Poe,” Rey protested as Ben laughed, his lips slipping over her ear.

“Your weeping willow.”

Abruptly Ben’s arms tightened around her, and for one dizzying moment her feet left the ground. “My sunshine,” he said in a thick, sleepy voice before setting her back down. “Go away, Poe.”

“You,” Rey said after the door was locked, in what should have been a scolding manner but was instead frighteningly tender, “are going to wish for death in the morning.”

He blinked at her, lashes fluttering and mouth soft. “You’re going to pet my hair?”

“I promised, didn’t I?” she replied with amusement as she guided him toward his room, detouring along the way to fill a glass in the kitchen. “But first you’re going to drink some water and brush your teeth, and change into something a little more comfortable.” Rey glanced up at him, guiltily enjoying the excuse to be so close. “Did you enjoy your manly overindulgence?” she asked teasingly.

“No.” Ben’s breath, warm and smelling of some kind of fruit, stirred her hair. “It’s hard, Rey.”

Her levity drained away, replaced by sudden understanding- but still, she tried to present a joking front. “I’m driving you to drink, Ben?”

He stopped at the door to his room, hands dropping heavily onto her shoulders. “You-”

For a long moment Ben said nothing, and then his thumb ghosted over her lower lip. “You’re right here,” he whispered. “You’re always here.”

It was not the time to point out that he had asked her to move in, that he had been the one wearing his ring in public, that he had showed every sign that continuing on with this farce fit in nicely with his own plans. “It’s been a while since you had a roommate, isn’t it?” she said instead, hiding her bruised heart behind a reassuring smile. “I could… I’ll join a book club, or something. Give you some time to yourself every week.”

He actually looked a little confused, at that, but followed readily enough when she hooked a hand under his elbow and hauled him toward the bathroom. “Am I a bad roommate?” he murmured, more to himself than to her.

“You cook, you clean, you don’t ‘accidentally’ walk in on me in the shower,” she replied lightly, stopping him in front of the sink and squaring him toward the mirror. “Or watch porn in the living room. Five out of five stars, Ben.”

“Low bar,” he muttered, accepting the glass when she held it out to him.

“Hey.” Rey waited for him to meet her gaze, hearing the undercurrent of uncertainty in his voice. He was sensitive, Ben- more sensitive than he projected to the world, and as fond as she was of his parents she was also aware that they had been absent in one way or another for most of his childhood. That they were close now that he was an adult was chance rather than the guaranteed outcome. “Anyone would be lucky to be here with you, Ben. I promise.”

“Yeah?”

“Particularly when you make chicken soup.” She backed out of the bathroom with a quicksilver grin. “You make excellent chicken soup.”

He shut the door with a lopsided smile, and hers immediately disappeared.

You’re always here.

Hadn’t that been her eternal problem? In sight or out of sight, something about her just… irked. Plutt had said so in plain terms, other foster parents in more diplomatic language- and that had been before she had become an expensive burden as an adult.

“Huh,” Plutt had said with a grunt during one of their extremely rare conversations after she had left his home, after an equally rare personal disclosure from her in the wake of the diagnosis. “Don’t come begging help from me, girl. I’ve spent enough money on you.”

Sitting on the edge of Ben’s bed, she took in a steadying breath. She’d pick up a hobby, find something that would get her out of the apartment several times a week- or even better, a second job. The savings would be helpful at some point or another, though explaining the need away to Ben would be difficult. “Probably pay me to spend time away,” she muttered sourly, aware on some level that she was being ridiculous and unfair.

A part of her was and always had been a feral little thing, pressed hissing into a corner. Twisting her rings around her finger, she choked back the competing urges to either lash out or skitter away before Ben could emerge, and so simply sat, stiff and unhappy and waiting.

He looked, Rey thought when Ben appeared in pajama pants and tee, like he would fall asleep in minutes once he was under the covers. Hair tousled and eyes shadowed with fatigue, he dropped onto the bed and stared up at the lazily oscillating ceiling fan. “Can you turn off the light?” he asked in a slow voice, and tugged a corner of the blanket over himself when she got up to flip the switch for the fixture overhead.

“Under the blanket, Ben,” she told him with her lips twitching, still finding it within herself to be amused by the sight of his upper chest and neck covered, long legs exposed and feet bare. “It will only take five seconds.”

“Never,” he told her as he squirmed gracelessly under the covers, “let Poe give you drinks with pun names.”

“A good rule of thumb,” she agreed, joining him on the bed and sitting as far away as she could while still reaching his head on the pillow. “Good pun or bad pun?”

He rolled closer, pressing his face against her hip. His breath was hot through the thin cotton of her pajama pants, and with a blush she pushed aside thoughts of his mouth somewhere else entirely. “Bad puns,” he murmured, slinging an arm over her lap. “Should have watched a movie with you.”

Ben had lovely hair, thick and wavy, and under her hand soft as silk. The sound he made at the first pass was akin to a purr. “But then I would be here,” she replied lightly.

He turned his head, blinking owlishly up at her in the light of one lamp. “I want you here,” he said in confusion.

“That’s not what you said a few minutes ago.”

He snorted, nuzzling his nose back against her hip. “Because you…”

Ben let loose a gusty sigh as if she were the one with drunken, meandering thoughts. “You slip through my fingers.” Quiet, quiet words, so soft and just slurred enough she barely understood them. “Can’t hold sunlight.”

She didn’t answer immediately, not quite sure how to reply to such a statement. His eyes were closed; his arm lax over her lap as she caressed his hair with gentle strokes. Finally, she murmured, “Are you lonely, even with me here?”

A barely audible snore was her only answer, followed by a whine when she carefully, carefully, slipped from his grasp.

- - -

- - -

She stayed late at the end of her Tuesday shift, tackling a handful of minor tasks that could have easily waited until morning with the reasoning that the car next in her queue might be a tricky prospect in need of more time than estimated. It was a threadbare excuse, but one that earned her only shrugs and a read receipt in her chat history with Ben.

It was as she walked to the nearby MARTA station an hour later than usual, bag slung across her chest and sunglasses blocking the evening glare, that she heard the peep of a cry from under a nearby car. Cautiously, drawn by some urge she couldn’t quite name, she drew closer and- after checking to be sure that no one waited inside the vehicle- knelt to check the pavement beneath. A kitten, fur matted and eyes wide, stared back at her. “Well,” Rey murmured, breath catching in her throat, “that’s a very bad place for you, you know. This is a busy road.”

