REY
I lay my head against Ben's chest once again, my ear pressed just beside his heart. I feel the small rhythmic beating of that gentle organ and if I paid closer attention to the repetitive sound, I'd never fall asleep. I've just been so used to falling asleep to the deafening silence that the small sound of his fretting heartbeat keeps me awake.
Back on Jakku, most nights were just me inside my making of a shelter. There would be nights where it'd be me and the sand and the stars. I would count the stars sometimes if I had trouble sleeping. But there were no stars in a bedroom.
I've become equipped to the snores and mumbling Ben made while he was asleep. He normally falls asleep rather quickly. It shocked me at first, but it only meant it quickened the time for the nightmares to come plague his mind.
They plague my dreams, too. Snoke's fingers clawing the skin of my face, being hunted in the woods by Stormtroopers, Hux's blaster aimed at Ben. These different images and more similar come, but only sometimes.
I usually don't mind them because they typically went away throughout the day and have Ben at my side if the memory doesn't fade by then. I don't ask what his nightmares are anymore. I can trust he'll share when he needs to. I just remain at his side to help him throughout, and believe that with time they become less potent.
As we laid in our shared bed, I feel Ben remove his hand from my waist, finding my hand pressed against the mattress and his fingers lace with mine. I'm all in more disbelief that I had ever hated this beautiful person from the start. That I called him a "creature in a mask" or a "monster". How I once thought him heartless, soulless even—only to be filled with malice.
But when he started showing compassion for me—when I touched his hand—I saw there was light in him. And each time he opened up to me—then did I see how hurt and lonely he truly was. How Ben was still there inside the mask of Kylo Ren. Not till then did I see the true beauty behind that persona.
Ben made me feel less of the pain I've carried throughout my years and I love him for that. I love him, period.
Here, not just in this room or beyond these walls, but the space between him and I, there was no light or dark. No good or bad. No First Order or Resistance. There were no sides. No expectations. Just a choice.
Just a belief: Him and I.
And now, we could just be Rey and Ben. Ben and Rey. Two people who've come from different places where we've felt abandonment. Two people who've adapted to the pain and anger from the people that done things to us and within ourselves. We are two people with light and darkness inside them and continue balancing it out.
I squeezed Ben's hand and suddenly I felt frozen in time. A chill ran down my spine—a tremor running within me. It was the same shuddering feeling like I've felt back in the cave.
And I know Ben felt what I'm feeling too because he too went still.
Then suddenly, I saw Ben standing before me with my very own eyes. I'm here, standing in front of him somewhere that was green. A meadow? A field? I don't know. So I focused my eyes on what I could see.
I observed Ben's face, wondering if this was my Ben. There was something different about him that left me confused about what the Force wanted me to see.
That was when I realized there was a small drag, like time or stress has made my Ben look. . .older? It only seemed a few years in the works, but he was the same otherwise. There was scruff along his chin, the making of facial hair that gave him a rigid, mature appearance. But his pools of brown met mine and I saw the same softness in them that proved his youth remained in contrast to the rest of his aged facial features.
Ben's face lifted in joy like I've never seen before. Like he was the sun that radiated sunlight all around us. His smile was brighter. The rest of his face lifted as well in spite of his happiness.
I watched him lower himself to the ground until he was kneeling up close, right in front of my abdomen, his face pressed against my stomach. I didn't wonder for too long why he's being odd once I looked down and saw the answer for myself.
My stomach. . .
It was swollen. . .
I. . .
I was. . .
And just like that, everything became white until it cleared out from the sides of my vision and I was back lying with Ben in the darkness of the bedroom.
I laced my fingers with Ben's, giving his hand another squeeze just so I know he was the real one. My Ben. Not the one I've just seen. Nor the one that's far behind in the past.
"What did you see?" he asked me, not leaving me guessing what woke him up. "In the vision?"
I honestly didn't know what to make of whatever I just saw. I didn't know if I should let myself believe it. If it was real to begin with. I didn't know if it was just a dream—or a vision the Force showed me of a life I could share with Ben. All the more, it was a glimpse of a life I have with Ben and. . .maybe. . .maybe. . .even a little Ben.
I closed my eyes, feeling at peace to allow myself to drift off to sleep. "One where we're together," I told him, smiling as I speak, "and that's all that matters."