10. Chapter 10: Soft

10. Soft

Rey was meditating, trying her hardest to attain some measure of peace, when a familiar tug in the Force alerted her to something she'd been afraid she might never feel again. Her eyes flew open and met his.

"Ben!"

He actually grinned at her before forcing his face into an expression of disinterested surprise. "Rey." But his emotions met hers, gratefulness and something wonderfully like happiness.

"Stars, Ben, I thought you were dead! What happened?"

"I'm offended," he snorted. "I had everything under control." He was wearing black pants, a tight grey shirt, and worn black boots. As a matter of fact, he looked more comfortable than she'd ever seen him, despite his injuries. She could feel them again – the ones in his hip and his shoulder, but also two wounds in his lower back and one in his left thigh.

"Liar," she said lightly, trying not to sound too shaken. He was alive, after all – that was enough.

He sighed and ran a hand through his messy hair. "Look, Rey... I... Thank you. For helping me." He winced and didn't seem to want to look at her.

"I didn't know what else to do," she explained.

"You shouldn't have, though," he said fiercely, holding up his hand. "That was reckless and you hurt yourself and I told you-"

"You could have died without me, Ben Solo!" Rey snapped. Unbelievable. Of course he couldn't just accept her help.

"Well," he shifted, and winced again, "Maybe. But I still wish you-"

"Oh, shut up," Rey said, and lunged forward and hugged him, instinctively not touching his injuries. He felt solid and warm and alive.

"Ow," he grumbled, and she felt he was embarrassed, but he put an arm around her instead of pushing her away. "If I didn't know better I'd say you were worried about me," he said, patting her shoulder awkwardly.

"I was! I told you, I thought you were dead."

Ben pulled back and stared at her. "I wouldn't have thought you'd care."

"That's not fair," she told him, a little stung. After everything, she expected he knew better than that. She felt he was sorry for saying it and didn't totally believe it. "What happened, anyway?"

"General Hux decided he didn't like my leadership style," Kylo growled. "And for that matter, neither did anyone else. So they decided it would be better for them if I was dead."

"Oh." Somehow, Rey was glad to hear that. Maybe if Kylo wasn't with the First Order anymore he'd come to them. To her. She scooted back and grinned at him. "I can't believe you're okay. Where are you?"

"I'm not telling you that," he said, smiling but dead serious. "I still don't need the Resistance paying me a visit – I'm having enough trouble avoiding the First Order."

Rey let that go. She figured it was too much to ask that he suddenly decided to rejoin the Resistance, and she supposed it was better for him to be off on his own than commanding the First Order. She was just relieved he was alive. She wanted to keep touching him somehow, feeling the need to be sure he was okay, but she thought she'd already pushed it by hugging him.

"Are your injuries healing okay?" she asked, instead.

"I don't know. They hurt, and I think if I'm not careful I could tear them open."

Rey nodded. "The best thing you can do is keep changing the bandages and take it as easy as possible. They're going to scar – there's nothing you can do about that right now. Drink as much water as you can."

"Thanks. I, um… There was something I wanted to…" Kylo rubbed the back of his neck and then got up, pacing a short distance away and rummaging through something. He came back and sat down, proffering a small, familiar object. Her homemade doll, a little sandy but still intact. She breathed in sharply and took it, running her fingers over the familiar folds of fabric.

"You found it?" she asked, although it was an obvious question. She hadn't missed her home before, and she still didn't, mostly, but the toy made her remember countless nights unable to sleep. Nights when she clung to her little pretend pilot as if it could protect her from the lonely sounds of the desert and from the fear that her parents did not want her.

"I went to your house," Kylo said, sounding careful. His thoughts were nervous, full of doubt, as if he worried she'd be angry at him. "I saw it and I thought… I thought maybe you'd want it back."

Rey, strangely, wanted to cry. Wanted to cry because he'd listened to her story and decided she'd want this silly little keepsake from her childhood. Because he'd cared about who she'd been before. "Thank you," she said softly, afraid to look at him. Her emotions were all mixed together in her stomach and she was afraid that if she met his eyes the feelings would come together into something she didn't want him to sense.