The cars speeding along mere feet away were evidence of that. Carefully, worried that the kitten might startle and make a break for the traffic, she slid a hand into her bag and sought out one of the small sticks of jerky she kept on hand as an emergency snack. “This is probably very bad for you,” she mused in a soft, coaxing tone, easing the package open and pinching off an end of the stick, “but needs must, hmm?”

The kitten’s whiskers twitched, and slowly, warily, it crept forward until it was almost within reach, eyes darting between her and the offered food in her palm. “We have enough catnip mice at home for you to swim like Scrooge McDuck,” Rey continued as if the kitten could possibly understand. “You’d like that, right?”

It darted forward as her last word hung in the air, and in one quick motion she snagged the tiny creature and pulled it out from under the car, earning an offended squeak and scratches from several tiny, needle-like claws. “Complain if you must,” she told the kitten cheerfully, breathing more easily now that it was in her hands. “Though not on the train; I don’t want to get barred from MARTA because you screamed the whole way home.”

There was a mesh side pocket on the bag she used for work. Carefully she eased the kitten inside, turning the bag so that the betraying furry lump was hidden from a casual viewer. The tidbit of jerky was caught by small paws, distracting the kitten as she closed the zipper. Perhaps it was the heat of her body, perhaps the treat, perhaps the rumbling of the train, but the cat stayed silent during her commute, merely glaring at her through half-open eyes whenever she peeked at the small burden. She had offended its dignity, Rey guessed.

I’d be upset, too, if some giant came and carried me off like that. Fair enough.

It wasn’t until she opened the door to the apartment that the kitten let out a pitiful cry- and two people, not one, turned from the kitchen island to note her entrance. Phasma, taller than even Rey had expected and holding a glass of red wine, set aside the stemware and gave Rey a look she couldn’t quite parse.

The kitten wailed again, jerking Rey from her moment of frozen shock. Shutting the door behind her, she glanced toward Ben before kneeling to set the bag down and retrieve her captive. “Looks like we both found a friend.”

Phasma made a short, muffled laugh as Ben moved forward, taking the small bundle of fur. The kitten sat poised on his palm, the tone of its mew shifting from aggrieved to pleading. “Traitor,” Rey muttered as Ben ran a single finger down the small spine with a low, reassuring murmur, ruffling dirty calico fur.

Caring for the small creature took precedence over the dinner in progress, for a short while. Phasma took Ben’s former spot at the stove, waving a hand at them both with a casual “I’ll keep an eye on this,” and Rey followed Ben into his bathroom where he proceeded to wash the kitten with flea shampoo and towel it dry before settling it in the small laundry room with everything it might need.

In the dim hall he looked down at her, a smile curving his mouth. “Where did you find her?”

“Under a car.” Shifting her weight from foot to foot (and realizing, belatedly, that she was covered in grease and sweat), she lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “You did want a cat. Cats.”

“And you drop one right in my lap,” he teased, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “You’ll have to think of a good name.”

“Me?”

“You rescued her. Hungry?”

Her stomach growled in answer. “I’ll take a quick shower, check my levels. Give me ten minutes.”

Clean, and wearing a friendly smile after a brisk, silent admonishment to be polite, she rejoined Ben and Phasma in the kitchen for an actual introduction. “Ben has said so many good things about you,” she told the veritable Amazon, extending a hand for a shake. “I’m so glad you’ll be here for the wedding next week.”

Phasma’s handshake was confident and firm, perfectly fitting someone who looked as if she could lead an actual army. “I love a good wedding.” There was a spark of sly amusement in her eyes, and Rey had the unsettling feeling that Phasma had seen right through her lie; possibly all of their lies. “And I have people in the area, so I decided to come early.”

“How nice.” Resisting the urge to touch her engagement ring (there was something oddly soothing about worrying at the setting) Rey moved around the island to lift to her toes and press a kiss to Ben’s cheek. If he could kiss her in front of company, she might as well claim the same guilty privilege. She could hear, faintly, the questioning cry of their new household member. “You’re from the area, then- before college, I mean.”

“Savannah, but an aunt and uncle settled here with my favorite cousins.” She had the look of someone who had grown up in one of those many-windowed mansions, among the trees draped in trailing moss. Phasma sipped her wine, cool and unflustered in a way Rey had never been able to fake. “So I visited often as a child.”

Abruptly her expression shifted, a warmth and humor that encompassed even Rey appearing on her face. “A haven of television and junk food, compared to my house. My cousins and I used to run wild along their street pretending to be Power Rangers, Little Debbies stuffed in our pockets.”

Rey found herself grinning, leaning back against the counter with Ben plating dinner beside her. “Pink Ranger and oatmeal pies?”

Phasma sniffed as if reliving some old grievance. “My cousin Olivia refused to cede that throne, and my poison of choice was fudge rounds.” The corners of her mouth twitched upward. “I preferred being Rita Repulsa, anyway.”

“That explains a lot,” Ben murmured sotto voce, his shoulders shaking slightly when Phasma lobbed a small binder clip at his head stolen from a tidy pile of notes in Ben’s excellent cursive. “I invite her into our home and she chooses violence,” he told Rey dryly. Turning with full plate in hand- the binder clip resting on green beans sauteed with walnuts- he presented it to Phasma with one brow mockingly raised. “Your prize.”

He had been right, Rey reflected as they settled around the table to eat. Their friends would like Phasma. She liked Phasma, for all that she probably shouldn’t.

Hard to hate someone with good taste in villains, she mused with reluctant humor, and applied herself to her food.

- - -

Chapter Text

- - -

- - -

Somehow, Rey had expected that the wedding would just… not happen. That there would be a hiccup in the works (unlikely, with Leia at the helm), or someone would discover their con, or Ben would quietly back out after coming to his senses- and yet, unnervingly, the day of the rehearsal came and dawned blue and bright. Tomorrow she would become Ben’s wife for a second time, and in a much more public manner.

“And I,” she muttered to herself, “am more excited about the kissing than indulging in cake.”

