Chapter Text
Like clockwork, he appeared the next day.
She had been on mission with Finn and Poe, BB-8 somewhere not too far behind. She hadn’t even noticed she was staring until Finn had asked what was wrong as she looked just past him off into the distance. She was staring at him of course, materialized in the midst of the woods they searched like a black omen against the blaring green of the leaves and grass.
She blinked.
“Oh, nothing, Finn…I just…”
He tilted his head to the side. It was like he was tantalizing her, beckoning her. Her eyes bounced between where he stood and where Finn was in front of her, trying to figure out a way to ignore the pull she felt toward the connection. She was on mission. She couldn’t just abandon it, she needed to stay focused to keep on track. Her eyes roamed back to him as she watched him unlatch the back of his helmet, pulling it off and shaking his hair loose from its restraints. She had to find a way to get around Finn, to get him off her trail or something. The Force always had a reason, always…Her eyes landed on a thick section of trees that covered the entrance of a cave just a short sprint away from them.
“I need to see what’s in that cave,” she said suddenly, her eyes snapping back to Finn.
Finn glanced over his shoulder toward where the cave lay. Her heart skipped for a moment, fearing that he could see him too. But he didn’t show any signs of seeing anything out of the ordinary and she sighed in relief, fiddling with the tie of the strap around her waist.
“Are you sure Rey? BB-8’s coordinates show that the map leads us another way—”
“I’m sure.”
She laid a reassuring hand on his arm. “I have to go by myself though.”
Finn flustered at this, crossing his arms and giving Poe a glare across her shoulder. “What is it?” His voice lowered, so Poe couldn’t hear. “Is it…”
Ben smirked from behind him, eyes still on her. She feared the worst for a fleeting moment. Finn could see him and was just better at hiding his reactions than she realized. Her ruse would be over and they’d have to turn and go back to base—
“Is it the Force? Is it telling you to…go in there?”
Rey smiled from relief.
She nodded.
“Alone, though,” she restated, taking her hand from his arm.
Her eyes glanced up to make sure Ben was still there.
He was.
“I’ll be fine, go with Poe and I’ll catch up with you.”
And that was how she found herself walking defiantly toward a cave that the Force most certainly had not told her to go in, the Supreme Leader of the First Order following close behind her heels.
“You’re outside I suppose?”
She ignored him and kept walking. She couldn’t answer him back lest she raise Finn and Poe’s suspicion even more. She hadn’t told them about the bond and had no plans to. Ever. It was her burden, her business, her weight to carry—
“I’m a burden then?”
“Get out of my head,” she grumbled back under her breath.
“It’s not as if I have a choice.”
He was shoulder to shoulder with her now. Where was he walking in his own world? Why didn’t the Force just materialize him in the cave if it knew where she was going? The Force was just so…strange at times.
She pushed aside the branches of the trees that shrouded the entrance and entered the cave, igniting her lightsaber to let the glow be her light as she ventured a bit further inside.
“Is it dark where you are…?” She heard him ask from behind her.
“I’m in a cave.”
The familiar voom of another lightsaber echoed off the cave walls followed by the warmth of a red glow. She turned around so that the two lightsabers were held between them, the light casting shadows on each their faces.
Thank you.
“Why did you leave the traitor?”
“Finn is not a traitor.”
Ben raised an eyebrow, turning the hilt of his lightsaber around in his hand. “Depends on who you ask I suppose.”
She didn’t answer that.
“You kept it.”
She narrowed her eyes in confusion. “Kept what?”
“The braid.”
“Oh.” Her other hand reached back to tug the tail of it over her shoulder. “Yes, I…” Didn’t want to take it out. “It was a big hit,” she said, a slight laugh to her tone. “No one has ever really talked to me about my hair before…they think I did it,” she added after a moment, blush creeping to her cheeks against her will.
He lowered his lightsaber as she talked, his other gloved hand coming up to stroke the hair that had fallen out of his carefully woven strands. His saber switched off.
“And would a cave in the middle of a mission be an...alright place to practice your braiding skills?”
She lowered her lightsaber too.
“What do you mean? I don’t know how to…” But she stopped as he reached through the bond to rest a hand on her shoulder, guiding her to turn around so her back was towards him. Her braid was pulled over her shoulder and she felt his hands raking through her hair, easily combing out the braid he had done only the day before.
“What are you doing?”
“Jedi padawans wore a braid when they were training…ah, but you would know that had you a sensible teacher,” his voice was low enough that she barely heard him.
She hadn’t known that.
“And I suppose you would be that sensible teacher?” Another gentle pull on her hair, another brush of gloved fingertips across her neck.
“I never liked my braids,” he mused instead of answering her question.
Her imagination was flooded with images of a small dark haired boy with a small braids littering his hair, chasing a droid around a white marble floor.
The images were gone just as soon as they had come.
Ben. It was Ben.
“That was you,” she stated as she felt him stop mid-braid.
“That was a fool, too young to know any better, too young to realize the corruption around him.”
She frowned, trading her lightsaber to her other hand.
But the flashes of images came again, this time more vivid and colorful. Long dark brown hair looped into intricate braided patterns…soft hands criss crossing hair until another set of hands came to rest on top, guiding them in the right direction…”You must put this piece over first, Ben”….
“Stop, stop…” he whispered, his grip on hair becoming tighter with each passing second.
“Leia...Your mother taught you how to braid, didn’t she?”
He was silent but she had seen all she needed to. It was there, so obviously there: the light in him. If only he would just take the time to breathe and let it wash over him. Ben was still there, she knew he was, she could feel it. And he loved his mother, loved her so very much.
“I have no mother.”
And with that he set the finished braid back across her shoulder.
Rey turned around, holding her lightsaber down toward the ground. She looked at him in the blue shadows that made his eyes glow in the cool tones of the light. Tired. His eyes were always so tired.
“You don’t hate her. I know you don’t…and she loves you and misses you. I see it in her everyday—”
“You feel only what’s on the surface, only what the light side of the Force wants you to feel. You have to look deeper, Rey. If you would've had a decent teacher you would know that the light is fickle, the light hides what is not good. You have to realize that.”
He stood, quietly seething over her but voice still calm. “I could show you, if you’d just come with me. I could show you everything the light is robbing you of—”
“And if you came with me? I could show you how wrong you are. How the light side doesn’t lie to you, it’s the dark side, Ben, that is full of falsehoods. I’ll bring you home, all you have to do is follow me. Follow the light. Ben…”
He lifted his hand to smooth over the bumps in her hair where the top of the braid was uneven. “It isn’t as simple as you make it out to be. Nothing is that easy…”
She tilted her head further back to truly look at him, his eyes cast down to stare into hers.
“Will you show me how you braid?”
He blinked, confusion taking over his features before his hand dropped from her hair and back to his side. She could feel him fading, his form becoming transparent as the Force decided they’d had enough of each other for the time being. His voice was soft, but she could still make out his words as he vanished from her view:
“One day.”