"You counted the days," Kylo said, and she heard a catch in his voice and felt his injuries throb suddenly. She glanced up; he'd pulled his long legs up to his chest and put his arms around them. "Hundreds and hundreds of marks. Why didn't you ever just give up?"

Rey sighed and looked down. "I don't know. I couldn't, I guess. There wasn't much to hold onto on Jakku, just survival and whatever dreams we had. I couldn't really leave, either, so if I just told myself it was because I was waiting for my parents… It was just something to hope for."

"Hope is important to you." It wasn't a question.

"Sometimes it's all we have," Rey answered, setting the doll carefully to one side. "Even if it isn't realistic." She met Kylo's eyes and smiled at him. He looked… gentle, again. Like he had when she told him about her vision on Luke's island.

"You had a pilot helmet in your house," he said, voice pitching almost jovial. "Where'd you get that? Did you take it off the corpse, too?"

Rey blushed and looked away. "Maybe."

"That," Kylo said, "is disgusting. Don't tell me you'd play with it."

Rey covered her face in her hands. "Look, there were a lot of dead things out there. I didn't really know to care."

"Oh, stars, Rey, that's horrible," Kylo groaned. "You took a helmet off a decaying man's head and then you decided to play dress-up with it?"

She shook her head, bursting out laughing. He was so disgusted. She forgot, sometimes, that he was the son of a princess, raised in comfort. She leaned forward, meeting his eyes, stifling her laughter. "Yes. There were even maggots in the helmet, but I just dumped them out and put it on."

Kylo's face curled in a wonderfully comical grimace, and Rey laughed so hard she doubled over. "I'm kidding," she gasped. "It was a clean skeleton, Ben. No maggots or rotting flesh or anything."

"Still," he said, voice heavy with horror. "How are you alive?"

"Frankly, I'm not sure," she answered, still giggling. "The Force, I think."

"That's not even how the Force works." Kylo's emotions were so… soft. Rey wanted so badly, then, to suggest he come join them in the Resistance, come see her and his mother.

But she knew now that wouldn't work. For reasons that she still didn't understand, he wasn't anywhere near ready to reach out to his mother again. Maybe this was enough for now, this halfway place of calm.

"I'm really glad you're not dead," she told him, folding her hands together. "I needed you to be okay."

His eyes scanned her face, as if searching for a lie, then he said, "I know."

"I'm sorry about your injuries. I tried to make it better, but-"

"Don't." He shook his head. "Don't apologize. You… you saved my life." She sensed it was hard for him to admit that. "However little it matters to anyone, you did, and I'm thankful. That was too much pain for you to take on my behalf, though."

She shrugged. "I've had worse, honestly. And I think… I think you're worth it." Kylo laughed shortly, as if he didn't believe her. In fact, she realized he didn't. Feeling protective, she put her hand on his knees and said fiercely, "I mean it, you stupid nerfherder. I wasn't going to sit back and watch you die, because I care about you."

He pushed her hands away and looked down, anger and hatred resurfacing in his thoughts – but not, she thought, aimed at her. "It's a nice sentiment, Rey," he said lowly. "But I think we both know things would be simpler for everyone if you had."

She didn't have an argument for that, so she just sighed, frustrated, and shoved her feelings at him: acceptance, relief, hope. Look at this, she wanted to say. Look at me. But she was quiet instead, looking down at the doll he'd brought back to her.

He was a mess. A wounded, angry, hope-less mess. But she knew, without a doubt, that he cared for her. And that, she thought, was reason enough to hope.

A/N: Tadaaaaa, new chapter already! Seriously, please don't expect me to keep up this speed for long. I haven't updated a story this regularly in literally years.

Anyway, good long chapter. For the record, it's been two weeks at this point since the actual coup, so Kylo's been chilling on his own for a while and Rey, bless my child's heart, has been very worried. Also for the record, Kylo is currently on Batuu and Rey has been confiding in Rose about her worries about Kylo.

Anyway, keep it up with the love, my dears! Merry Christmas or happy whatever holidays you celebrate this time of year!