Brides, after all, were kissed- often, and by their new husbands. It was simply a fact, and Rey knew that Ben would do his duty with every evidence of pleasure just as she would string each kiss like a strand of pearls in her mind, coiling the memories away for some darker day.

Greedy, Plutt had called her with a grumble, and he hadn’t been entirely wrong. She had never once, in her life, had enough of anything, and if the little sips and snatches of affection she received were barely enough to survive on, she would nonetheless drink them from Ben’s mouth without a qualm while she still could.

Pathetic, she thought with weary amusement, and snickered loudly enough to wake Sprocket, who mewed in protest and stretched with a glare. “You didn’t have to follow me in here,” Rey pointed out, sweeping the last of her underwear from inside its drawer and dumping it into the laundry basket at her feet. “You could have stayed in Ben’s room, shedding on his pillows.” She moved toward the bed, scritching the kitten under her chin and receiving a reluctant purr for her pains. “You’d like me, if Ben weren’t around,” Rey murmured. “Probably. We’re a bit too alike, aren’t we?”

She didn’t regret saving the little scrap, and knew that to be true. She simply wished that Sprocket would grant a little of the adoration she lavished so freely on Ben on her.

Sighing, she turned back to the dual tasks of eradicating every trace of herself from the room and- thanks to Rose’s reminder- packing a bag for her so-called wedding night.

“It’ll be fun,” Ben had said when the notion of the wedding night and honeymoon had come up, busying himself with loading the dishwasher. “We’ll get a room downtown, drink champagne, order room service. Everyone would expect it of us, anyway; they don’t need to know we’re watching HBO instead of-”

He had blushed crimson. “And we can take a trip over the winter break. Think about where you might want to go.”

Rey, perched on the edge of the kitchen island, had been unable to resist the urge to ask, “What did you do on our last wedding night?”

There had been a beat of silence, one long enough for her to remember the candles she had lit that evening, the feel of her hand between her legs in her lonely bed. “I worked on a paper,” Ben had finally answered, slotting a bowl into place. “Would you like some tea?”

Jeans, Rey thought, shoving aside the memory as she unzipped her overnight bag. Pajamas, a top, underwear-

Digging through the jumbled pile of clothing (she should have packed first), her fingers slid over cool silk and thin straps and stopped.

It would be nice- preferable, really- if she didn’t have to lie when Rose or Paige or Kaydel asked what she packed for her wedding night. Pulling the little lingerie romper free, she held the silk and lace concoction up in indecision. Packing it would be… nothing. Meaningless. It weighed little and would take up no more room than a pair of socks.

A small truth can bolster a big lie, she told herself, rolling slippery fabric into a small bundle and tucking it deep into the bag. She could even pull it out if they demanded to see; make jokes about the lace highlighting her ass as they all prepared for the ceremony the next day.

“Don’t start lying, Sprocket.” She zipped up the bag, ready save the toiletries she would add in the morning, and hefted the laundry basket. “It just turns into an unholy mess, sooner or later.”

- - -

- - -

They were late for their own rehearsal, and it was all (as Ben himself would admit) Ben’s fault, for allowing himself to get caught up in a spur of the moment faculty discussion.

And Sprocket’s fault, seeing as it had been her claws and tiny teeth that had shredded the silk of his selected tie, left carelessly on the dresser while he showered.

And while Rey had been ready and waiting long before Ben at last pulled on his suit jacket (and looking, in her biased opinion, absolutely edible), she still felt guilt of her own settle uneasily in her stomach when they stepped over the threshold of his parents’ home to find his mother waiting in the foyer, a martial light in her eyes- but then Leia’s expression softened, and she kissed Rey’s cheek with a warm, “You out-bloom the garden.” She touched an embroidered spray of green on Rey’s shoulder with approval. “What a pretty dress.”

Rey hoped fervently that Leia’s sharp scrutiny would skim over the gnawed leather strap on her right heel (also courtesy of Sprocket), but the thought slipped away when Ben slid an arm around her waist to toy with a fold of her gauzy skirt. “I’d marry her tonight. She’s already dressed perfectly for a garden wedding.”

“I like my dress for tomorrow,” Rey said lightly, hoping her blush wasn’t quite as vivid as the burn in her cheeks indicated. “I’d like to wear it, thank you.”

“We could still have a wedding tomorrow.” His hand on her waist was warm and sure, his voice teasing. “Third time’s the charm, and all that.”

Leia led them further into the house at a quick clip, music and chatter flowing in from the open veranda doors to the backyard. “What did you wear last time?” she asked, shooting her son a playfully scolding glance. “I still haven’t seen a picture from that day. You would think that the pair of you might have managed one of those askew selfies, at least.”

“We had other things on our minds,” Ben answered before Rey could even open her mouth. “And Rey wore a very pretty dress. Purple, with flowers along the hem.”

A little astounded that he remembered, Rey looked up at him with slowed steps. As Leia drew ahead, voice raised to catch Han’s attention, Rey whispered, “It was just a sundress.”

“And you looked beautiful in it.” He appeared shy, all of a sudden, and drew her through the open door of the study. “I… I saw something that reminded me of that day, actually. Of you. I meant to give it to you before we left, but…”

Releasing her, he slipped his hand into an inner jacket pocket and withdrew a ring, blue-purple stone and rose gold vines gleaming in the slant of sunlight pouring through the nearby window. “The color of your dress, I think,” he murmured, sliding the ring onto her right index finger. “At least as I remember it.”

When, stunned into silence, she failed to respond, he tilted her chin up and searched her face with a worried gaze. “Sweetheart?”

“I-”

Rey faltered, mouth dry. It was a thoughtful gift- and more than that, it was a romantic one.

But the game they played was all the trappings of romance and none of the substance, wasn’t it?

“It’s beautiful,” she said softly, feeling as if she walked a tightrope above a bank of fog, unknowing if a safety net waited beneath. One wrong move would send her plummeting through the air, to be caught or to crash. “I still have that dress.”

His worry visibly eased, a small smile curving his mouth. “Do you?”

She had only worn it once, since their wedding. It felt too special to throw on for just any occasion, for all that she had originally found it on sale at Target, and she had never been able to overcome the fear that she might rip or stain the fabric. “I do.”

