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Ten Years of Reylo: Flash Fiction Challenge
Stats:
Published:
2025-11-13
Words:
952
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
16
Kudos:
45
Bookmarks:
5
Hits:
153

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Summary:

a ficlet for the RFFA Flash Fiction Challenge.
Prompt: "Take My Hand"

Work Text:

 

Her head pounds in time to her heart as her eyes flutter open. She’s sprawled out on the floor, twisted and uncomfortable where the power of the saber breaking apart flung her, and Rey pants for breath before rolling to her side, cataloguing any potential injuries. No broken bones. Scrapes cover nearly every inch of bare skin, and below her tunic and pants bruises grow tender and sore. 

The room is on fire. Flames lap up what’s left of the crimson curtains, and on the floor, rubble and the remains of Snoke’s praetorians burn, filling the room with the foul stench of death. 

Rey sits up carefully, her gaze scanning the room for movement, and seeing none, she stands. There’s a mass of black fabric and pale skin where Ben (Kylo?) lays motionless, save for the rise and fall of his chest. The saber they had fought over is spread in pieces between them, and Rey begins gathering what remains. Ben sleeps like a baby, lips parted and brow furrowed as she tucks pieces of metal and kyber into her tunic, saving them because she doesn’t know any difference. You can take the scrapper off Jakku, but you can’t stop them from scapping. She’ll just have to learn how to build her own saber. Someday. 

A noise and a motion at the door have Rey scrambling for a weapon, her fingers curling into tight fists when she comes up empty—not even a blaster is within reach. 

She watches in horror as Hux strides into the room, one hand folded behind himself, the other holding a blaster, which is trained on her. As she stares, Hux sees Ben on the floor. The two halves of Snoke. The shredded curtains, and the dead praetorians. 

“What have you done, little desert rat?” Hux hisses, his lip curling and his boots echoing on the glossy floor as he marches forward. His finger curls around the trigger as she watches, stomach sinking. 

How had it all come down to this—to Hux shooting her point-blank after she’d fought (and won!) against Snoke’s guards? With Ben unconscious, silent and too far away to touch?

She fully expects to be shot, her spine stiff as if she can brace against a bolt of plasma, but before the blaster goes off, Hux is suddenly shoved violently into the wall by an invisible hand. He hits with a sickening crunch, and falls into a crumbled, unmoving heap. 

The room is silent, and Rey slowly turns, her heart hammering in her chest, because there’s Ben, sitting up with his hair in wild disarray, one hand extended in front of him with a look of shock painted across his face. 

“Been wanting to do that for years,” he groans, rubbing a palm across his face. 

“Ben—”

“Were you serious?” he interrupts, his voice a hoarse demand.

“Serious?” Rey can’t follow his line of thinking, her eyes still snagged on Hux, watching him like a hawk for any signs of movement. 

“About leaving. Getting out of here.” Ben stands, looking at the black mark on the floor where the saber had been. 

“You refused!” Rey can’t help herself from shouting at him, because is he serious? Now he wants to—

“Consider my mind changed,” he snaps as they both turn towards the corridor where the heavy fall of footsteps is getting louder. 

“We have to leave,” Ben says, striding towards her. “Now.” 

As he speaks, he takes his gloves off and throws them on the ground before ripping the neck of his tunic wide open, exposing a pale throat and a bobbing Adam’s apple as he looks at her expectantly. 

This time when he offers her his bare hand, she takes it.

They take off running, and Rey scoops up Hux’s blaster as they race past him, just in time to see a phalanx of troopers run into the throne room from a hidden entrance. 

“Where,” Rey gasps, firing a shot over her shoulder, “Are we going?” 

“Aft hanger bay,” Ben says, using the Force to jam open a blast door. As soon as they make it through, he slams it shut, and they both wince as metal folds under his power. 

“A ship?” She asks, thumbing the blaster to stun and shooting a pair of troopers as they round a corner. 

“A ship,” he confirms, yanking her down a brightly lit corridor. “Stay alert—”

Rey shoots three more troopers in quick succession, but not before one gets a shot off, singeing Ben’s shoulder. He shoots her a pointed look, and Rey raises one eyebrow at him—but are you hurt?

“Aren’t you glad you took my hand?”

“Technically, you took mine,” Ben retorts, flinging a storage crate through the air at a heavily armored trooper who caught Rey in his rifle’s sight. 

“Can we—” Rey snaps, yanking on Ben’s hand, “Have this argument later? Maybe when we’re not being shot at?”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

“I’m right, though,” Ben says, ripping a handful of wires free from a locking mechanism with his free hand. Sparks fly, and he grins at her like he’s having a good time.

“I’ll leave you here,” Rey snaps, twisting and firing blindly behind them.

Ben lets go of her hand and wraps his arm around her waist, dragging her sideways as Rey tries (and fails) to catch her breath. The space where her head had been moments before is suddenly a smoking crater of a blaster bolt, and she stares up at him in momentary shock.

“No, sweetheart,” he murmurs, staring down at her before his fingers tangle with hers again. Rey lets him tug her confidently down another dark corridor, presumably towards their escape—and freedom. “You won’t.”