He moved a half-step closer, head bent toward hers and an odd, unreadable expression settling on his face. “Are you happy, Rey?” he asked in a low voice that held a thread of tension, of uncertainty, catching her right hand and slipping his thumb over her newly beringed finger. “With our arrangement?”

No. “Of course.”

He took in a deep breath. “I’m not sure I am.”

Trappings. With a dull ache in her chest, Rey blessed whatever sense of self-preservation had kept her from dropping like a stone to the pitiless ground below. “Ben-”

There was a knock at the open door, the quiet clearing of someone’s throat. They both turned to see Han, who shifted his weight with the air of someone who had stumbled into an intensely uncomfortable situation. “Kids. Leia’s looking for you both.” He coughed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks, and when he spoke again his tone was gruff. “But if you need… need an escape route, I could provide a distraction.”

Ben’s hand around hers stayed steady. “You don’t need to set fire to anything, Dad.”

Han flashed them a reluctant, roguish smile. “Once. That only happened once, and it was half Chewie’s fault.”

“It’s not what you think.” Ben placed his other hand at the small of her back, and for one long moment they simply looked at each other, his father waiting patiently at the door. “Ready, sweetheart?”

“Ready.”

She wasn’t, in any way, shape, or form- but she would get through the rehearsal, the dinner, make it home.

And then she would call everything off, so that at least one of them could be happy.

- - -

She dodged Ben at the end of the evening, slipping into Paige’s car while he was cornered by his Uncle Lando. “You okay?” Rose asked from the front passenger seat, awkwardly leaning around the edge to give her a searching look. “Did y’all have a fight, or something?”

“Did you have a spat, kid?” Han had asked during their dance, twirling her with practiced grace. “Leia and I had a real barn burner before our wedding; it happens.”

“It’s just nerves,” she told Rose just as she had told Han, and in a similar echo Rose raised a doubtful brow.

“Because it looked kind of like you and Ben were engaged in some kind of low-speed chase all night, and you were definitely the one running.”

“Oh, he just can’t wait to get me back into bed,” Rey replied flippantly, waving a hand and willing her ragged breathing to smooth. “The man’s insatiable.”

There must have been something to her words that rang true to Rose, because her friend grunted and- after a sisterly shove from Paige- settled properly into her seat. “You’d better hope Poe didn’t notice; you’d never hear the end of it.”

Poe, Rey could have told Rose, would have other things to talk about come the next day- though whether he would ever want to talk with her again was a perplexing question.

My husband got all our friends in the divorce, she imagined joking down the road to faceless, shapeless new friends. And the cat, the money, the health insurance…

It might be funny, some day. Maybe.

“We could stay,” Paige offered when they dropped her off at the apartment. Whereas Rose wore an expression of tipsy concern, Paige looked almost grave- and Paige, Rey well knew, could be almost uncannily insightful at the most awkward of times. “If you’d like the company.”

“No.” Impulsively Rey reached forward through the gap in the seats, taking Paige’s hand and squeezing it. “It’s a big day, tomorrow. I need some sleep.”

“Assuming Sprocket lets you sleep.”

“There is that.” Rey stepped out of the car, a breeze catching her garden of lifeless flowers. “Good night.”

Inside she removed her shoes, carelessly abandoning them for Sprocket to maul, and walked barefoot back to the room she had shared with Ben only once. Sprocket followed close at her heels, tail straight up in the air. “He won’t be home tonight,” Rey told the small cat, the words sticking somewhat in her throat. “But tomorrow… you’ll see him tomorrow. Probably.”

The dress she hung securely in the closet, safe from Sprocket’s curious claws; the rings she tucked away in the drawer of Ben’s bedside table, dropping them one by one onto a tidy pile of handkerchiefs and leaving them in shadow. She moved through her bedtime routine with careful, deliberate movements, removing makeup and changing and brushing her teeth, and flossing with all the care of someone whose dentist was on site and rendering a score.

When she finally sat heavily on the bed, Sprocket watching her from the foot like a judgmental sphinx, she picked up her phone with every intention of sending Leia an email that would doubtless lead to a string of very irritating days and lost deposits.

Instead, she found the lock screen crowded with text messages from Ben, the latest of which had arrived fifteen minutes before.

The snick of the door unlocking, the prick of Sprocket’s ears, the rushed tread of large feet down the hall. Rey looked up, throat tight and heart racing, to meet her husband’s gaze. “I was going to call off the wedding,” she admitted, voice low and tremulous.

He stepped over the threshold and stopped, managing to convey with the quiver of his mouth and the flexing of his hands at his sides that he was holding himself in place by will alone. “Were you?”

“I-”

She sucked in a breath, scrambling for words and feeling rather as if her brain were operating on a delay. Her response, when it came out, was clearly a plea. “I never wanted to make you unhappy, Ben.”

A kind of understanding she herself barely grasped dawned on his face. “And you thought leaving would make me happy, sweetheart?” he asked gently.

“Yes.”

He moved forward to the foot of the bed, stroking a purring Sprocket. “Where are your rings?”

“In a drawer.”

“I think,” he began, lifting Sprocket and carrying her to the hall, “that we don’t need an audience for this portion of the discussion.” He carefully shut the door against the protesting kitten, and for a long moment stood facing away from Rey, hands pressed against the wood.

Finally- the words seemingly dragged from him, each raw and wanting- he said, “Do you love me, Rey?”

She couldn’t swallow the sob that came, nor blink back her tears. “For years.”

He turned, shrugging out of his jacket as he crossed the room and letting it fall to the floor. With the kind of utter calm that could be born only from overwhelming emotion, he took her hand and told her quite seriously, “We’re idiots.”

A hysterical giggle ripped free from her throat, quickly joined by one of his own, and then- blessedly- his mouth was on hers, swallowing her hiccuping, laughing sobs as he bore her down onto the bed.

“We,” he declared between kisses, his hands hot under her shirt but keeping to her waist and back, “are going to talk.”

If it weren’t for the heavy, insistent weight of him on top of her, she might have mistaken the moment for a particularly delicious dream. “Okay.”

“But first-”

His lips trailed up her neck, stopping at the curve of her ear. “You are going to put those rings back on,” he murmured. “Aren’t you, sweetheart?”

Rey could have been liquid, against the sheets- liquid, and soft and pliant and boneless in a way she almost never was, from relief and from love. “Yes, Ben.”

She could feel him smile against her temple. “My sweet little wife.” He brushed a kiss over delicate skin, and there was no doubt from his tone how pleased he was by her response. “Good girl.”

Chapter Text

- - -

Ben was a cuddler. More than that, he was a nuzzler, once the rings were back on her fingers, desperate kisses gentling to his nose combing her hair, his shoes leaving traces of garden dirt on formerly clean sheets.

“Did you love me, when you proposed?” she asked quietly, words humming against the pillowcase. Behind her he was a solid and warm, one arm banded securely around her waist and the tip of his nose slipping to the nape of her neck. She’d never been held with such care, or if she had the event had been long, long ago, when she had been young enough to be held in the crook of one arm.

“Long before.” His lips danced over her skin, all spark and shiver. “Did you?”

“Long before.” She slid her fingers over his, lingering on his wedding ring. “I thought I was so selfish, saying yes.”

“I thought I was selfish, just asking.” He cuddled her closer, one leg hitching over her hip. “But…”

“But?”

“I’d do anything to keep you healthy, Rey.” Another nuzzle, another puff of hot breath against her neck. “Happy. Content.” He curled in, almost pressing her flat to the sheets, and when he spoke again his voice was muffled and embarrassed. “My little wife.”

He had sounded so confident only minutes before, so sure. Squirming around to face him, she tried to meet his gaze in the shadows cast by his cascading hair and close proximity. “I could be your little wife,” she offered in a murmur. “In certain situations.”

She could sense the ripple of something sweet and heady in his mood as his fingertips skated over the dip of her waist. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He shifted, slipping an arm under her head, and added quietly and slowly, “Given… given this very emotional revelation, we could still call off the wedding.”

At her sharp intake of breath he hurried on, free hand curving over her hip. “Only if you need time to adapt, or-”

Ben appeared to bite the inside of his cheek, lashes lowering to veil his eyes. “I want to marry you again,” he murmured. “But I only put up a token protest when my mother started making plans. I’ll stand with you if the idea of the ceremony makes you uncomfortable in any way, for any reason.”

Her initial spurt of panic softened and dissipated. “What made me uncomfortable was how I thought it would be a lie. I… I thought I was holding you back from finding someone better.”

He met her gaze, mouth quirking into a slight, truly disbelieving smile. “Better than you?”

“I’m a nobody with a weird name and a boatload of trauma.” Her smile in return was wry and self-deprecating. “I’ve been playing the part of your wife, Ben. As your actual wife I might be… difficult. Needy.”

“Two words that people have used about me, in the past.” He drew her closer, until she was nestled against his chest and his voice hummed against her hair. “I know you, Rey. I want you just as you are.”

She blinked, a tear slipping free to dot his shirt. “I want too much. Of you. Of everything.” Forcing a joking note into her voice, she added, “I’m practically a gremlin.”

“I know,” he replied easily, and chuckled when she gently pinched his side. “Rey, every single time you shielded me from unwanted attention on nights out I wanted your snarling, possessive act to be real.”

“It was real,” she muttered, snaking a hand between them to loosen his tie.

“Perfect. You protect me, I protect you, we both indulge our insatiable appetites-”

He was smiling when she shoved him to his back, clambering on top to straddle his stomach. His tie she threw to the floor, hardly caring if it became Sprocket’s next victim. “Stay with me,” he said softly, clasping her hips. “I love my Temperance Thursday, my gremlin.”

Ben was a mappable new land beneath her, the upward curve of his mouth and the hopeful warmth in his eyes the friendliest of harbors. “We’re going to have to get a cat that likes me,” she began, hiding her pleasure at the way his smile shifted to a laughing grin. “And I want to sleep on the side of the bed furthest from the door.”

“Very well.” One of his hands slipped under her shirt to rest at the small of her back, gently nudging her down to lie against him. “Any other demands, sweetheart?”

“I get to be the big spoon, sometimes.” Folding her hands under her chin, she closed her eyes to better enjoy the rise and fall of his chest. In a more serious voice she murmured, “We’re going to have a lot to figure out, Ben.”

“I know.” He stroked a soothing trail down her back again and again, the warmth of his hand passing easily through her top. “I’ve never looked forward to anything more.”

“Are you going to stay the night?”

“If you’ll let me.” His hand stopped, lingering at the base of her spine. “Just to sleep.”

It wasn’t a question, but there was a thread of want in his voice that was the closest he had come to acknowledging his erection since climbing into bed with her. In her own vaguely frustrated way, Rey was relieved. It was almost too much, to go from hopeless pining to returned affection to his body warm against her own. The shock of his kisses alone still lingered, prickling under her skin. “Just to sleep,” she agreed.

His voice was quiet and uncertain when he spoke again. “And tomorrow night can still be what we planned. We don’t need to rush into anything.”

“Perhaps we see how we feel tomorrow night.” She opened her eyes, coming to her hands and knees to look down on him. “Both of us.”

He reached up, cupping her cheek. “Okay.”

“You’re still wearing your shoes.” She scrunched her nose, what small tension she had felt slipping away. “I changed these sheets just this morning.”

Ben sat up enough to press a gentle, lingering kiss to her lips. “I’ll help you change them again.” Propped up on his elbows, he gave her a smile that managed to be both dangerously soft and full of roguish charm. “Sweetheart.”

Sprocket, allowed back into the room, supervised the process with a glower worthy of a cat much older, tail twitching. It was only after Ben settled into bed beside Rey, wearing boxers and a faded Duke University tee, that she deigned to join them. With a haughty strut and a dismissive look in Ben’s direction she curled up on Rey’s chest and began to purr.

“She’s only doing this to punish you,” Rey pointed out over the sound of Ben’s chuckle. “My requirement still stands.”

“Of course.” He switched off his lamp, laughing under his breath, and in the dark curled up against her side. “We’ll find one that swats at my ankles and hisses.”

“We don’t need to go that far.”

His fingertips slid over the sensitive skin of her inner arm. “Sleep well.” There was a beat, and when he spoke again she could hear just how much he enjoyed the words dropping from his lips. “I love you, Rey.”

“I love you, too.”

The words were honey sweet, in her mouth, and clear as a bell.

- - -

- - -

“Sweetheart.”

Rey twitched, burying her head further into her pillow and ignoring the coaxing voice at her back.

“Little wife.” There was a warm, ticklish brush against the nape of her neck. “We never set an alarm.”

“Mph.”

“Rose is in the living room and quite insistent that you, and I quote, ‘get into the ding dang shower’.”

Slowly, grumpily, she surfaced, and briefly stiffened before rolling over to blink sleepily up at him. “It wasn’t a dream?” she asked in a raspy voice, and watched as a slow smile appeared on Ben’s face.

“Not at all.” His thumb tapped lightly on her lower lip. “Still planning on marrying me a second time, sweetheart?”

Still a little muddled, she nuzzled into his hand. “As long as I get to sleep in tomorrow.”

“I’ll carry you out of the hotel myself, if checkout comes and you’re not awake.” Ben stood, already in jeans and a half-buttoned shirt, and ran a hand through his tousled hair. “I’ll see you in the garden?”

She stretched, watching as his gaze warmed and then grew downright heated at her response. “I’ll be there, husband.”

Rose bustled in as Ben left, her expression a mix of amusement and good-natured annoyance. “You do realize you’re getting married this afternoon, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“And you’re supposed to be getting your hair done in forty minutes.”

Rey blinked, frowning at the ceiling, and then jackknifed into a sitting position and threw off the covers. “Fuck.”

As she scrambled into the bathroom she caught a quick glimpse of Ben leaning back inside, fixing a stern look on Rose. “Make sure she eats.”

“You might want to check your phone,” Rose replied dryly. “I think your mother is looking for you.”

Just as the door closed Rey heard an unrepentant Ben continue with “I could make her a veggie hash and-”

She was late. She was late, and hungry, and had a pillow crease on one cheek, but for one long moment Rey stared into the mirror and allowed herself to simply breathe with a bewildered grin.

Loved. She was also, inexplicably, very loved.

- - -

Something old. Nana Padmé’s Juliet cap veil, still in excellent condition after decades of loving care.

Something new. Her wedding dress, all white gauze and embroidery.

Something borrowed. Leia’s own wedding pearls, clasped around her throat and dangling from her ears.

Something blue. Blue heels, complete with obligatory sixpence purchased from Etsy and pressed against the ball of her right foot.

Everything checked off the list, one by one, leaving Rey standing all nerves in front of an old-fashioned mirror in the Organa-Solo home, one hand pressed against her stomach. “Is it too much?” she asked Rose anxiously. “I’ve mixed too many eras, haven’t I?”

“You have not,” Rose said firmly. “You look gorgeous, and Ben is probably going to cry. As he should.” She handed Rey a tissue, expression contemplative. “The pair of you seemed better, this morning.”

Rey nodded, balling the tissue up in one fist. Her own tears would come soon enough; at that moment she couldn’t be anything other than antsy and eager to fast-forward the hour. “We talked.”

“A good talk?”

The memory of warmth, of the feel of Ben’s mouth against her own, of the words I love you brought a wave of breathless joy. “A very good talk,” Rey whispered, throat tight.

Rose gave her another long, considering look, and then broke into a grin. “Thank God. I really, really, really did not want to test Leia’s patience by stealing you away.”

Feeling the first prick of tears, Rey giggled raggedly and lifted the scrunched tissue to her eyes. “It would have ended up being a multi-car chase to the coast.”

Rose snorted, shaking her head. “Please. They’d have taken Han’s plane and beaten us there by several hours. We would have shown up at our airbnb desperate for naps only to find Leia drinking wine on the patio.”

Rey laughed again with a snort of her own, tossing the used tissue in favor of a fresh one when Rose held the box out to her. “And Han shrugging, half apology and half disappointment.”

“And Ben all big-eyed with longing, shoulders hunched.” Rose lifted a brow, and there was something to her demeanor that made Rey wonder if she had really believed her excuses, the night before. “A state I’ve seen him in often.”

There was a long silence, one eventually broken by Rose saying quietly, “Maybe you’ll tell me about it, someday.”

There was no anger to Rose’s words, nor any shred of annoyance. It was an offer, not a demand, and the gently amused set of her friend’s mouth indicated that when the truth finally came out they would laugh together in the telling rather than let that truth become a wedge between them. “Kind of a long story,” Rey ventured slowly.

“I’m a patient gal,” Rose replied cheerfully with a brief, one-shouldered shrug. “And I’m great at listening.”

The knock at the door barely preceded Kaydel and Paige’s entrance, with Leia and the photographer just behind them, and just like that there was noise and laughter and activity with Rey at the center of it all. Her friends and mother-in-law fluffed invisible wrinkles from her skirt and twitched her veil to hang properly down her back, keeping her so distracted that she barely noticed their quiet, circling sixth.

“Perfect,” Leia declared softly in a moment that was just the two of them, the others gathered around the mirror for a last-minute check of their makeup. Her undivided attention, at that moment, enfolded rather than unnerved. “Thank you for indulging me with all this fuss, dear.”

“There’s been a shortage of fuss, in my life.” Blinking back new tears, Rey twisted her engagement ring around her finger. “Thank you.”

Leia’s hug was hard, crushing the folds of her veil and dress alike with abandon. “Now,” she said briskly, pulling back and doing her best to undo the damage, “let’s get you to the garden, shall we?” Her smile, when it came, was teasing, wry, and a little teary. “Preferably before Ben comes to fetch you himself, which he likely will if we are even five minutes late.”

“Yes.” Feeling her breath catch, Rey accepted her bouquet. “I’m ready.”

- - -

- - -

She could have walked down the grassy aisle by herself, or on Han’s arm, or even with Rose and Paige on either side and Kaydel behind- and originally, the plan had been that she would walk alone, just as she so often had.

As of that morning, walking alone no longer appealed. Instead a flurry of texts over the lunch hour assured that Rey met Ben at the beginning of the aisle, her steps quickening as his expression shifted from anticipation to raw, utter joy at the sight of her.

“You,” he murmured under the cover of the string quartet, as if that one word alone contained everything in the universe. Taking her free hand in his own, he lifted it to place a kiss against the inside of her wrist. “I love you, sweetheart.”

She could hear, distantly, the rustle and quiet buzz of their guests, all likely watching their meeting. “I know,” she replied with an awe she couldn’t begin to contain, the knowledge still so new and so heady that it was a life-altering marvel at every reminder. Smiling tremulously, she tangled her fingers with his. “Walk with me, Ben?”

Hand in hand they walked down the aisle, and for the second time in her life Rey swore to love and to cherish.

“I meant it the first time,” he murmured in her ear when invited to kiss the bride, and brushed his lips over her forehead.

Rising to her toes, she curved a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him, unresisting, closer. “So did I,” she whispered in return, and kissed him as a breeze caught her veil, sending it up in a billow behind her.

- - -

Chapter Text

- - -

Ben was at the opposite side of the bed, when she left the bathroom, his shirt unbuttoned and feet bare. “I should have made you buy something skimpy,” Rey nervously joked, resisting the urge to cross her arms over her barely covered breasts. “Honestly kind of… of ridiculous, the bride being the only one to, uh-”

She faltered, tongue failing her, and gruffly managed a muttered, “Do you like it?”

Ben almost seemed to stumble over his own feet as he crossed the room, and the sight was heartening. “I-”

He cleared his throat, fingertips settling hesitantly over the lace cut high on her hips. “I’ve dreamed of this,” he admitted in a voice so raspy, so strained, that she swayed closer. “Of you. Imagined it our first wedding night.” The smile Ben gave her was shy and self-deprecating. “That was a lie, when you asked- I couldn’t concentrate worth a damn for days.”

A flutter in her stomach, Rey admitted quietly, “I made do with just my fingers and daydreams.”

She could see the moment his posture grew more certain, the moment his expression shifted to a sweet kind of purpose. When his hands nudged under lace and silk she inched closer. “You don’t need to play a part, with me.”

“I’m not.” He grasped the bare curves of her ass, the strain of his hands alone against the fabric pulling the romper taut against sensitive flesh. When she sucked in a breath, eyes closing, he tugged her flush against him and bent to whisper in her ear. “I want to take care of you, little wife. If you’ll let me.”

She wanted to melt, to grind against the tension of silk between her legs, but instead she grabbed his arms in warning. “This is a private matter.”

“I know.” Other than shifting his hands to her waist, he merely waited for her decision. “This dynamic is between us, and whenever you agree- now, or fifty years from now.”

“I-”

It was a moment for honesty. With a lick of her tongue over dry lips she admitted in a whisper, “I do want to be taken care of, sometimes.” Taken care of wholeheartedly and without a grudging air, by someone who would allow her to retake control more easily than she might cede it.

Ben, in other words. Her husband twice over, and her friend for so very, very long.

Taking in a deep breath, she gentled her hold. “Take care of me, Ben?” She allowed herself a beat, a pause, before adding, “Please.”

The word was like a lock to a key. Ben folded her back into him, his smile a gentler version of the one that had greeted her at their wedding. “You just have to tell me when to stop,” he murmured, slipping a hand between her legs to trace one knuckle over damp silk. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she breathed, tipping her head back. She could close her eyes, expose her vulnerable neck in safety. “I’m still going to be greedy.”

“Are you?”

“I’ve wanted to touch you for a very long time.”

Ben’s hold became a downright cuddle, his nose nuzzling into her loosened hair. “You can touch me,” was his muffled response. “You can pet me, sweetheart. Whenever you want.”

Her mouth curved into a lazy smile as she carded her fingers through his hair. “What a good husband you are,” she murmured, and squeaked when he lifted her off the floor.

“Okay?” he asked in a low voice, meeting her wide-eyed gaze, and waited until she nodded and wrapped her legs around his waist to continue. “I knew you’d fit perfectly into my arms.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, the protective, almost chaste gesture in shivering contrast to the feel of him between her legs and his hand firm against her ass. Ben didn’t seem to be in any hurry to take her anywhere, even though the bed was only a few feet away and it would have been easy enough for him to deposit her with a bounce onto crisp white sheets. “Little wife.”

It was sinful, the way his voice wrapped around those two words. He could never be allowed to say them in public, if only because she would run the risk of spontaneous combustion. “Do you want to know when I knew I was falling in love?”

A hint of pink appeared on his cheeks. “Yes.”

“When I hugged you for the first time.” Years before, when they had only known each other a few months and she had been a relative newcomer to their friend group.

“Bowling,” he murmured, a soft smile appearing on his face. “You were wearing cutoffs and a green top, and brought a pair of bright pink socks to wear with your rented shoes.”

“You remember.”

“I was half in love with you already. You knocked down one pin and threw yourself into my arms as if you had just won the game.”

She snorted, gently rubbing his earlobe between two fingers for no other reason than because she could. “I’d never bowled before; one pin felt like a true victory. And-”

Blushing, she lifted one shoulder in an awkward shrug. “I’m not a big hugger. Usually.”

“I know.”

“The moment I realized you were the exception… that’s when I knew.”

His eyes closed briefly, dark lashes captivating her at close range. “You didn’t hug me for a good six months, after that.”

“Exceptions are terrifying, sometimes.” Dropping her head to his shoulder, she snuggled in. “Aren’t your arms getting tired?”

“Not really.” He sounded a little distracted, and the reason why was quickly revealed. “Are you still scared, Rey?”

“No.” Nipping at his neck (and grinning when his grip tightened) she whispered, “You love me. Why should I be scared?”

The quiet, muffled noise he made in the back of his throat had her digging her heels in, tongue snaking out to taste his skin. “Are you going to take me to bed or not, husband?”

What followed wasn’t a fall so much as a carefully controlled drop; sheets at her back and Ben hovering over her on hands and knees, the twining of her legs around his waist keeping her hips in the air. “You’re going to have to let go, sweetheart,” he told her with a heated, pleading look. “I promised to be thorough.”

She let herself slip entirely onto the bed, leaving her legs lax and open to either side of him. “Okay.”

For a long moment he looked indecisive and hungry, one hand lifting to skim a finger under a thin shoulder strap. “I want to know if you don’t like something. You don’t have to endure anything, sweetheart.”

“I hope that understanding is mutual, Ben.”

“It is.” Still, he didn’t do anything more than continue to tug lightly at the strap, and it took her a beat to comprehend that he wanted her assurance plainly.

“Ben Solo,” she told him, voice as stern as she could make it when she wanted more than anything to grind up against his thigh, “if you ever attempt an intimacy I don’t like you will know. Immediately.”

His eye-crinkling, pleased grin in response was unreasonably charming- and the blanketing of her body with his own seconds later, unbelievably delicious. “My little gremlin,” he murmured, catching her mouth in a teasing kiss. “So pretty in silk and lace.” Another kiss that was far too short and much too light. “When we get home you should show me what else you got at that party.”

Ruthlessly wrinkling his shirt within her fists, she used every bit of strength she had to keep him in place. “I think you saw most of it spread over your backseat.”

“I was trying not to look.”

“What a gentleman,” she said lightly, impatiently. “I dare say you’ll see everything eventually.”

He nuzzled the tip of his nose against her own. “I’m going to strip you bare, little wife.”

Her quiet, choked gasp clearly gave him pause, but when she released a handful of his shirt to reach up and slip a strap off her own shoulder he visibly relaxed. Dipping his head, he flicked his tongue over the spot where the ticklish crease of her underarm began. “Lovely,” he breathed for no reason she could determine. “Are you going to let me pin your hips down, sweetheart? Map you out with my tongue?”

Very nearly stumbling over her own tongue, she managed a shaky, “Yes.”

“I had this chair, in my Santa Barbara apartment,” he continued as he toyed with the second strap, his murmur almost conversational, “soft and low; green velvet. When I saw it in the store I thought of you.”

A little difficult to think, with him guiding her arms free and lace barely veiling her nipples. “You did?”

“I thought of you reading, curled up in that chair.” His fingertips brushed over the tops of her breasts. “Most of the time. But sometimes-”

Ben gently tugged on silk, baring her from the waist up. Lying beneath him, watching as his gaze sharpened, the cage of his body was an exciting, beautiful thing. “Sometimes at night I’d be doing some reading of my own, and I’d see that chair in its corner and imagine kneeling in front of it, kissing my way up the inside of your thighs. A pretty little throne for my pretty little wife.”

Rey blinked, taking in a deep, ragged breath at the idea. “Is that the chair in my room? The one I’ve been piling clean laundry on?”

She caught a glimpse of his smile before he dipped his head to nuzzle at her breasts. “I did buy it for you.”

Shutting her eyes- he trailed kisses over her skin as if she were glass, as if she might shatter, and she had missed out on this for years, years- she asked, “Could we move it to our room?”

“Tomorrow,” he promised, and licked a stripe over one peak that had her gasping.

His exploration of her was a meandering path: no race to a known finish line, no academic cataloging of her breasts and cunt to the exclusion of all else. Playful teasing would shift to adoring, whispered compliments about the mole above one hip, the spray of freckles on her shoulder, the curve of her knee, and when she reached to examine the bulge of his bicep or the trail of hair peeking just above his underwear he would stop and stroke her hair and let her touch and taste and nip. His only moment of stubborn, selfish focus was when he had one arm banded over her hips and his head between her thighs- and even then, she knew that if she said stop he would immediately pull away.

She didn’t. The pleasure he coaxed from her was too brilliant, too starry to miss; she let him shake her apart piece by besotted piece.

“My pretty little wife,” he whispered against her stomach when she trembled through the aftershocks, nuzzling her belly button at her almost soundless mewl. “My good girl, letting her husband take care of her,” he murmured as he notched himself between her thighs- and paused, cupping her cheek. “Are you ready, sweetheart?”

She caught his hand and pressed a lingering kiss to his wedding ring. “Yes.”

A tear hit her cheek the moment he bottomed out, but it wasn’t her own. Overcome with the feel of him over her, in her, Rey at first barely noticed- but then Ben buried his face in her hair, her name in his mouth wondering and muffled and raw, and under her hands his shoulders shook.

There was only one thing she could think to do. Half breathless declaration, half reassurance, she informed him firmly, “You’re mine.” Wrapping her arms around his back and dragging her still shaking legs up to bracket his hips, she grinned at his startled, grateful laugh. “My sweet Ben. My husband, for keeps.”

He lifted his head, cheeks wet with tears and eyes soft. “I am.”

“Mine,” she murmured as he rocked into her. “Mine, mine, mine.” Each repetition an encouragement, a reminder, a promise, sparking heat in his gaze and drawing his mouth into a sure smile.

“Yours,” he agreed, his voice a low, grumbling purr, and dedicated himself to proving just that.

- - -

- - -

“Close your eyes.”

Yawning, Rey nestled further into his hold. “The wedding night’s over once I fall asleep.”

“Technically we’re already into the next morning,” he said with gentle amusement, tugging the covers up around her shoulders. In the dark he seemed bigger than he already was, his body warming what seemed to be every inch of her own. “Keep this up and I’ll have to take care of the problem myself.”

Her eyelids refused to open all the way, but greedy to not let the night slip through her fingers she resisted the urge to let them close entirely. “Hmm?”

His hand skimmed down her hair, curving loosely around the back of her neck. “I think I can bore you to sleep.”

She disagreed with a tired snort.

“Oh, I think I can.” He modulated his voice into a soothing murmur, all hum and calm. “That chicken soup you like so much… first, you have to pick a good chicken. From a butcher, preferably...”

His quiet recitation, step by step by step, washed over her like lapping waves. The last thing she remembered was his recipe for mirepoix (more carrots than celery, onions chopped fine) and something about butter.

She dreamed of him in the kitchen, smiling at her and stirring something that smelled like heaven.

- - -

- - -

There were changes, over the next few days; changes deliberately carried out by the pair of them yet so innocuous that no one else would know their meaning at a casual glance. Two chairs were swapped (gray for green, one bedroom to another), the one in the master paired with a new floor lamp and angled discretely toward a long mirror. A tangle of charging cords and hair ties took up residence inside the drawer of one bedside table. A purple sundress was shuffled to the front of Rey’s half of the closet, and worn for the first time in years. Small, tiny changes that nonetheless settled deep and certain, sweet as the kisses she received on greeting and parting and in between.

“I love you,” Ben told her often, the phrase never growing stale.

“I know,” she would say in reply. “I love you, too.”

Because he did, and she did, and no longer would words go unsaid.

- - -